This will be my review of the Appleseed experience, based mostly on my personal experience on Saturday, but also on the thoughts of some other folks I’ve talked to, as well as a synthesis of my combined impression from two Appleseeds. My general account of the day’s activities is here.

Let me reiterate that I very much like the concept of the Appleseed Project. I like that they’re getting folks out to the range.

The first place I butt heads with the implementation, however, may well be the result of false expectations on my part. Based on the branding of the Appleseed Project: the Minuteman for a logo, talking about “a nation of riflemen,” the strong emphasis on the history of April 19, 1775 (when American colonists started, you know, shooting at their oppressors), the obvious link between gun rights and liberty, shooting the Army Qualifying Test, and so forth, I was under the impression the variety of marksmanship taught at an Appleseed clinic would translate to, well, combat shooting.

Let me be very clear: Nowhere have I read, or heard, anyone suggesting Appleseed would teach me actual combat skills. I did not expect to learn room-clearing. I was just under the impression that the type of fundamental marksmanship they were teaching would be the type you’d want a modern armed citizenry to learn and build upon with the ultimate goal of being able to defend their lives and rights if necessary.

I am not an expert, but based on a) what The Inconvenience has told me about modern USMC marksmanship education, and b) what I’ve read online, the type of marksmanship the Appleseed Project is teaching is somewhat dated and more suited to sport shooting than to development of combat-practical marksmanship.

I’ve also learned via observation that saying Appleseed instruction has anything to do with sport shooting will cause apoplectic fits, so let me say this: The Inconvenience went through USMC basic training in 1999. He learned to shoot with a hasty sling (vs. loop sling – edit: they did use the loop sling for 500yd prone work, which is 10rds/10mins), with a center hold (vs. six-o’clock), and he shot expert. It probably has more to do with civilian safety rules than method, but he also began his timed portions with the rifle in condition one, not with his mags on the ground. Folks are saying the Appleseed method was modeled on USMC marksmanship training, and maybe it that’s true – but apparently it’s not what they’re teaching anymore.

I’m interested in learning modern techniques just like I’m interested in using a modern rifle. There is a difference between “in the tradition of” and “traditional.” I understood their talk about traditional marksmanship to mean marksmanship with traditional application: Hunting, target shooting, and defense if necessary. Apparently, they literally mean traditional marksmanship, as in old-fashioned.

Which, of course, is just fine – as long as that’s what you’re looking for. And, when it comes to educating people who wouldn’t otherwise be getting any experience at all, it’s certainly better than nothing! For me, it’s not the type of foundation I’m building. I’d rather work with a hasty sling and have my rifle zeroed for a defensive/combat-usable hold. I guess you could say I’m more interested in continuing the tradition of American marksmanship with modern tools and weapons than I am in literally continuing to shoot traditional rifles in traditional ways.

So, again, that may just be a personal difference, but I think it’s one worth pointing out. And maybe I should start saving my pennies for a trip to Gunsite. (That is one very awesome thing about Appleseed – it’s CHEAP. Free for women, even.)

My second, and probably biggest, beef with the program is the tempo. I absolutely do not think it’s a good idea to take people who are shooting 4″ groups at 25m (that’s like, 16MOA if you’re keeping score) and put them on a timer. With transitions. And mag changes. Obviously those are valuable skills. I do not think they are as valuable as establishing a solid sense of accuracy first, though. The Appleseed course is billed as being friendly to beginners, and while the skills taught may be, the time in which they are taught is, in my opinion, not.

The timed stages weren’t the only problem, though. The woman to the left of me on the line had a mini-14. She was struggling with her sling. She wasn’t hearing mag prep commands, either. We could have both benefited from longer prep periods – at least occasionally – or a dedicated rifle-adjustment period. I think everyone there could have benefited from a good 10 minutes of dry-fire practice or so after being shown a new position. I think walking us all through “firing by the numbers” – slowly, as we actually fired – would have been a good thing.

When you’re trying to hammer home the simple rules of marksmanship, pushing shooters to mental and physical fatigue and introducing time constraints is not a very good way to allow them to relax, take deep breaths, and develop good habits, which should be priority numero uno. Priority numero dos can be introducing challenges.

The instructors make it clear the Appleseed is not a competition with anyone other than yourself, but for a new shooter, even that competition can be frustrating and demoralizing. I felt this more at my first Appleseed shoot; at this one, I was more comfortable with my rifle and knew what to expect. I felt for the woman next to me, though, because she didn’t sound like she was having any fun, or even really understanding all of the material. The last thing I want is people, especially new(ish) shooters, thinking shooting isn’t fun, or going home confused.

