Something New In Appleseed - Shhh....

[RobbyMaQ]

I ain't goin anywhere

 

[jve153]

Can't wait to see you back on the line. Hopefully I wont be stuck in the pits. With your background I am sure we can learn a lot from each other.

 

[Rayne]

I tend to ramble on in my AAR’s so if you don’t want the long version just skip on down to the last paragraph for the summary. If you want a painfully detailed description of how my day went at my first KD shoot read on.

My fourth Appleseed turned out to be a KD (known distance) Shoot at Redbrush Shooting Range in Newburg, IN. Arrived bright and early at 7:30 am for what promised to be a beautiful spring day full of history, marksmanship skills and fun. The day did not disappoint.

We started out at a 25 yd line to make sure we were zeroed in and that we knew our scopes. We shot two sets of three shots each at the center square getting zeroed and then we did a box drill. We shot three shots at the bottom left square, adjusted our scopes 20 MOA (minutes of angle) up. Shot three more shots, still aiming at the bottom left hand corner square. Adjusted our scopes for 20 MOA right windage. Shot three more shots, again still aiming at the bottom square and then took the two scope adjustments off, to finish up with three more shots in the bottom left corner.

Then we counted the MOA that the shots actually rose and went right. My scope is about 10% less than what the clicks say it should be. I only had 18 MOA rise and windage, but it zeroed right back up.

At this point, I’m feeling pretty good. My groups are tight and my equipment is working well. That feeling would not last very long. I hadn’t had a chance to shoot this rifle much or even check my load accuracy and velocity for these reloads.

We head out to the long distance range and set up on the 100 yard line. For those of you who have never been to a long distance range with a pit, let me explain a bit how this works cause I didn’t know what to expect before yesterday. There is a high berm and behind the berm are a couple of unselfish men, who would spend the day raising and lowering targets. When we finished shooting a stage, they will lower the target and put sighters on it. A sighter is a big white circle that you can see from a long distance with a spotting scope or binoculars, indicating where your shots hit. This way you don’t have to hoof it down to the targets to check your hits. Once you record you hits onto your data sheet they lower the targets again and tape the hits and re-raise the targets.

This is what a data sheet looks like.

After my first 3 shot sighters, I decided to make a windage adjustment to try and center up my groups a bit more. I had been hitting a bit left at the 25 yard line, but I wanted the barrel to warm up and it all to settle in before I made too many adjustments. We usually shot two sets of three round sighters at each stage and then we shot for an AQT score. The stages are the same as a 25 yard Appleseed. Standing on the first stage; transition to sitting on the second stage; transition to prone on the third stage and prone on the fourth stage. The 100 yard line was the first stage.

So far the day is going well. Onto the two hundred yard line and this is where my day fell apart. I got a lesson in frustration and patience. I don’t like lessons in patience, because I am not very patient. This is also where I learned the most for the day. My rifle is a Remington 700 in 22-250. It has an internal magazine which I can load 4+1. I had a bit of trouble getting all my shots off because of reloading. I knew this would be a problem yesterday, but figured I would just have to deal with it.

But that wasn’t my first problem. We were talking about trajectory and about using a velocity program or app to estimate your trajectory. Myself and another said we had already done that, so I followed what the app said and didn’t go by proven data. Adjusting my scope before the first sighters were taken and I put three right around the 5.

Now a normal person would have been tickled to death and been doing chest bumps with the guy next to them, according to YHJ(yellowhousejake) but not me. I had to mess with the scope and wanted it lower. Besides my round did the opposite to what my dope said and this is where the software errors in my head started. Making a second adjustment for down elevation my shots ended up off the paper except for 1, but it was high instead of low like I adjusted for. I started doubting which way I adjusted the scope. Did I turn it wrong? I had to, that’s the only thing that made sense. So I took those scope adjustments off and added what I had planned to the first time, or did I? We shoot the AQT second stage and that’s where the frustration was. I couldn’t get my rounds loaded fast enough and only got 5 shots off. That’s ok, 5 good shots are better than 10 bad ones. My brain said it, but I didn’t feel it. Off to 300 yards.

