Piru, CA RBC 6/09

[bob 210]

Have you seen Junior Birdman or Dragonwood! Rumor has it they hit the ground running when they landed in CA, donned a couple of clever disguises, hopped in their convertible and tried to fit in as typical Californians as they headed for the hills and the first ever California Rifleman's Boot Camp.
They were spotted as they rolled up to Mt. Appleseed in their CA attire and welcomed with open arms. CA has adopted these two and who better to run the first ever CA RBC than the two brave souls first willing to cross into enemy territory to run the first ever CA Appleseed way back in March of '08. I'm sure they're gonna have a great time and we'll all be looking forward to more details about the RBC as they come in. The only question is, will the rest of the country ever see them again......or will they just stay here in CA forever.....only time will tell! 

[LayloPro]

*THIS* is gonna be entertaining.......

Looks like they need KoolAid to offer up more "dressing tips" for the consummate Cali folk....

I may have to wander out there Thursday, just to see how they are "assimilating"......

[kool aid]

Dressing tips?

Misssionary work is sooooo complicated

[LayloPro]

To each from their own talents.......

We do what we can, bro', we do what we can.......

[Junior Birdman]

   This is the place to post!   A great RBC!  100% Riflemen.  Super Appleseed followed.  I'm trying to get back to NYC now, and it's not looking good, so it may be a while before I chime in with official AAR stuff, but y'all feel free to start without me.

    CALIFORNIA!   CA1!!!!

[LayloPro]

Hmmmm, I can only chime in for a part of a day.....PhoneProne & I wandered out on Thursday, to see what sort of Cali folk had been able to make it thru a grueling week with JB as "taskmaster"!! <

Some we knew, some we met, but here's what I saw......-ALL- solid citizens!! What an outstanding group of folks to have been able to spend the week with!

I was able to meet some for the first time, and in speaking with them, finds that the AS spirit is alive and well in all parts of the state, & the country!! (Thanks for coming out, Firewall99!!)
What a great gathering of people, who are not only like-minded, but -doing- something about it!

They were having some fun doing KD on Thursday, & since Mike Thompson has steel out to 1,000 yds, it made it interesting.......I had my "noisy peashooter" with me, so looking for "splash" was entertaining, but seemed futile with tiny bullets.......but, (most importantly) it was fun!!

And while I may point out that my mil boot camp days were some decades ago, I do not frankly recall either of them being "fun", in any regards......

Kudos to JB & DragonWood for making it so -MUCH- fun!!! Here's a team that knows how to "get it done"!!

And Thank You for letting me "borrow" my team of Instructors who finished on Friday, brought their trailer back down, and showed up for our AS @ Corona Sat AM......tired, but -very well trained-!

They will be red hats very shortly......

Folks, like JB said, this is the place to chime in!!

LLP

[Junior Birdman]

  OK, I finally got a minute to chime in:

   The first ever California RBC is now history. In case you didn't already know it, the name Piru is an ancient Indian word deriving from two words; "Pi", meaning "much dirt and wind", and "Ru", meaning "much wind and dirt".

   We all learned the value of cleaning mags and rifles daily and we quickly learned that every day, the dirt fairy came and deposited approximately 28 pounds of dirt in each tent, 3 pounds reserved especially for the sleeping bags.

   Thanks to Bob 210 for not only BOTGing this thing, but BIG kudos for erecting the shower facility so that we never had to wear the same dirt two days in a row, and only had to eat and breathe the dirt while sporting a fresh coating of dirt every morning. (I personally found the dirt to have a nice piquant after taste, reminiscent of Wades DAR)

   While the shower was a little modern and not up to the "Jethro Bodine" standards set by Davilla, it was wholly adequate and enjoyed nightly by many, and nobody drew fire detail.
   If you've never showered under the clear, star filled sky you don't know one of life's greatest pleasures.
   I only hope next year Bob can get it a little closer to the porta-jons.
   But seriously, the RBC wouldn't have happened without all the hard work you did Bob, thanks.

