SLOSA Appleseed Today!

[choprzrul]

Signed up my wife and I to go to the Appleseed today @ SLOSA. Really looking forward to it. I will report back later with 1st day experiences.

.

[Kali-Jax]

It's a going to be an amazing day out there!

[choprzrul]

First day report: A great foundation in the basics followed by practice and remedial instruction as needed. They had me go from a 3" spread to a 1" spread within the first hour. From there we started working on sitting, kneeling, and then standing. Over lunch, the instructors each took a turn telling a portion of the "Shot Heard Around The World" story. Great stuff. If you have never been to an Appleseed, you don't know what you are missing.

We finished the day with a AQT test run. Nobody qualified that I know of, but I think that tomorrow's added instruction will go a long ways towards making us all successfull.

We were honored to have the presence of a CGF celeb on our line. The Quark & his son were in attendance today:



I would highly encourage ALL CalGun'rs get off their duffs and get out to get some proven marksmanship training. This is training that was taught in the services before they went to plastic guns. There is more to shooting a rifle than hitting the bang switch. Appleseed will teach you how to make your rounds go where you want them to go. Remember, these techniques are used at Camp Perry to shoot 1000 yards.

More to come Sunday.....

.

[the_quark]

Hey, we've had a ton of fun. My big learning experience was that if you're a great rifleman at 16, and then only shoot pistols for 24 years, you will no longer be a great rifleman.

Blake (my eldest pictured there) said, this evening, "I hope we have as much fun, tomorrow." We've spent our evening tweaking our slings and practicing stances without the pressure of holding the line up, so I'm hoping to actually put some good groups together, tomorrow.

If I can't get what I want out of the iron sights, I may bust out the Aimpoint, though. Blake said, "Isn't that cheating?" But I guess he forgot he was dealing with a Calgunner.

[jshoebot]

You guys will definitely have just as much fun (if not more) tomorrow! On Sundays you basically just shoot AQT's all day long, and practice the fundamentals. Much more shooting on Sundays than on Saturdays. I hope you all make Rifleman! I made it back in January at my first Appleseed. Definitely a great program; I've sent a few friends through Appleseed and they all came out better shooters. Have fun, and remember to fire each shot 'by the numbers'!

[choprzrul]

I might add that Blake saved the day. I am shooting a tube fed Remington 552. It started to FTF, so I did a quick strip and discovered that the front tube retention screw had fallen out thus allowing the tube to move and cause the feed failures. Figured that rifle was done. the wind had blown my mat over while I was back at the truck getting my other rifle, so i figured the screw was lost forever in the gravel.

Amazing! Blake found the itsy bitsy screw on his mat! Eleven year old vision rocks! Thanks again Blake.

.

[as_rocketman]

The time-traveller in the photo above is Ken, or as_minuteman on the Appleseed forums. What he doesn't know about rifle marksmanship would fit on a business card...

Glad you had a good time out there. We had a ball at Azusa, with lots of Calgunners -- I'll see y'all in the Appleseed subforum.

[misterjake]

Great range! I'd like to do an appleseed one day but doesn't it cost a lot of money? Or you need 1,000 rounds?

I'm going to that range on friday, taking my m1a socom with me and my hot wife.

[the_quark]

So, the fees themselves are $70 for two days for you, and $20 for two days for your hot wife. If you have any children, they're $10 for two days. Half price if you only go one day. Generally plus range fees, but they're whatever you'd pay to go shooting at the range, per day (so ~$10 each per day).

The stuff I've read says you need "500" rounds for two days, but I'll tell you on ours I don't think we fired 400, and we moved pretty fast. Certainly if you just do Saturday only it's well less than 200 rounds (since it sped up on Sunday).

Generally if you're worried about ammunition costs, your worst case is to buy a 10/22 and some .22 ammo, which is a pretty cheap combo.

[choprzrul]

The_Quark nailed it.

Just wait for Big5 to have a sale in Marlin 795s and then pick up a brick of ammo for it. My wife was shooting a modified 795 and it ran super for her all weekend.

[misterjake]

So, the fees themselves are $70 for two days for you, and $20 for two days for your hot wife. If you have any children, they're $10 for two days. Half price if you only go one day. Generally plus range fees, but they're whatever you'd pay to go shooting at the range, per day (so ~$10 each per day).

The stuff I've read says you need "500" rounds for two days, but I'll tell you on ours I don't think we fired 400, and we moved pretty fast. Certainly if you just do Saturday only it's well less than 200 rounds (since it sped up on Sunday).

Generally if you're worried about ammunition costs, your worst case is to buy a 10/22 and some .22 ammo, which is a pretty cheap combo.

I have a 10/22 and around 5,000 rounds but if I'm going to train to be a rifleman, I want to use my primary rifle and that's .308.

500 rounds I can do in .30 cal i'll give my wife the 10/22.

[choprzrul]

I have a 10/22 and around 5,000 rounds but if I'm going to train to be a rifleman, I want to use my primary rifle and that's .308.

500 rounds I can do in .30 cal i'll give my wife the 10/22.

While you can certainly use your .308, IMHO you would be better off establishing your foundation and building blocks without having to deal with the effect of hundreds of rounds of recoil. Learn the techniques and then apply them to your battle rifle. Sure, I could have taken my Browning A-Bolt II Composite Stalker in 300win mag with a BOSS that drives tacks, but it would have worn me out the first day. Not to mention, everyone else on the line would have been dealing with my muzzle blast all day.

That being said, Appleseed will welcome you with whatever you bring I believe. Keep in mind that what you spend on those 500 rounds of .308 will probably buy a Marlin 795 @ Big5 ($139 right now in the flyer), and you get to keep the rifle afterwards.

.

[the_quark]

I have a 10/22 and around 5,000 rounds but if I'm going to train to be a rifleman, I want to use my primary rifle and that's .308.

500 rounds I can do in .30 cal i'll give my wife the 10/22.

I understand your thinking there, but if you do it correctly you can still do it .22LR for most of it. They'll let you switch rifles. If you put the same sights on your .22 you have on your .308 (which is quite easy to do), most of the training is stuff like sight picture, position and breathing, which is all the same between the rifles. You can then switch to .308 once you have the basics down and save $250 in ammo, which is almost enough to get you set up with a .22.

[nicki]

Pik up 22 cal AR.

Got A 22 cal AR, that is alot of fun.

Can always pick up a dedicated 22 cal upper, then switch out for those who like AR platforms.

308 puts a dent in the wallet. Remember when I could buy surplus for around 15 cents per round.

Nicki

[misterjake]

I understand your thinking there, but if you do it correctly you can still do it .22LR for most of it. They'll let you switch rifles. If you put the same sights on your .22 you have on your .308 (which is quite easy to do), most of the training is stuff like sight picture, position and breathing, which is all the same between the rifles. You can then switch to .308 once you have the basics down and save $250 in ammo, which is almost enough to get you set up with a .22.

Very true. I just might do that, thank you.