24 Hours to Texas: an RBC Odyssey

[Bubba]

The Journey

Ah, the trip itself. As AuntieBellum stated in the other thread, we started out at 8pm Thursday for the drive to Davilla, TX for a week-long Rifleman's Boot Camp. Contrary to popular belief, CMP South in Anniston, AL is on the way to Texas. Total driving time came in right at 24 hours from NWI to central Texas.

We’d stayed up late Wednesday packing for the trip. The gear requirement for the shooting part of the RBC isn’t too bad but a week of camping calls for quite the pile of gear: tent, tarps, sleeping bags, 12 days of clothes, food and water, camp stove and lantern etc, etc. Auntie’s SUV (an Indian word meaning Short on Usable Volume) is about as full as it can get. After a full day at work Thursday, we embarked on our own Midnight Ride.

Auntie slept while I drove. I made it as far as Franklin, KY on the TN state line before the 5 Hour Energy just couldn’t keep me going. I parked at the Flying J at 2am. AB got behind the wheel at 4:30, but it was just too early, so she got us through Nashville to beat the traffic and parked again. We hit the road around 7:30am. I got some more shuteye while AB drove. We made it to Anniston, AL around 11:45am.

The CMP store was neat. The office ladies that process paperwork were just going to lunch so I had plenty of time to shop. I walked in prepared to select one of the Special grade refurbished rifles, but none of the current crop was the pristine specimen I envisioned. I saved $300 by picking out a Service grade instead (ME1, TE2) with virtually no wear on the receiver and a new production stock. I took my selection to Leon, the armorer on site and, after a once-over with him I'm satisfied the rifle is a good value. Of course, since I had just saved some money I couldn’t do anything less than turn around and spend it on other stuff. Two beat up empty stocks for demo rifles, 5 slings, and a little over 900 rounds of ammo later, I sidled up to the counter. I presented my birth certificate, DL, Appleseed participation certificate, and RWVA membership card and had a seat in the waiting area (well stocked with current firearms magazines for my reading pleasure). It took ~40 minutes to process my order, then back on the road. [strike]I'll have pics of the new family member as soon as I'm somewhere I can unpack it without getting a visit from the undoubtedly courteous local constabulary.[/strike]

We grabbed dinner at the MS state line, now parked a half hour inside Louisiana, settling down for our second night in this car. No need to drive all night tonight. In the morning, a truck stop shower and 5½ more hours to Davilla!

11/13: Applecore comes to Texas

11/13, 4pm: Arrival

 

[Bubba]

Day 1:
This Weather is cool and cloudy, with a bit of a breeze. I'm actually quite chilly. 5 shooters plus one instructor on the line. We have another shooter who took the day off sick. 5 instructors not shooting.

This is Appleseed in slow motion. There's virtually no rush to get things done. In one day we made it through the same amount of material a mini-seed covers by lunch. All but one shooter is a veteran Appleseeder (the other one is a very experienced shooter in his own right). The relative skill level on the line is above average, with first groups of the weekend averaging 6-7moa. We covered prone, seated and standing positions, transitions to seated, mag changes, NPOA, and 6 steps (not in that order). Additionally we heard all three strikes of the match. With such a high instructor ratio, and such experienced instructors as Junior Birdman, Voortrekker, POP, ashrn03 and dragit there's a lot of really responsive focus on what the shooters need.

The three strikes as told by ashrn03, Voortrekker, and JB:

dragit is this weekend's Vanna White:

 

[ATM]

Congrats on the rifle and thanks for the update!

Waiting for moar...






I'll try not to ruin your thread while you're busy.

 

[Niecie]

Outgoing

Niecie

(You are a sharp one, ATM)

 

[Bubba]

Day 2: Still a bit on the cool side, but some sun after lunch that brought the temps out of "two jackets" range into "long sleeve shirt" range. Two new shooters today, bringing the count to 8. We were also joined by Scout for part of the day. For those not familiar with the AS radio show, Scout is the property owner for the Davilla range and the host of the Rifleman Radio Show every Tuesday. He tells me Jim Tomes, a founder of the 2A Patriots and recently elected Indiana State Senate District 49 representative, will call in to this week's show.

The live fire exercises for the day started with a red coat, then some squares, ball & dummy, and moving on to AQT's. We managed 3 AQT's by the end of the day. Current high score is held by someone known to many Indiana AS'ers, who struggled long and hard to finally score Rifleman, and now makes a habit of making it look easy (with a perfect seated score!). It's AuntieBellum showing these Texans how to shoot!

