Atterbury June 15-16: Free Ammo & Sample Rifles Sponsored by Wolf, IWI, Mach 1

[zoglog]

Ticks are bad out there. I am not sure which range we will be on but I was mowing them this week and I had several hitch hikers.

I asked one of the NCOs today at Range Control which range we would be on. I figured I would go and take pictures to get you all excited. He told me that he had no clue that they let us bring on our rifles. I explained to him that it was nothing associated with my unit and he was still confused....

 

[Rayne]

Absolutely Amazing time today!!!

 

[boljr01]

Big thanks...

I'd like to thank AJ,YHJ,Josh, Amy and all the funny colored hats, particularly those in the pits for all you did yesterday. First time at Atterbury and while it was long and hot, I enjoyed it immensely and learned quite a bit about my setup. Wish we could've returned today for some more AQTs but I guess leaving wanting more is a good thing. Hope to see you all again.

 

[linuxguy]

This wasn't a 2-day appleseed?

 

[techres]

It is a two day! Some people just love INGO enough to run home and post at the end of each day...

 

[Hammer]

Y'all got wet this morning I bet.

I heard some shooting over there this morning, but I doubt is was any of you. Sounded like a howitzer.

 

[Hop]

We did get wet. We were on the ground, no bags, no mats & soaking up every lovely bit of that tasty Atterbury berm. Mmm, mmm, good!

Thanks again to all the hats for putting on this event!

And a HUGE thanks to Wolf Performance Ammo for sponsoring the event and putting up over $18k in ammo!!!

 

[jve153]

thank you to all the shooters who came out and made this event one for the books. i had an absolute blast this weekend, and i did not even pick up a rifle. congrats to the new and returning riflemen. we are not a nation of riflemen yet, but after this weekend, we are a little closer.

 

[The Bubba Effect]

Awesome weekend!

It was good to put some faces to names and gratifying watching the development of skill and knowledge.

Thank you all for being safe and maintaining such fine attitudes.

This weekend showed some of the best of American culture.

Seriously, if you attended this weekend, imagine explaining this weekend to someone who has lived their whole life in England or some other place that still has a queen and you cannot carry even a proper steak knife in your car without fear of prosecution.

Imagine trying to convince them that In America average folks can own a centerfire rifle, take it onto an active military base and total strangers volunteer to spend their weekend instructing you on how to hit 16" targets with your rifle at 400 yards and during the breaks those strangers will tell you true stories of the thrilling history of your nation's birth. In America the ammunition companies are so patriotic that they will just give you hundreds of rounds of ammunition for free so you can take your rifle onto that base and receive that instruction and hear your history. In America the people are of such character that after spending two days in the heat and rain, the shooters will pitch in to clean up the range and tear down the target backers and haul off the trash, with smiles, handshakes, and thanks all round.

A couple of years ago I was at a shoot in Bedford and asked a real nice fellow from Spain if he could do anything like an appleseed in his country. He looked at me like I was crazy and replied

"No.....no..no way. No. The police would arrest you in a second if they knew people were gathering with guns like these, or maybe the army would come instead of the police. It's not like this in Spain, we can't do anything like this."

It's awesome living in a free country.

Thank you all for coming out. When's the next Atterbury shoot?

 

[Twangbanger]

This was a great time, and very meaningful. If there are any people out there who haven't been to an Appleseed yet, I'd encourage you to get your buns in here and see what's going on. You have a spirited group of patriotic people putting on a great instructional and educational weekend for you. (And it sure don't hurt any to have an Ammo company like Wolf, who believes in the program enough to back it up with free ammo, so that all you have to do is pay your fee and come out).


I had never been to an Appleseed. I guess I expected, I don't know what? Maybe guys from the Legion Post (no offense intended) teaching a mickey-mouse "how-to-shoot-squirrel-rifles" program with some tidbits of history thrown in. I don't know if you'd call it an "image problem" or what, but that's what I thought it was.


I got hooked in by the ammo, and found out it was so much more. This is a very energetic group of folks who put on probably the best two-day rifle marksmanship course available. You can go in knowing little to nothing about your rifle, follow the program, and come out knowing how to plaster a 16" target zone from 100 to 400 yards on demand, in field positions (no bipods), with very minimal fussing with your gun. You get to learn the human stories behind the textbook accounts of the American Revolution you "thought" you already knew. It's a lot of fun, too. Although this is precision marksmanship and not a run-and-gun course, we finished the (second) day running 100 yards, slinging in to our rifles, and popping a party balloon at 300 yards within a couple shots (can you say "Zombie headshot?") - all in 60 seconds and with time to spare. Looking down the line, it looked like most everyone was able to pull it off.


This is a steal, folks. $80 for a course of instruction you absolutely cannot obtain for any amount of money, that I know of. (Yellowhouse Jake puts out an 18-page instructional booklet for the course that he probably ought to be charging good money for, because it summarizes more about centerfire field marksmanship than you could probably find in any 3 books).


Job well done. Very impressed...thank you all!

 

[Pale Rider]

I'm working on my write up from the weekend... I just hit page 5 and we're not even shooting yet... gonna be a long but good night reliving a great weekend. I'll get the AAR up as fast as I can type!

 

[Rayne]

Hmmm, I swear I didn't see Clint Eastwood there.

That's one thing I miss at Appleseed, the instructor's are introduced but the participants aren't. It's easy to figure out who the ladies are, there were only four of us on the first day and two the second, out of 37 shooters day one and 24 shooters day two.

Come on ladies, we need to represent better. This isn't just for men, we ladies can shoot too. Pew, breath in, breath out, pew, breath in, breath out, pew.

 

[Huntrdan]

Lol!! Pew....We may need to add that in with the 6 steps to firing the shot.

5. Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeze Pew.