I think the program could really benefit from shifting tempo the first day to a much slower, reinforcing style of instruction. Rather than throwing an idea out there and really not revisiting it save shouted reminders to “Remember to shoot by the numbers!” – how about day one working on true fundamentals, and day two doing speed increases and so forth? I guess there is a certain concern that people won’t come back for day two, so they’ll miss that, but it’s my opinion that a lot of people don’t come back for day two because of the mental fatigue and frustration.

I chose not to attend day two because I felt like it would honestly be a waste of ammo. (Maybe this alone is a valid reason to shoot the clinic with .22LR?) I don’t learn well in an environment where I don’t get any time to allow what I just learned to sink in. I knew that, given the time to implement them properly, I could improve my shooting using some of the things I was learning. Without having that time, I wasn’t showing any improvement (and was, in some cases, regressing!) and felt I could accomplish more on Sunday with 20 rounds at the home range than I could with 200 on day two of the Appleseed.

I did, incidentally, accomplish quite a bit on Sunday with 20 rounds and the help of The Inconvenience. One of the friends who went to the range was us was actually an acquaintance I’d run into at the Appleseed. It was his third attempt at the program. He opted not to go to day two, either, for many of the same reasons I’m outlining. After heeding some of The Inconvenience’s USMC-brand advice, his groups tightened up more than ever. Was it better information? Low-pressure shooting? Environmental changes? I think a combination of all of the above.

I absolutely do not dispute the validity of rapid fire shooting or mag changes – as someone who just declared her interest in combat-translatable skills, of course I want to develop those abilities. I also want to develop low-light shooting skills, shooting while fatigued, and shooting in other less-than-ideal conditions. But for crying out loud, one thing at a time. I’d rather start with five shots in five minutes and make all of them, than five shots in 50 seconds and make none. I guarantee I can progress faster and learn more if I start with five minutes and gradually reduce it to 50 seconds than if I just keep scrambling and hoping to improve within those 50 seconds. And, well, if the Zombiepocalypse comes tomorrow and I never got the chance to get good at rapid fire, I guess y’all can shoot me in the kneecap and let me be bait.

A third, more minor suggestion I’d have for the Appleseed coordinators is establishing a baseline level of instructor familiarity with common rifles. In my experience, there was the thing about front sight post adjustment vs. rear elevation. Then, when I asked a couple of them if anyone had a buttstock wrench, I was asked if I meant a screwdriver, or pliers. Another AR owner finally produced one. Of course, it’s the rifle user’s responsibility to know his or her own rifle, but in an environment where you’re probably to see a lot of borrowed rifles, it would be good if they could offer up a little more assistance.

I also noticed a slight undercurrent of… disdain may be too strong a word, but there was basically something off about their response to people who were shooting >.22LR. The Appleseed Project is promoting the use of what they call the Liberty Training Rifle, and I think it’s a great idea. However, I think using your main battle rifle, if you can, is a better idea. I’d rather see people using their M14s/FALs/ARs than 10/22s, but I’d rather see them using 10/22s than not shooting. In other words, encouraging .22LR to increase participation is fine, but don’t discourage NATO calibers just because .22LR is becoming more common, or cheaper. It should be up to the shooter, unless there are range constraints on caliber. (And while I didn’t hear it firsthand, the third-timer said he caught a little bit of flak for his FAL. Not surprised, because the Appleseed folks seem to be M14 fanboys with a side of 10/22 love, but come on. Leave that argument for the internet, guys.)

I’m also not sure why they’re encouraging dry-fire practice and .22LR simultaneously – I’ve always been taught not to dry-fire rimfire weapons. Maybe I missed something.

In my Googling around, I noticed I’m not the only one offering up suggestions for Appleseed. Okay, some folks just hate it altogether. Others, like USAGI in the Arfcom thread, have a lot of the same thoughts and suggestions I do. (He’s apparently a 25-year instructor, too, so that reassures me I’m not completely talking out my ass on this.) Breda talked about the frustration aspect, but it also sounds like she’ll go back, because she’s a gunnie and that’s what we do. That’s why I tried again.

And that’s what I want to close with. I’m not writing this to piss in Appleseed’s Cheerios. I don’t want it to fail. I want it to be a resounding success, something I can point anyone and everyone to as the go-to crash-course in marksmanship. Right now, I feel like I can offer up a review to my gun-loving friends, give them an idea what to expect, and let them decide. Some would go, some wouldn’t, some would like it, some wouldn’t.

But, in it’s current incarnation, I would not take a new shooter to an Appleseed shoot – especially one of their target demographics: women. Period. It’s too much, too fast. It’s competitive, intimidating, frustrating, and sometimes downright physically punishing. For someone without at least some established confidence in their shooting ability, and the understanding that it’s an ongoing process of refinement – not just something you’re good at or not – I think it could cause irreparable damage to a budding interest in marksmanship.

To the person sure to come on here and say “Oh, yeah, well if you know so much, why don’t you start your own program?” – shut up. Really. I try to take new people to the range whenever I can. I offer fun and Tannerite to foster interest and to demonstrate just how fun shooting can be, and work up from there. The Inconvenience gives just about the best fifteen-minute basics of marksmanship talk I could imagine, and is more than happy to watch folks shoot and help them refine their methods. I’ve offered my unofficial services to the women’s center and gay and lesbian alliance on campus, as well as worked for our concealed carry on campus efforts. Right now I need to get in touch with a local lady, who was going to put me in touch with some other women who would like to learn the basics from a female instructor. I’m considering getting NRA and Utah certified to teach. If I had more money and resources, I’d love to start a national program as successful as Appleseed. But, hey, rather than reinventing the wheel, how about people learn to take constructive criticism and improve what already exists, instead of having to say “Fine, I’ll do it MY way!” and fragment into a million different efforts?

That’s why I wrote this review. I hate to see a great opportunity squandered, but I fear Appleseed won’t expand outside the already-present gun culture if they don’t make some improvements over the current methodology. And that, my friends, would make me a sad panda.

I’m going to do a couple of posts on the Appleseed – this one is a general description of the day. My review is here.

I totally neglected to keep a log of what we did all day, so I’m reconstructing this from memory as best I can. As a result, times/order of events might be a little off.

I arrived at the Lewis-Clark Wildlife Club’s range at about 8:20 on Saturday morning. (It’s about an hour from my house.) I checked in and loaded my gear (save my rifle) up to the shooting area. The day was scheduled to start at 8:30, but began a big late as they waited for stragglers.

The first portion of the day was a safety briefing. They did not go over the Cooper rules/Treat, Never, Keep, Keep. If I recall correctly, the rules went something like: Keep your muzzle pointed in a safe direction, keep your finger off the trigger until your sights are on the target, do not load until the load command is given, and everyone is a safety officer. They discussed range commands and common malfunctions, and handed out chamber flags.

At that point, we were allowed to go to our vehicles to retrieve our rifles. If we had more than one rifle, we were supposed to leave the back-up in the car. After checking in our firearms and placing them on the line, we prepared to fire our first string – 13 rounds at a Redcoat target like this – 3 rounds at each silhouette and one into the 250yd headshot square.

I can’t remember exactly the order, but somewhere in here we received our first history lesson. There would be three segments throughout the day, all focused on a very detailed account of the events of April 19, 1775.

We were also instructed on shooting in the prone with a loop sling. Appleseed teaches the support-side leg fully extended in line with the spine, toe turned either in or out to place the foot flat on the ground, firing-side knee bent and leg raised at least perpendicular to the body, abdomen naturally canted so the diaphragm is not pressed into the ground, support arm held snugly by the sling, support elbow under the rifle.

Again, I can’t recall the order, but I know we were instructed in “firing by the numbers,” which are:
1) Sight picture.
2) Sight alignment.
3) Respiratory pause.
4a) Focusing the eye on the front sight.
4b) Focusing the mind on holding the front sight on the target.
5) Squeezing the trigger.
6) Following through by holding the trigger back, as well as keeping eyes open to call the shot.

(We did not actually practice calling our shots.)

We then put up 25m targets with 1″ grid squares, and fired five rounds five times. I needed to shift my zero, but was told we were just worrying about groups at the time and would actually adjust sights in a few minutes. After finishing 25 rounds on that target, we did indeed go over adjusting sights. I needed to adjust my front sight post and had to explain to an instructor why I would do that instead of just adjusting my rear elevation. I am not sure if he thought I was going about it incorrectly, or was just concerned about the time it would take, as we had relatively short preparation periods. After adjustments, we went through another 25 rounds on the same type of target.