So we take our sighter shot at 300 yards and my target comes back clean. No hits. What happened, according to my calculations and adjustments I should be dead center? I talk with Techres, and YHJ, we try taking the previous scope adjustments off. Second set of sighters, still no hits. At this point I realize the value of a known zero. Where I could have just clicked the scope’s elevation all the way down and then brought it back up to zero at 100 yards by counting the clicks up. But I don’t have that data for this rifle. Believe me I will have that date for all my scoped rifles from now on. So Techres does the next best thing. We take the bolt out of my rifle and bore sight it by him holding it steady as I adjust the scope to bring it back into range. At this point, we’re thinking I have an equipment problem with the scope not reacting to the adjustments, because the scope is way off. They’ve checked my steady hold, NPOA and don’t think it’s me pulling the shots. So Techres gets me back on paper by helping me bore sight the rifle. I get a third round of sighters and I’m 3 MOA low, but hey I’ll take that.

I hold a little high and shoot the AQT third stage, transition to prone. After my initial load, I treat my rifle as a single shot and I get 7 shots off. Much happier with that and the pits, confirm all 7 are on paper. Off to 400 yards.

After confirming I’m on paper with the pits and with the hold over at 300 yards, I decided once again to mess with the scope(will I ever learn) and raise it the 3 MOA that I’m low. Shoot the first set of sighters and I’m off paper again. Take the adjustments off and I’m back on.

Good Grief what’s going on? Is my scope marked backwards? No time to figure it out now, it’s time to shoot the AQT fourth stage. My favorite stage. Relax and enjoy 5 whole minutes of precision shooting. Aaaaahhhhhhhhh, now I’m having some fun.

We move back to 500 yards and talk more about trajectory and get to watch tracer rounds to see the trajectory that it takes to reach 500 yards. Very Cool, Thank you Techres, for sharing the tracers with Super Greg to shoot.

I’ve adjusted 3 MOA up and am at the bottom of the paper, 3 more MOA up and my 55gr bullet is getting a windage shove, but I’m dead center. Yeah, finally the scope did what it was suppose to.

Now the fun is suppose to begin. We move back to 400 yards and set steel out at 100, 200, 300 and 400 yards. I was so excited. I’ve only shot steel twice with a rifle, both long range like here. Even though I’ve only shot steel twice, I was hitting 4” steel at 400 yards with ease on two different rifles back in November. That’s not to brag, but to show how frustrated I am going to be when I tell you I wasn’t zeroed again. I took my two adjustments off the scope and should be dead centered for 400 yards. I couldn’t hit squat.

Now 99% of the time, it’s the shooter and not the rifle, but I was beginning to think I really had some scope issues. I was writing everything down and checking my calculations with either YHJ or Techres and the calculations were all correct. So then why was I off again? It wasn’t until I was home and went over my notes and calculation with my husband, that I realized it truly was operator error. I was getting my up and down confused and once I made a wrong adjustment I usually compounded it by repeating it when I was trying to take it off. And yes, the turret is marked. I felt like an idiot, all this frustration could have been avoided with a few little steps. FOCUS on what you are doing. TAKE YOUR TIME when doing it. DOUBLE CHECK you are doing it correctly. VERIFY you’re doing it correctly. Be FAMILIAR with your equipment. This is not a rifle I usually shoot and I wasn’t as comfortable with it as I should have been.



So in summary, here are some of the important and silly things I learned;

• Have a known zero for each rifle you have.
• Keep good data on all your rifles, you may not have a chance to figure it out later.
• YHJ and Techres are very patient men. And yes, I expect you both to show this statement to your wives.
• Verify your dope; don’t rely on a computer program to tell you what they think it will do.
• Slim is always hungry and loves buffets.
• Vet wrap is really great for holding foam on the stock to raise your point of view, but after about 40 shots the recoil begins to rub your check raw.
• You can get sun burnt in March.
• Having a shell holder would have made loading much easier.
• 99% of the time it’s the shooter’s fault, either hardware or software issues.
• Liberty Bars are the bomb.
• Appleseeds are GREAT fun!!!

 

[jve153]

rayne, thanks for the great write up of your day. this is great for all of us as kd is humble pie for any rifle(wo)man out there. i have shot kd a few times at instructor only events with my ar and m1 and have not been able to pull off a qualifying score. can i make hits at those distances? you betcha, i know my data and can make it happen, but i have not been able to put it together into one AQT. i bow to those that have. you are truly masters. 25 yards, i could knock out riflemen scores 9 out of ten.
on to you. you NAILED the 400 yard target 9/10 if i recall correctly after you got everything sorted out. that is severely impressive in and of itself, forget the rest of the test. 4 moa is our standard at distance, and to me, you proved that you very much know what you are about at that distance. i posted above that robby and i could learn a lot from each other. us instructors (some of us in training) learn from every one of our students as well. the problems anyone overcomes may be problems we have not run into personally or ever, and we learn to deal with those when we run into those ourselves, or when other students run into them as well. the scope issue you had will be remembered at shoots to come. someone else will have the same trouble at a later date and hopefully one of us are there and can remember it and set it straight.
glad to see you out, was great to see you again on the trail, but, i think you would look great in one of those orange hats. trust me, from someone in the know, they are quite comforable.

