AAR: May 29-31, Stinson WV

We had an excellent instructor turnout. So good in fact, that at times, we had or nearly a 1:1 instructor to shooter ratio. We had so many instructors, I'm actually a little worried I'm going to forget someone!

On Saturday, we had:

Spanner
wvmmfalcon
The Machine
Vanrichten
Mountaineer

On Sunday and Monday, we had all of the above, except Vanrichten, and the addition of nc-17 and Chrome.

Saturday was hot. But our shooters and instructors persevered through the heat. We watched the typical hot-day group patterns. Start out big. As the students started putting the marksmanship fundamentals together, they shrank. Then as the heat began taking its toll, they grew a little. We did our best to keep students and instructors well hydrated. And they now know, if they can shoot accurately in that oppressive heat, imagine how they'll shoot on a 65 degree day with light and variable winds!

So, most of our shooters made it from Saturday to Sunday generally alive and uncooked from the heat, only to find that Sunday was HOTTER! But the WV instructor corps, always helpful, put up tarps for shade. I can't say for sure, but I think our shooters stayed cooler on the hotter day. What a difference shade makes! We also had some more shooters show up.

On Monday, we had pretty much the same crew from Sunday. Less heat. More clouds. Lower temperatures. And the sun, moon, stars, and the perseverance of the spirit of liberty aligned to produce a rifleman, and several shooters that were knocking on the door. Congratulations to rob99rt! We didn't quite convince him to pick up the orange hat just yet. But we'll work on him.

We also saw a couple of new red-hats this weekend. Congrats to siglite and wvmmfalcon!

Personally, there was something at this Appleseed that stood out to me. We had several youths on the firing line. Their teachable, positive, can-do attitude was an absolute joy to work with as an instructor. Every one of these kids improved over the space of the weekend. And in all that heat, not one of them complained even once. They persevered, they stayed on the line string after string working on putting the marksmanship principles into practice, with ever improving skill.













And, since butterflies seemed to be everywhere this weekend: