I had the opportunity to attend a recent Project Appleseed event and I'd like to give it a plug.
The goals of Project Appleseed are simple. 1. Raise the level of understanding of the events that unfolded at the founding of our country. 2. Teach the fundamentals of marksmanship that allowed the colonists to defeat the most powerful army in the world.
In taking the class I learned more about the important aspects of my equipment. Things like sling selection (& use), fitting the rifle to me and what would work best from a scope/sight perspective. There's a lot of fancy options out there and this class boiled it down.
I learned proper body positioning to fire standing, sitting or in prone. I learned how to obtain a consistent and solid natural point of aim (NPoA), focus on my sight picture, sight alignment, breathing and trigger control.
To me, most importantly, I learned these things from making mistakes during class and having the instructors show me when one of those items I listed wasn't being done correctly. For instance, I learned that in prone I need to raise my right leg higher up under my body to limit the effects of my diaphragm on the shot. I also was able to clearly see when I had good and bad trigger control. Thru their instruction it was fairly obvious what the problem was mostly just by looking at my results on target.
By the end of class I had nearly qualified as a rifleman and had identified a variety of changes I needed to make to my equipment to enable me to be more successful. In subsequent trips to the range I've seen the improvements effects and believe I will easily qualify as a rifleman in my next Appleseed event.
Project Appleseed is a purely volunteer driven organization. The 3 instructors we had all traveled at least 50 miles to teach us, were not getting paid and even brought rifles and ammunition for class members to use who didn't have their own. So, while the class cost $80 for 2 days none of it went to the instructors and is there to cover the costs of the materials (targets, handouts, patches, etc) and operations (ex. website). It's a small price to pay for the quality of the training I believe I received.
I now believe I could take a stock rifle and hit a man sized target consistently at 400yds.
The goals of Project Appleseed are simple. 1. Raise the level of understanding of the events that unfolded at the founding of our country. 2. Teach the fundamentals of marksmanship that allowed the colonists to defeat the most powerful army in the world.
In taking the class I learned more about the important aspects of my equipment. Things like sling selection (& use), fitting the rifle to me and what would work best from a scope/sight perspective. There's a lot of fancy options out there and this class boiled it down.
I learned proper body positioning to fire standing, sitting or in prone. I learned how to obtain a consistent and solid natural point of aim (NPoA), focus on my sight picture, sight alignment, breathing and trigger control.
To me, most importantly, I learned these things from making mistakes during class and having the instructors show me when one of those items I listed wasn't being done correctly. For instance, I learned that in prone I need to raise my right leg higher up under my body to limit the effects of my diaphragm on the shot. I also was able to clearly see when I had good and bad trigger control. Thru their instruction it was fairly obvious what the problem was mostly just by looking at my results on target.
By the end of class I had nearly qualified as a rifleman and had identified a variety of changes I needed to make to my equipment to enable me to be more successful. In subsequent trips to the range I've seen the improvements effects and believe I will easily qualify as a rifleman in my next Appleseed event.
Project Appleseed is a purely volunteer driven organization. The 3 instructors we had all traveled at least 50 miles to teach us, were not getting paid and even brought rifles and ammunition for class members to use who didn't have their own. So, while the class cost $80 for 2 days none of it went to the instructors and is there to cover the costs of the materials (targets, handouts, patches, etc) and operations (ex. website). It's a small price to pay for the quality of the training I believe I received.
I now believe I could take a stock rifle and hit a man sized target consistently at 400yds.