 

[RobbyMaQ]

Can't wait to see you back on the line. Hopefully I wont be stuck in the pits. With your background I am sure we can learn a lot from each other.

I know I have no background. My trip here is all about the journey and trying to figure out what I am doing wrong or right.

But you got me thinking... How proud I was to make rifleman in crawfordsville last october on the first day. And when I thought back on it, my favorite moment, was when I paired up with CBHausen on a dryfire drill. Loading (or not loading) is mags, and trying to notice his 'mistakes' during dry firing drills. 3 rounds into it, everyone else was done. We rushed the last two. In the end? He had one cloverleaf that ATM pointed out to the entire group. CBhausen was shocked. He had it in him the whole time, it was awesome to see it come to fruition. And later, he scored rifleman that day.

My issues with my 1st KD and my 1st scope are the first steps in a very long journey. My frustrations as to such, are simply my trying to figure out what I did wrong. When I notice that the inconsistencies throughout the day are in my sight picture, I'm not blaming the scope. I'm blaming me. I'm shooting even though part of the scope picture is blurred because I am thinking a scope is a scope, and a picture is fine as long as I can see the the center of the crosshairs. Through google searches, I am finding this is not the case, especially with a 79$ scope. And now I am looking for help in figuring it out. I have nothing to offer you other than being a beginner who doesn't know where to look for answers. As such, I attend appleseed events and seek advice from experienced members here on INGO.

I think you are correct. We have much to learn from one another. Though clearly I have much more to learn, as I am not as able to adapt as easily. Hence my comment, perhaps someday.

 

[Mudcat]

Yesterday I took my 3 week old MVP to a full distance Appleseed as a shooter. I have been an instructor for the Project Appleseed Home Appleseed Project for 5 years and this was my first chance to shoot a full distance shoot from start to finish. I had run them and work at them but never shot the event. I was pretty excited about shooting it and even more so about shooting the MVP. The Shoot is all shot at field positions at a standard "D" target which is 24" wide and 20" tall with a black silhouette. No bi-pods sand bags or rests allowed. Just you the rifle and the sling. The MVP is really perfect for this type of shooting at least the predator is, nice compact rifle with detachable magazine makes it a breeze for the timed sections as far as a bolt action goes. We first sighted out rifles in at 25m and I was putting 5 rounds in about 1/2" which is 2 moa we did the box drill to find out how many moa our scopes would move per click. I was using the Nikon P223 3x9 and it moved 20 moa exactly at 80 clicks both for elevation and windage. Not bad for a sub $200 piece of glass. Then we went to the 100 yard line and did prone sighters. My sighters were within the 4" "V" so I did no adjustment. Then we took 10 shots standing at 100 yards in 2 minutes off hand.This is a picture of the firing line at 100 yards. There are 2 targets to each pink backer. I have caught them at various stages of coming up and down in the pics.

Then we packed up our gear and hoofed it back to the 200 yard line. Again we did prone sighters which I was still in the "V" so no adjustment for me and the MVP. The stage 2 course of fire is 2 magazines one with 2 rounds and one with 8 rounds. You start standing and at the fire command you drop to the seated position load the 2 round magazine and engage the target 2 times then switch magazines and finish with 8 more rounds. Not too bad but you only get 55 seconds from the fire command until cease fire. I took a little too much time and did not get 1 round off in the 55 seconds. Oh well better to get good shots off than rush and get misses. Here is a pic of the 200 yard line.

Then we picked up our gear again and hoofed it back to the 300 yard line. Again we got prone sighters where I had to come up 3.5moa to get back to the top of the "V" circle. We had also picked up a 9 oclock 10mph wind at 300 as we were no longer blocked by the tree line no need to adjust yet but took a note of it for the later stages. We had workers in the pits that would place markers for us to see where we were making our hits on the spotters. They were also keeping our score for the AQT (Army Qualification Test) as they were pulling the targets down after every string marking and pasting our holes. Stage 3 is the rapid fire prone position. same 2 mags at 2 and 8 start standing and drop to prone position 2 rounder change magazines and 8 more but in 65 seconds.I got them all off with time to spare and called all good shots. Here is the pic from the 300 yard line.

