This past weekend, Wizard, Linoge, Linoge’s wife, and I went down to Manchester for a Project Appleseed rifle clinic. First, a couple bullet points:
I witnessed Linoge getting into Wizard’s pants.
I’m not a bad shot, but still have room for improvement… like making sure I’m hitting the right target.
Concrete is hard.
Yes, you really should clean your .22 rifles (who knew?).
40-something degrees + light rain + wind is cold.
Saturday morning, I got up and left the hotel for the range at the Arnold Engineering Development Center somewhere between Manchester and Tellahoma. They have multiple ranges (including a 1000 yard range that they have to close off the access road to use), and we were using the 25 yard range. I was not the only one that showed up with only a light jacket, as the weatherman told us it was supposed to be in the 50’s or 60’s that day and made no mention of wind. The weather man is a dirty liar. It was in the 40’s, lightly raining, and with a rather bitter wind. Everyone quickly went to their cars to see if they had sweat shirts, extra jackets, and in the case of Linoge, who was wearing his new 5.11 kilt, pants. Fortunately, we all either had extra gear with us or someone was willing to lend something (Wizard randomly had extra pants in his car, which Linoge changed into). I was happy that I had left a second light jacket in my trunk, and the layers worked out well. I know 40-something doesn’t sound bad, but when I told MrsWizardPC later that *I* was cold, her response was “but you never get cold.”
The First order of the day was a quick introduction to the staff, and what they expected the weekend to look like. After that, they gave the first of four speeches about the Revolutionary War. The three they give on Saturday are refered to as the “three strikes of the match” and are about the events at the beginning of the war. After that, we went over the four safety rules, which are different from the four rules I’m used to, but are good ones to follow at a range. They are: always keep the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, do not load your rifle until instructed by the line boss, keep your finger off the trigger until the sights are lined up with the target, and make sure that the people next to you are following the rules. Like I said, different than the NRA 4 rules, but they work in a range situation.
After that, we went down to the firing line to prep our rifles and get down to work. I will have to say this is one of the only times I can think of for being chastised at a range. Apparently their range policy is that the rifles should be pointed up or down range at all times. This includes when they are in a case. I found this out while carrying my rifle case by its handle. It’s not a big deal, and I appreciate the concern of safety, but worrying about the direction a cased rifle is pointing is a bit overkill in my book. It’s straying a bit too far into the realm of “gun is dangerous. Might jump out and start shooting people on its own” in my book. Of course, this being their range and their rules, I did what I always do when confronted with something that really doesn’t inconvenience me. I asked for clarification (“even when it’s in a case?”), shrugged my shoulders, and complied.
For the rest of the day, we shot one of three types of targets. The “Red Coat” target has silhouettes of a man’s head and shoulders shrunk down to simulate 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards, plus a rectangle to simulate a head shot at 250 yards. These were primarily used to see where you were in your shooting ability, and check on progress. We used a quarter inch grid target for most of Saturday. The grid really helps you understand how close/far you were from what you were aiming at or how tight your groups were. The last was the AQT. This is the Army Qualification Test, and is the target used to score whether you’ve made rifleman or not. It’s not easy, but it’s definitely possible.
One thing that they tell you is recommended, but to required that should be is a shooting mat. You’re going to be spending a lot of time in the prone and sitting/kneeling positions. You’ll also be doing a lot of drills dropping into the positions. This means your knees, elbows, and ribs are going to be meeting the concrete a good bit. I only had a fairly thick fleece blanket with me, and, while it did protect my from the cold of the concrete, I have a few bruises from those drills.
The next thing that really needs to be emphasized is that you should not only bring a sling, but the right sling. They really push the “loop sling” method of shooting, which pretty much requires the old M1 Garand GI style sling. The “hasty sling” is another method that they teach, which is also the method that I’m more familiar with. Most two or three point slings can be used for the hasty sling, but you need to make sure that the sling won’t loosen over time like mine did.
One thing that I can’t stress enough is make sure you go with a clean gun! I failed to do this, and it hurt me. My Marlin 795 started to fail to strip rounds off of the magazines and had a couple failures to extract. Both of these I attribute to it being dirty, since a hit of CLP got it working. I did bring *some* cleaning suplies with me (a can of CLP, a bore snake, and some patches), and did some cleaning in the hotel room, but it really needing scrubbing. To quote Linoge after he looked at my chamber Sunday morning “Oh! there’s metal under there! I was thinking it was entirely held together by fouling!”
Sunday was pretty much entirely an AQT grind. The stated goal was to run through the AQT over and over until either everyone qualified rifleman, we ran out of ammo, or we ran out of daylight. Predictably, we ran out of daylight. We had a lot of folks that did, in fact, get their rifleman’s badge this weekend, including Linoge and his wife. Sadly, Wizard and I were not in the ranks. I don’t know exactly what he scored, but I know I scored pretty high in the “sharpshooter” range a few times, including the last time when the rear Tech Sight on my Marlin slid off the rifle (note to self: put some Lock-Tite on that thing). I did try Linoge’s rifle for the last Red Coat target, and I’m pretty sure if I had been using it instead of my mostly stock Marlin, I would have made it. That thing is nice. I think I might have made it just by using a scope instead of iron sights.
I know I’m missing a few things, but I’m still tired and bruised from jumping up and down on the concrete in the cold for an entire weekend. I know… I know… you guys with military backgrounds are probably reading this and thinking that I’m a weenie, but my usual day is sitting in front of a computer drink tea.
oh, and I already have a few things on order for the next event.
