RWVA Appleseed Event

Carey Ryerson currently works at Magpul (makes gun accessories).  Through his company, he found out about a pretty cool two day event.  It is a Marksmenship training course that includes plenty of history.  Thankfully, George and Pat were wanting some cuddle time with the kiddos so we had a sitter lined up each day and headed out to refine our skills.

We loved that each day started out with the Pledge of Allegience (I can't believe our kids will never say that in school, but don't get me started on that point).  After a safety lesson from the team, we put up a target and shot ten rounds at it to see where our starting point was.  None of us were amazing, but we all felt ok about our shots.  Then, we learned different techniques throughout the next two days to improve our current skillsets. 

Amy trying out the kneeling position

Carey and Sarah using sitting position and Jim in prone position

Kris using his 30-06 at 300 yards

A couple that Shoots together... Stays together

One cool part about this group is that it is put on by the Revolutionary War Veterans Association (RWVA) and they are Huge on American History.  In between shooting events, they would tell us historic stories about how our country fought the British and gained the rights each of us are priveledged with today.  I have always heard about the men who fought and recognized several of the stories from history lessons as a kid, but was impressed to hear about the women who made such an impact on our country too!  There was a woman who dressed up as a man so she could fight for her country, a woman who had her house invaded by the British and captured/killed them to defend her family.  So many people stood up for what they believed in and it made me very proud to be an American.

For two days we shot at 25 yard targets with our 22 rifles in different positions, but also got to take a shot at long range shooting (200 and 300 yard shots) with our 30-06 rifle.  At the end of the training, there was a Marksmanship test we all took.  We had several different rounds of shooting during our test.  The first was ten rounds at the largest target in a standing position (the least stable position learned).  Then we had two timed events.  The first was going into a kneeling/sitting position where we shot two rounds, changed the clip and shot 8 more rounds (in 55 seconds).  Then, we went from a standing into a prone position and shot two rounds, changed the clip and shot an additional 8 rounds (in 65 seconds).  Finally, we had ten shots at the tiniest targets in prone position, but could take up to 5 minutes for that one.  Amy was incredibly happy with her score as she had no idea with how she would match up and Kris felt pretty good with what he had learned and how he improved his score throughout the day. We were all excited about what we had learned and even talked about doing another event when it was offered again!