Appleseed Shoot Question

[Shrike9]

Our oldest daughter is in JROTC and I've been playing with the idea of taking her to a appleseed shoot to ensure she knows the AR platform and is comfortable with it (she wants to go in the Army as a officer) but I am not convinced it's as good as I've read on the web site http://www.appleseedinfo.org/ and was wondering if anybody has ever been to one?

Nice thing is the price is cheap and easy to afford

[TY44934]

Hi Shrike9 - I remember reading a fairly comprehensive review on the "other" site about the Appleseed shoot. I think the guy's heart is in the right place. That being said, it seems to boil down to:

-3 position shooting with irons.

And that is OK I guess. It seems to follow the "National Match/Camp Perry/Service Rifle doctrine.

While that competition is fun, current "service rifle" rules don't seem to allow M4s or optics - which strikes me as odd. And postition shooting - while a fun skill to learn, doesn't seem to fit with everything our military folks are actually doing overseas these days.

I guess that explains why I chose not to investigate appleseed any further. I'll let the vets explain whether they think it would help your daughter as she goes through basic.

Regards,

TY44934

[Ed L.]

It's high power shooting oriented.

Appleseed shoots do allow the use of optics.

Having said that, the orientation is high power shooting which is really geared toward WW1 style combat. You have a tight sling on your non-dominant arm to the point wher eyou can only do mag changes with your master arm. This is completely opposite of what is taught in modern carbine classes.

[Grin Reaper]

Shrike, first let me thank you for getting your young person (and a daughter, no less) involved in learning to shoot safely and effectively. Not every parent, or even every parent sho is a shooter, does that.
And you're right, the price is hard to beat.

So what do you get for your money?
Here's how I've described it on some other forums:
There are a lot of tactical carbine courses out there right now, and that's great. People like to enroll in them and they teach some valuable skills, skills that are important if you find yourself shooting at smelly bearded men at distances of 'across the room' out to 50 or 100 yards.
Then there are tactical rifle/sniping courses, but these emphasize using a scoped rifle with a bipod to shoot things really far away, 400 yards and usually farther.

The problem is, there's a lot of distance between 100 and 400 yards, and not every Real World situation will allow you to use your bipod. Shooting at these distances is the sort of thing attendees at Appleseeds cover. In addition to shooting offhand, we cover shooting from the seated/kneeling positions and prone (seems redundant to us, I know, but you'll find very few people outside of this forum who routinely shoot without the support of a bench and/or bipod).

Both types of the aforementioned tactical courses are very imformative and provide A LOT of useful skills. But not all of them are really well-suited for a beginning shooter, whereas Appleseed is. Fortunately, with the high-power-based shooting that's emphasized at the Appleseeds, Pat Rogers and the other fine instructors on this board don't have to be worried that Appleseed is going to give them any competition .

In addition to marksmanship, Appleseed attendees get a healthy dose of Revolutionary War history, plus we try to get them involved in keeping their 2nd Amendment rights safe -- contacting their elected reps and such.

Shooters at Appleseed Shoots may use iron sights or their optic of choice; the 'no scopes' idea is a VERY common misconception.

I instruct at Appleseed Shoots, so if I can help answer any other questions, please let me know.

Link to some Kind Words on the Internet (also see the Feb. '08 issue of SWAT): http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=112.0

Schedule at http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=1043.0

[Ed L.]

There are a lot of tactical carbine courses out there right now, and that's great. People like to enroll in them and they teach some valuable skills, skills that are important if you find yourself shooting at smelly bearded men at distances of 'across the room' out to 50 or 100 yards.

Or in dealing with a home invaders in your own home.

[Grin Reaper]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Grin Reaper
There are a lot of tactical carbine courses out there right now, and that's great. People like to enroll in them and they teach some valuable skills, skills that are important if you find yourself shooting at smelly bearded men at distances of 'across the room' out to 50 or 100 yards.

Or in dealing with a home invaders in your own home.

Yes, that also. I'll leave teaching stuff like that to people who are good at it, which I'm not.

Now, if you're interested in hitting human-sized targets out to 400-500 yards without needing a scope, bipod, or a specialized rifle/ammo, then that's the sort of shooting you'll learn at Appleseed. Like I said earlier, we're not trying to compete with the tactical course guys, we're just offering another tool for your skills toolbox.

[Harv]

So What qualifies a person to be an Instructor??

I realize they are volunteers. But Where do THEY get there training.
How do I know there not teaching some antiquated unrealistic techniques and methods . Who taught them? Is there any prerequisites?

I know lots of Nice guys who would Happily volunteer there time to teach others to shoot.. But there clueless and don't have the skill set to do that.

[Grin Reaper]

Candidates attend a week-long shooting event called a Rifleman's Boot Camp (I know, the name's a bit over the top; I didn't name it). During this, they work on refining their own shooting as well as learning how to teach it to others. Boot Camps are run by 2 or more CMP master instructors, there may be more depending on how many attendees there are.
At the weekend following it, there's a 2-day Appleseed Shoot where the new instructors (under the supervision of 4-6 more senior instructors) manage the instruction of Appleseed attendees.
After that, the new instructors are supervised at at least 3 more shoots before they instruct on their own.

I know lots of Nice guys who would Happily volunteer there time to teach others to shoot.. But there clueless and don't have the skill set to do that.

I know quite a lot of gentlemen like that also; they're not a part of this program.

How do I know there not teaching some antiquated unrealistic techniques and methods

I'm not quite sure how one would respond to that.
Just remember what I have been saying about the program: this is not a tactical course. We won't be covering SBS Prone or Room-Clearing (both fine skills, just too much for a 2-day beginner's course). This is Basic Rifle Marksmanship. This is Rifle 101. This is a program devoted to getting regular Joes proficient with their rifles, without needing expensive scopes & such (those are still fine, they're just not a requirement). This is How to Shoot Man-Sized Targets (4moa), and how to do it out to 400-500 yards.

And I seem to have run on a bit. Thanks for indulging me.

[Shrike9]

Been doing some research on the appleseed shoots and like Ed L was saying it appears as if they are teaching the old WWI and WWII style of marksmanship.

I'm assuming its along the lines of a camp perry shoot, only with a bunch of novice shooters learning the fundamentals and basics of rifle marksmanship.

Seems they want at least 100 shooters on the line, that's a shit pot of shooters to watch over and instruct, but depending on how many relays ya can do it while having lots of down time.

Have not been able to find a course of fire or a syllabus yet and I'd like to look one over before committing to a class.

Also found a thread where some people doing the instructing at appleseed shoots do not like optics like the EoTech (not a direct quote) or VFG's but these people seem to be in the minority.

Looks like it would be a good basic course teaching the fundamentals of marksmanship but without attending a shoot I can only assume.

I've got lots of time to research the subject and learn more

[Shrike9]

I can imagine this is what an Appleseed shoot is like

http://www.archive.org/details/Rifle...1_Rifle_Part_1