Buckingham VA, 9-12/13

[FiremanEd]

What a great weekend.

28 shooters on the line on Saturday with 20 returning for Sunday. Of the 28 there were, no less than 10 young shooters. One family came with 4 daughters and mom shooting while their neighbors brought 2 boys and their sister. To the best I can figure we had 5 shooters who had NEVER fired a rifle at all and about 8 who had very little experience.

Something that I found to be different from recent Appleseeds was that we had no previous Appleseeders in attendance, all 28 were 1st timers. We started with one, Ben, who was quickly inducted into the IIT ranks as he'd already been to 3 shoots and was known well by the instructors for his abilities. Thank you Ben and welcome to the IIT ranks!

The weather was great, lows @ 60 & up to low 80's each day. This made for nice camping for the 10 or so attendees who camped on site. We had one shooter drive all the way from SC to shoot with his sister.

In the end, I think, EVERYONE had fun. Everyone was happy, though VERY tired both evening.

As I said above, this was a very inexperienced group of shooters, but they ALL brought great attitudes and wanted to learn. And learn they did. We  had one shooter break the illusive 210 score but every shooter in attendance learned a great deal and improved greatly with more than 5 others having scores of over 195.

Overall a great weekend with lots of learning and fun had by all.

FiremanEd

[VAshooter]

The Buckingham DAR range looks better every time I visit. Ed, Ed's dad and Woody with the help of Woody's son are making lots of improvements and putting in many extra hours fixing up this range.

The crowd was great with a lot of shooters who wanted to get to know their rifles and learn about marksmanship. The weather was very cooperative with reasonable temperatures and a slight breeze to help cool us off. The sun was hot but that's it's job, especially in Virginia. Appleseed has definitely become a family affair with lots of moms and dads bringing the kids to learn to shoot. A few sons couldn't be there because of prior commitments in Iraq or Afghanistan. One young man is just a couple weeks from receiving his SEAL Trident. We want to convey our thanks to the families and men making these sacrifices for our country.

I would like to thank Ben  aka  bjneiman who came to shoot but stayed to instruct with a new orange hat. Often we talk about how young our new Riflemen are. I would like to congratulate Richard our newest Rifleman who at 71 years young shot a 217.

I hope to see all of you down the Appleseed trail.

VAshooter