While it wasn't a large event, it was a great one. We had 7 shooters throughout the week and several Instructors who floated in and out at various times. My thanks to F-Stop and Arc for all the hard work and help to get us started, there's none better. Johnnyappleseed was on the line a few days and helped out considerably. Thanks JA! Full timers were Dragon Wood and Savageshootr who ran things tight and took over when I was "out of the office" so that there was never even a hitch.

One shooter was new to shooting but through his perseverance and determination, he went home with a Rifleman's patch and a ton of ability. Congrats to Neo Guy!

A couple of others received the coveted patch during the week also, and stepped up to the challenge of becoming an instructor to further the cause of history and heritage. Thanks to Ryantsg and Jet Set.
All got a good dose of advanced riflery and enjoyed the company of Riflemen in and around the camp.  Camp life was great, as usual, with the campfire being the center of activity at night. I think we all enjoyed the food and friendship there in our usual communistic way.

The week started off as usual, with lots of instruction up front and then shooting at squares to get the groups down before moving on to the AQT. We had a few fun shoots along the way also, so it wasn't all work. I think the shooters really liked the "Battlefield Pickup" game we played and we all thought it was cool when the new guy, "Neo Guy", won that!

Wednesday brought Advanced Marksmanship class and even more in depth learning. I was "out of the office" most of the day, so a BIG thanks to DW for stepping up to teach that without having any time to prepare. The shooters got a really good target detection exercise and learned a bit about that after working out with the center fire rifles and getting 25m zeroes and data for the books.

Thursday was KD day and the shooters got a great workout down at Mike's range where one can ring steel out to a thousand yards. Again, DW stepped up to teach and got the class off to a great start with zeroes at 100, 200, 300, 400 yards and an AQT at each distance. Great data for their personal equipment!

   I managed to join in about lunch time and got to shoot the M14 at a few gongs. I've still got it. (You Red Hats will know what I mean) 
   After lunch and another FDAQT we had a little fun with the "Piru Pop-ups", AKA balloons. A competition ensued where shooters were challenged to pop a balloon at each distance as quickly and with as few rounds as possible. Lots of fun! Congrats to Ryantsg for winning that one. (Scavenger got BIG style points for competing with his grandfather's 6.5 Swedish Krag, possibly the most beautiful example I've ever seen, and whacking those evil balloons out to 300 yards with it.  Neo Guy smote the final balloon of the day and we packed up and moved back to the DAR before dark.

Friday was M.A.D., or "Mock Appleseed Day" as always, and we had a great line of shooters for the new Orange Hats to work on. Thanks to James E who drove down to help us out! We covered the entire program before dark, including the dreaded final exam. The shooters took the exam and went through it like I've never seen it done before. Of course, the evil "Junior Birdman's Come Up Problem From H-City" bonus question had them stumped, but I believe they could all get the correct answer now.

   Friday evening we lost a few shooters to other events for the weekend, but that is the nature of this business, you go where you're needed.
   In the end, it was a fantastic way to start California off on her RBC journey. There will only be one CA1, and I know all were proud to be a part of making history.

   Things I'll miss:  The starry nights, the shower, the camaraderie, the food, (except the potato salad) the company around the campfire, the feeling you get when a shooter gets "over the hump", the coyotes, the cows, the worn out feeling that comes with doing a good job all day, the history, getting to sleep late every morning, the new friends I made and the old ones I saw again.

   Things I won't miss: Dirt, wind, potato salad.

[vic303]

  OK, I finally got a minute to chime in:

   The first ever California RBC is now history. In case you didn't already know it, the name Piru is an ancient Indian word deriving from two words; "Pi", meaning "much dirt and wind", and "Ru", meaning "much wind and dirt".

Are you sure you weren't at Davilla instead of Piru?? 

 

 While the shower was a little modern and not up to the "Jethro Bodine" standards set by Davilla, it was wholly adequate and enjoyed nightly by many, and nobody drew fire detail.
   If you've never showered under the clear, star filled sky you don't know one of life's greatest pleasures.
   I only hope next year Bob can get it a little closer to the porta-jons.