We also forged one new Rifleman, Charles!

After hours we had a campfire and, amongst roasting of marshmallows and hot dogs, listened to Junior Birdman recite Kipling and Scout talk more in depth about RevWar history. Tomorrow we are supposed to get a visit from the local CBS affiliate, and expect to entertain other members of both print and TV media throughout the week.

 

[ATM]

Nice shooting, AB!

 

[Bubba]

Day 3: The weather was a bit nicer, it hit the upper 70's and breezy. Short update today because it's late and I'm tired. Mostly AQT grinding today. My 10/22 decided to be a POS this week and suddenly sart malfunctioning with the Federal bulk I brought. I cracked open my limited supply of CCI Standard andgained 20 points immediately. We made one new rifleman today, Hunter!

The afternoon got a bit noisy as shooters (and instructors!) who were no longer chasing the patch brought out the big bores to get sighted in for tomorrow's known distance shooting. Multiple Garands and M1A's lent their throaty roar to the otherwise demure chorus of "crack-hiss" from the .22's.

The morning started with a history round-table discussion, and by the end of the day the students were giving their own strikes of the match.

The only other noteworthy event was the press visit around lunch from the CBS affiliate in Waco. The cameraman was a stand-up guy but the reporter kept asking leading questions. I don't know his badly he'll try to spin the story, but there's a good chance a portion of AuntieBellum's interview will make it onto the newscast, which should be available online around Friday. Sorry, Techres, but we weren't able to get the reporter to get down on the line and shoot. He did get to hear Junior Birdman's well-polished D.O.M., for whatever that's worth.

 

[AuntieBellum]

Wow, Bubba seems to be behind in his AAR. Let's see what I can do to fill in here...

Day four:
KD classroom in the morning, KD data gathering and 1 AQT in the afternoon. The KD info was intense. In depth coverage of windage correction, come-ups, etc. Lots of math. And then more math. And then math in the tent later when I took my info back with me and needed to figure out what my actual come-ups were.

BUT it was a TON of fun. I think I may have shot out to 100 yards a couple of times, but just a few squeeezzzes of the trigger and nothing more. It's pretty cool to see actual hits on the target from 400 yards away! (Not necessary in the correct spot, but that's what the windage correction and come-ups are for. )



Day five:
More KD. We ran three AQTs, two in the morning and one in the afternoon. We had one new KD Rifleman on the 1st AQT of the day - Paul, a Texas red hat, and another for the second KD AQT. I'll let you guess who that was.

Then we had a fun shoot with three teams blasting away at balloons, clays, and tannerite. It was loads of fun.
We followed that up with dinner in town at the local Mexican restaurant. Quite tasty, and lots of great conversation.



Day six:
Breaking in the orange hats. We gained four new orange hats at the RBC, and there were several others in attendance, including myself. The last day of the RBC is mock Appleseed day. It was more of a piece by piece breakdown of the demonstrations followed by a dry run of line commands, RSO, and working through instruction points on the line. Lots of fun, and it was good to go through the motions several times to help remember the material. I might be running through steady hold factors in my sleep tonight.

Tomorrow begins a real, live Appleseed. We'll be tested, I'm sure. Fred is here and will be running some of the Red Hats through some advanced instruction, so the orange hats will get their turns at trying out some of their newly acquired skills. Should be fun!


I know, you'll want pics. My hands are frozen and my nose is running, so you'll just have to wait.

 

[Bubba]

So I'm behind, so what?
The KD classroom:

The KD range:

Our new KD qualified riflemen (note that one is from Indiana, and the other has been a highpower competitor for 20+ years)

The mornings have been COLD!

And Day 7:
The brand new orange hats run the line under the eye of shoot boss Alonso1 while the red hats and experienced orange hats attend an Advanced Instructor Boot Camp (AIBC) with Fred, the founder and director of the Appleseed Project.

 

[AuntieBellum]

So I finally posted my pictures on the official AAR for your enjoyment: http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=18695.0.

Rimshot and I really enjoyed our week in Texas. We highly recommend heading out to Scout's if you can make the time - he really is just as nice in person as he sounds on the radio show. Which just happens to come on again tonight, so check it out! The Rifleman | Internet Radio | Blog Talk Radio