Once again we picked up our gear and hoofed another 100 yards back to the 400 yard line for stage 4. This is slow fire prone 1 magazine 10 rounds and 5 minutes to fire them from prone position. We got sighters from prone again and I came up another 3 moa and chose not to dial any windage for the 100 yards of wind because it had shifted around behind us a little. No problem making the time and felt real good about my shots all fired in Riflemans cadence, I just hoped I had made the right decision on the wind. Here is the 400 yard line.

One last time we picked up our gear and hoofed it to the 500 yard line. There is no 500 yard stage on the AQT but it was a chance to shoot 500 yards with a pit crew giving feed back. We fired sighters from prone again. I dialed 4 moa into elevation before even firing spotters. When the targets raised and I looked through the spotting scope I was right on the edge of the target with 1 round in the "V". Oh crap I had forgot about the wind. Next set I dialed 2 moa of windage and got 3 good rounds off. When the targets rose I had 3 shots within 8" less 2 moa just to right of the "V". Woohoo. Pretty cool for nothing but a man his rifle, sling and ammo. We had a blast! Here is the line at 500 yards.

Then we got to shoot steel at all distances. just playing around and dialing our elevation. At the end of the day out of 20 shooters all great shooters most all previous Appleseeders and many Riflemen there were 3 that had made Rifleman at full distance. 1 was a perfect score which was my son shooting his 14" AR with a 3 power scope. Then me I had missed 1 yep you guessed it the 1 round I didn't get off in stage 2 but still got a 39 or 192 out of 200. One other guy had a 36 with an AR and an AGOC. I would say the MVP held its own yesterday.

But everyone did an awesome job from the shoot boss to the instructors on the line the pit crew, and the Apple Core. We got to hear some cool history that has been nearly forgotten and celebrated or freedoms of being Americans. This old shoot boss got a lot of data for a new rifle, had a great time and learned a few things. This again goes to show that no matter how much we think we know there is always more to learn, I know there always will be.

 

[Hop]

OK, a quick AAR...

I know YHJ says it's always the rifleman and not the rifle but a well sorted out gun can sure make it easier on yourself at a KD.

I decided to try something a little different at this KD. My M4 wanna be rifle.

My setup is as follows:
AR-15 (it has an SBR tax stamp too BTW)
Noveske N4 upper/lower with a Colt 14.5" barrel, Battlecomp 1.5 pinned & welded.
Geisele SDE trigger
Spikes buffer
Magpull furniture
Trijicon TA31ECOS ACOG w/ BDC reticle calibrated in Meters using XM855 out of 14.5" barel.
Federal XM855 5.56mm Walmart ammo

My 5 square sighters were horrible. I couldn't group better than 2.5" @ 25 yards. I never shoot this gun @ 25 yards. It has an RMR on top for short range work.

Rounds grouped about the same @ 100 yards the previous weekend & were close to the V ring. I felt like something went awry. I also didn't know my turrets were 1/2 MOA instead of 1/4... I think... 80 clicks took the rounds off paper both up and over. I still can't believe this is correct as there are slightly larger hash marks on the turrets in what you would think should be 1/4 MOA positions. Maybe I should call Trijicon.

As we moved to 100 yards things got better. I was still on zero from the previous week with no changes.

200 yards were a bit high. I dialed down 2.5 MOA and it was back in the V ring using the 200 Meter BDC hash.

Rounds only crept up a little @ 300 yards. It was still very close to the V when using the 300 Meter hash. No need to dial the turrets with a BDC.

Rounds crept a little higher at 400 yards using the 400 Meter reticle. The black AQT target was hard to see since the reticle subtensions do not extend out wider than the AQT (they are used for ranging targets). The 100-300 subtensions are illuminated but not the 400. Holding the 400 Meter hash at the bottom of the AQT was easier to see than dialing the turrets to put it into the black. So again, no need to dial the turrets with a BDC.

I needed a few more sighters to dial it in at 500 yards. Maybe 500 yards vs 500 Meters exposes too much difference in trajectory.

Shooting steel was a very acceptable trade off vs more time at 500 though. That was a blast. Hitting steel at various known distances with an ACOG? Cake! Again, no need to dial the turrets with a BDC.