Now see here!  Scout has a wonderful shower set up for the campers there at the Davilla DAR!  It was WAY more advanced than I had honestly expected, and I notice it even has real heated hot water in the cold season. (Huh?  There's a cold season in Texas??)  Oh and showering at night in TX will tend to get you exsanguinated by mosquitos...so one is smart and showers in the daylight thus avoiding the little bloodsuckers (who hate the unrelenting sun of Davilla).

--Vic

[James E]

There's no AAR for the AS following the RBC, so posting a couple of photos here.

JB spotting for DW while she shoots my M! with the B. Jones diopter.  All three of the Master Instructors, JB, DW, and Bob, being "seasoned" shooters, wanted to try out the sights with a diopter.



DW spotting for Romeo's Hero



My son Mark knocking on the door

[DesertDog]

Looks like I really missed out .  I really wanted to get down there for a day or 2, but work was swamped that week. 

Thanks to JB and DW for coming out for the first of many CA RBC's.  I'm going to do my best to make the Fresno one for a couple of days, then the Appleseed to follow for sure.

DD

[Romeo's Hero]

What an amazing week!!!!! 

We all had so much fun, and have many stories that we brought home.

This RBC was great, Junior Birdman and DragonWood are amazing instructors, I can only hope to be the close to caliber of instructor that they are. There is so much material that we covered and hearing more than once (IBC then RBC) and being able to apply it was remarkable. We had a great group of shooters and instructors, and we all had a great time around the camp fire at night. RyanTSG and Aleeta let me borrow Aleeta's AR15 and I was able to see that a 25meter zero really does match a 300 yard zero on the KD range  . We got to shoot a full distance AQT and those targets look just the same through the front sights at full distance as they do at simulated distance (who would've thought ).

I do believe that California (CA1) has found the cure for the common snit. We had the first (I'm pretty sure) boot camp without a JB snit. We decided that food poisoning was the way to go, one batch of bad potato salad "kicked the snit right out of him"... Sorry JB, I opted for the "snit" but I couldn't convince everyone else  .

We also found that the only thing that will burst the "Rifleman's Bubble" every time, is the phrase "I got brass right between my buttcheeks"  ...It doesn't matter how much time is left on the clock there ain't a round going downrange if you hear this one, you'll be on the ground laughing (just make sure to maintain muzzle control) --- Sorry Firewall  .

JB offered every night for us to smell him, and I finally gave in on the last night  .... and you know the stench can actually be washed off... along with the dirt tan  . I do have to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Bob.... The shower you built was amazing. It was a pleasure being able to clean the dirt off every night.

3 new riflemen were made at the RBC and 2 stepped into the Orange Hat. Then both riflemen from the AS also stepped into the orange hat

I attending this RBC because I wanted to gain more experience in rifle shooting. Shooting was something that I always wanted to do and I finally got the chance 3 years ago when my boyfriend (Double D) took me out to try pistols. I loved it (and out shot him) and then I bought my own. Then a while after that he brought a single shot .22 bolt action and had me try try it.  LOVED THAT EVEN MORE! and I bought one for myself. But even though I was a good shot, I wasn't very fast and felt that I needed more training. Firearms training classes were SO expensive and I didn't have the $ or the caliber required do most of them. So I focused on for school and shot periodically, until I saw a flier for Appleseed at our local range. It was the perfect opportunity, we could shoot our .22s and both of us were free (military and female) but I would not have been opposed to paying either.

We went to the appleseed and both of us shot Rifleman in March at the Fresno AS (on loner rifles  ... single shot bolts are not conducive to timed stages), he decided to take the orange hat (I decided to later that week) and we both attended the IBC (drinking from a fire hose - whew  ) in Piru the following weekend (Piru 3-09!).(about a month later I bought a Ruger 10-22... anyone see a trend) I have been on the Appleseed Fast-track since then. I was an IIT at 2 shoots (Sac and Fresno) and have been studying a lot to get better at teaching, but I also wanted to experience shooting larger calibers so I decided to go to the RBC and borrow a rifle so I could shoot KD. While at the RBc I worked like crazy to get my PC done and presented history at the following AS; and, I was able to earn my red hat. JB presented it to me as we were cleaning up camp, right before I had Jet Set take a picture of me with most of the instructors from the week.