 

[btownie]

I found not one tick.
Excellent time though.

I think the highlight for me was the balloons.
My pulse was up just laying behind the 400 yd burm and looking down the line...and waiting for the command. Indescribable feeling.

 

[ol' Huff]

Thanks for all the nice words going around. Its awesome to hear it.

Ticks - I didn't see one either. I was bitten by a spider, but I totally had it coming and I let him live because he was in the right. I think one of the reasons we avoided ticks was because the range was in good shape with low grass, the ground moist and not dry, and we weren't tight into the trees.

Twangbanger's image problem - You are exactly right. We have an image problem. One of the reasons why is because we operate on a shoe string budget. Appleseed operates on bottom dollar. Between the shirts, targets, supplies, chamber flags, insurance (a biggie), and gas money (the Shoot Boss and one Red Hat are allowed to be reimbursed traveling expenses) we spend about X amount of dollars per student. We bring in about X-$15 dollars. So, basically, we operate at a loss most of the time. Some of it is because of our pricing. We offer a lot of free slots and discounts for some large groups (kids and broads). In addition, sometimes its cheaper to fly a Shoot Boss into a remote area than it is to reimburse gas for a closer SB (i.e. we may fly ol' Huff out to some godforsaken spot in the middle of the mountain west with a target box and a Sharpie to run a shoot for ten folks, most of which probably paid less than $20 bucks, because the closest SB would have to pay $500 in gas just to get there). So most if not all of the instructors sink some of their money into the shoots to make sure they happen. The reason is simple. Patriotism. We know this has to happen. It has to. People need this. We are happy to do it. Once folks understand that, its easy to see why we have an image problem. WE CANNOT AFFORD TO PROMOTE OURSELVES. I could say things on a forum like this that would go nowhere. I could say that Yellowhousejake and Hawkhavn are two of the best marksmanship instructors in the country. I could say that Auntiebellum is an incredibly knowledgeable gun owner and leader with mountains of experience. I could say lots of things that would never be promoted, or read, or understood by anyone who has not been to an Appleseed with them. They would not be believed by anyone who has not seen it because we can't afford to convince anyone with flashy online media or full page magazine ads. We have tons of people that believe in us. Russian ex-pat Marco Vorobiev, former Spetnaz sniper, went to a shoot with Techres and the Michigan crew. He believes in us. Massad Ayoob writes about us two or three times a year. He went to his first in 2010 and has been to several more. Michael Bane took Shooting Gallery to one in Colorado and told me at the NRACon that it was one of the toughest days he has ever had on a range. Here is the teaser. The problem is that these things are not getting enough people to the line. Lines are filled the best by people who come to one, get it, and then drag their people back.

Leaner and Meaner - It is tough to convince people that an Appleseed at Atterbury is a ferserious thing for sorted out people. Everyone nodded yes on Sunday when they realized they had to go through the crucible of Saturday to get themselves sorted out for Sunday (and that I was right about bringing less crap). I could tell people all day that they need a 25M event first, but they wouldn't believe me. "I'm a sorted out tough guy with a big gun! I don't need kid's stuff." Well....Appleseed ain't kid's stuff. Its sorted out people stuff. We don't discriminate. If a 7th grader is more sorted out than a 40-year old...well...then they are just more sorted out. How much fun was Sunday? Imagine how much fun you could have if you brought five of your buddies to Cloverdale and let DaveD and ATM get you squared away and then you brought your game to Atterbury. There is a word for that, its "ferseriousepic".

Getting Better - This was the first time we had conducted a shoot of this size at Atterbury (THANKS WOLF!!!) and we learned a lot. I cannot wait until next time because, as Riflemen, we are always looking for the next opportunity to apply what we have learned. I know I am a better Shoot boss today than I was Saturday morning.


Thanks to everyone who showed up.

 

[SmileDocHill]

I saw some of you guys took home the peel off portion of your target. If someone gets the time could you measure and get some dimensions for me. I'm wanting to know from a measurement standpoint what my holdovers are rather than just knowing what they are in relation to the black silhouette.
Distance from bottom edge of black to the bottom and top of V ring, to the center of the "5" and to the top of the black head. I've heard the width at the bottom edge was 19.5" but I'm not sure. The width of the head portion? Height of the shoulder?

 

[yellowhousejake]

I saw some of you guys took home the peel off portion of your target. If someone gets the time could you measure and get some dimensions for me. I'm wanting to know from a measurement standpoint what my holdovers are rather than just knowing what they are in relation to the black silhouette.
Distance from bottom edge of black to the bottom and top of V ring, to the center of the "5" and to the top of the black head. I've heard the width at the bottom edge was 19.5" but I'm not sure. The width of the head portion? Height of the shoulder?

I can get you two solutions. Either I measure a real target, or I can get you a PDF of the vector art that you can print your own target from at full size, including the 3 ring.

Or you can print any size you require for practice.

YHJ

 

[SmileDocHill]

YHJ, if it is as easy as attaching it to an email I would love the PDF you speak of. I'll have to know "a guy" to get it printed out in full size but I think one of my fellow MODs and seed alumni is just that kind of guy.

 

[Hop]

Appleseed pdf Heaven right here -> Refine your skills with these downloadable targets

 

[Pale Rider]

Hmmm, I swear I didn't see Clint Eastwood there.

That's one thing I miss at Appleseed, the instructor's are introduced but the participants aren't. It's easy to figure out who the ladies are, there were only four of us on the first day and two the second, out of 37 shooters day one and 24 shooters day two.

Come on ladies, we need to represent better. This isn't just for men, we ladies can shoot too. Pew, breath in, breath out, pew, breath in, breath out, pew.

Rayne I'm offended! We spoke Sunday in the pits! I'm the moron who was running around in a plate carrier and helmet both afternoons!