For those following this thread that didn't go, you've got to try a KD next time.

 

[Boba]

So in summary, here are some of the important and silly things I learned;

• Have a known zero for each rifle you have.
• Keep good data on all your rifles, you may not have a chance to figure it out later.
• YHJ and Techres are very patient men. And yes, I expect you both to show this statement to your wives.
• Verify your dope; don’t rely on a computer program to tell you what they think it will do.
• Slim is always hungry and loves buffets.
• Vet wrap is really great for holding foam on the stock to raise your point of view, but after about 40 shots the recoil begins to rub your check raw.
• You can get sun burnt in March.
• Having a shell holder would have made loading much easier.
• 99% of the time it’s the shooter’s fault, either hardware or software issues.
• Liberty Bars are the bomb.
• Appleseeds are GREAT fun!!!

Great write up!
I would like to echo some of these sentiments...

-Keep good data on all your rifles, you may not have a chance to figure it out later. (especially when you're running metric, and the the course is run on yards, inches, & moa's (Thanks for the tip Slim!) I've already done some homework and have found some good sources to remedy this in the future)

-You can get sun burnt in March.

-99% of the time it’s the shooter’s fault, either hardware or software issues. (and these shoots provide a spotlight on one's errors which serves as great impetus to correct & improve)

-Appleseeds are GREAT fun!!! (every time)

Thanks to all the staff, and some great history from Tech!

 

[techres]

More Pictures:

Thank goodness someone requisitioned a tall shoot boss as we needed on in the early dawn light to set up backers:

Soon we had a hearty group of shooters ready to get on the cold ground and shoot some hot rounds. As always we did the full safety brief and covered all the standard commands:

Soon we were getting our 25 yard zeros as well as verifying sight adjustments to make sure what should be is what is:

Warms the heart to see a full line of battle rifles:

Instruction was done on the line at each range distance:

Lunch time was a rifleman's lunch, what you can carry:

While others ate, we had a couple of rifles that needed to come back to the 25 yard line and get a quick re-check of zero.

And at the same time we had our riflemen and riflewomen working on their range books:

Then it was time to get back to the line and shooting our rifles:

And watching them break:

And getting them wail on steel from 400 yards:

All in all it was a fun time with lots of smiles and fun:

The students did great and we got to learn more than I expected. Who knew we would get to do emergency boresights or have a Garand take a dive. Every seed is special that way.

Thanks to all of our students for walking a ton, and being cold alot all while being patient and learning well. You were a great group to work with and great Americans to spend a day with at the range. Thank you to each and all.


Special thanks to Redbrush Range for hosing - look forward to doing it all again!

Watch in 1080 HD if you want to see Slim's tracerfire:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLs-iHmX9Us

 

[RobbyMaQ]

Woot! Progress! Found the issue with my scope. up to 4-6 min to the right depending on head position and whether how I was viewing down it. Couldn't get a turkey neck, so my head was all over the place.

I want to thank the pit crew for marking my AQT misses! This was instrumental in confirming my poi when my sighters weren't revealing much throughout the day!

Shifting my head around during a test today, (hitting some gridded paper) matched the results I'd found near the end of the day when we got our AQT's back! Now to find a riser and get eye relief to where I can get a proper turkey neck. For the moment, I am back to Irons!

(And entirely my fault for trying new gear when we were told to bring our 'go to' rifles by techres).

 

[jve153]

i had a similar issue at a kd day at atterbury with my scope for my ar. at the 25 yard line at home i was nailing the 4moa boxes, so i figured i was good to go. my cheek weld was more of a chin weld, but it was working that day so i took that setup to atterbury. did not work out as planned. its nice to know that you have your issue figured out and were able to diagnose it.

 

[RobbyMaQ]

In the words of slim... Huzzah!
Had to resurrect this one after getting a new scope with a shorter eye relief! In the back of my mind I was worried about being 'too easy to blame the gear'. Results were drastically different on my 2nd try. Being able to finally hit paper/sighters had me much more confident this shoot, but I did not expect these results at the end of the day.
Scored 35 & 36 on two AQT's. Nailed all 10 hits on Both AQT's from 400yd.

I owe it to everyone who was patient with me, and willing to share their expertise with a new shooter like myself.

 

[Hop]

Huzzah! You got that thing dialed in right!

 

[BiscuitNaBasket]