Thank you to JamesE for letting us shoot the M1Garand - that was amazing... as JB says "Shoot it till it Pings" (I think I will have to get me one of these   )

Thank you to all of the instructors from this week and past Appleseeds, you have all been an inspiration, and I hope that I will also be able to inspire new Appleseeders.

Pics to follow soon...

[LayloPro]

RH,

you truly are a blessing in "fun factor" to the Instructor Corps here in Cali...... <

I didn't know the potato salad had been "planned", but on Thursday, when we were up there, JB -did- look like he had been kicked "snit-less".......calm and quiet for the most part, then he faded out as the afternoon wore on into evening.....did he even get a chili dog for dinner? <

DW is a great "co-teacher" with JB, she really kept things moving, and got the instruction done.....quickly, professionally, and very well presented......she definitely keeps her "snit" together.....

(Sorry, but that was even funnier than "hot brass for the crack"............my sad sense of humor...... )

*ok, going back into serious mode here....*

RH, have you put your RM story up on the section of the forum yet? Great story, and one I'm sure a lot of women would enjoy reading, if for nothing else than just sheer encouragement. Cool deal!!

Bob's shower should be incorporated into all the events, as we start getting more folks up there in camping mode....what better way to increase camaraderie?.....

M1 Garands?? I doubt you'll find a person here in this whole group that doesn't get a silly little smile on their face when they are shooting a Garand, and hear the "ping" the en-bloc makes on it's way out......As Duke Nukem used to say; "Go get one!!"

I really wish I had been able to be there for more than just a day.......

Pixs??

LLP

[DragonWood]

Finally got done with work and I am home for two whole days! Just enough time to cut the grass and log in.

Wind, dust and dirt....a campfire.....more wind, dust and dirt......a GREAT shower.....more wind, dust and dirt and GREAT people!!!  The first ever California (CA ONE!) was a huge success!

Congrats to all the boot campers who shot rifleman who had not done so yet. The regulation AQT was a little foreign to FW99 but with a little perseverance he conquered it and learned a little about stage 2 and 3!
NeoGuy, our brand new shooter over came the difficulties of a borrowed scoped rifle with the help of his fellow boot campers. NeoGuy was so amazed at the generosity of time with stage 3 thought he should bring a book next time!

Day 4 brought in the advanced marksmanship class. Target detection was classroom material in the morning followed with a traget detection exercise after lunch. Congrats to SS who was able to find 9 of the 16 items!
More classroom stuff in the afternoon which set up the boot campers for KD the next day.

KD was a hit! The shooters did so well with sighters that we were able to get in two KD AQT's along with alot of fun stuff. Balloons are CA's version of popups! Balloons were set up at 100, 200, and 300 yards. Shooters were able to use up to 20 rounds with no time limit to shoot 3 balloons, one at each distance. Congrats to Ryan TSG for getting this done with less than 20 rounds in 2 minutes and 27 seconds!

NeoGuy, yeah the new guy, got the last balloon at 300 yards which up until then refused to go down.

Ahh, the snitless boot camp! Yes, I do believe this was a first. I think JB scared the "snit" out of everyone on day one with his  "snit" warning which is why they told me to get the potato salad at the store!
I have to say thanks to all who helped set up the infirmary that morning. I simply said I needed help and all came to help! (the infirmary was Scavenger's and Recruiter's truck with a popup canopy) SS supplied the charcoal which helped JB get into a chair by the afternoon.

What a great group of people!!!! Thanks to all you for your hard work and dedication. A special thanks to BOB210 for getting JB and I set up for the week!

CA, you folks rock!!  DW

[sespe]

Well, the next time you make it out here I'll make sure you have a better infirm place to stay.  I'm embarrassed I was so close and missed the week.  But thanks to JB, I now have my postscript.

[Jet Set]

Hey Everyone,

I'm away from California  "CA1!" (you know what that means) for a while, but I should be seeing some of you during my next trip back in September.  Anyway, here's a photo to remind you of the good times.  I've also got a couple from the Appleseed at the end of the RBC that I'll post in its AAR.