I’ll interject here the way a round of firing would go: Generally, we’d be given the command to prep a magazine with x-number of rounds. Theoretically the command was supposed to be issued far enough in advance that we wouldn’t need to use any of our prep period to ready mags, but in practice I usually heard something like, “You should have a mag prepped with five rounds. Your two-minute preparation period begins now.” This may have been because I was at the far end of the line, and the guys calling the commands were in the opposite direction. We would be giving a preparation period of varying length, during which we were ideally supposed to get into position and dry-fire. Again, in practice, I usually found myself using this time to make adjustments to my rifle, sling, etc. and had very little time to prep myself.

We took a short bathroom break, and then had another history lesson. After that, we had about 20 minutes for lunch. I can’t recall if we went back to the line then, or had our third and final history lesson. Total, I’d estimate the history portion accounted for 45 minutes to an hour of the day.

We began working on transitions and magazine changes, after being instructed on standing and sitting positions. The second and third stages of the AQT require a transition from standing to sitting or prone, respectively, as well as a magazine change each. For the standing to sitting, we would load a magazine with two rounds and one with eight. We’d begin standing, with our magazines on the ground. On the fire command, we’d drop to sitting, load the two-round magazine, empty it into the left target, change mags to the eight-round magazine, fire three more rounds into the left target, and the last five into the right target. The standing to prone stage was nearly identical, except there were three targets, and we fired two+one, three, and four into each.

The tempo of the shoot definitely stepped up at this time. The instructors said they wanted us taking a shot per breath, and they started timing the rounds – 55 seconds for standing-to-sitting, 65 for standing-to-prone.

As the sunlight began dwindling, they had us put up an AQT and fire all four stages. We then did a second AQT, and concluded with another Redcoat target to gauge our improvement. By the time the last shots were fired, I’d switched to my large aperture, because the light quality was very poor. Apparently, so is my low-light shooting!

At the end of the day, we cleaned up, debriefed, and headed home.

I believe I fired about 150 rounds total. I received some helpful feedback from the instructors: At the beginning of the day, I was doing a poor job of following-through, and they caught it. I improved greatly when made aware of it. An instructor also pointed out that it appeared I wasn’t keeping a consistent cheek weld from string to string, so I worked on that. He postulated it was symptomatic of my adjustable buttstock, but I did some troubleshooting on Sunday and figured out it was more a result of too-low buttstock positioning in my shoulder pocket, causing me to have to crane my neck downward in an awkward way.

I don’t remember a ton about my first Appleseed, largely because the day was characterized by me trying to wrangle the M14 rather than focus on the material. From what I do recall, I didn’t notice a lot of changes, other than this weekend’s Appleseed instruction seemed to move at an even quicker pace, but there was more history interjected. Obviously, when working in an environment where it’s functionally dark at 4pm, the material had to be condensed somewhat. They glossed over the thorough explanation of holds we got last time (center vs. six-o’clock, the latter of which is their preference) and only talked about the hasty sling in conjunction with the standing position.

This weekend was totally full of win.

Friday, we went to the range with our Thanksgiving visitors and another friend. I got to refine my RRA mid-length’s zero, play with a .22LR AR upper (do want!), and try out a Kimber 1911.

Saturday, I would up going to the Appleseed (by myself!) and will have more on that soon. The quick version is: I very much like the concept of the Appleseed Project, but have issues with aspects of the implementation. I suspected this after the first one I attended, but wanted to give it a go with something more reasonable than an M14 before forming a solid opinion. My middy was perfectly well-behaved, and it was great to get a long range day, regardless.

Sunday, I opted not to attend the second day of the Appleseed, and instead went out to the range with the fam and friends to work on some of the things we’d gone over at the Appleseed – and to work past others. The Inconvenience watched me shoot and helped me with some positioning issues and other suggestions. I felt a marked improvement over my post-Appleseed mental state, and saw a marked improvement on the paper, too.

Anyway, I don’t want to get into a detailed review just yet, as I’m typing this on the iPhone and it would take forever. I’ll conclude with something I want everyone to keep in mind for when I do post it (probably tomorrow): I think the Appleseed Project is a fantasic way to get people to the range. I am stoked that it is growing. I am just not sold on some of what they teach, or the manner in which it is taught, and I’d like to see them make some changes to make the program even better. Criticisms of Appleseed seem sort of verboten, but it’s my anecdotal experience that, well, folks have them, and they’re valid.

Esto Perpetua.

I’m thankful for a lot of things and a lot of folks, but to pick just one this year:

Eugene Stoner.

Hope you’re all satiated and, um, not Giants fans. Muahaha. Go Denver!

I’m not sure where The Inconvenience snagged this, but:

I can’t stop watching it. It’s so good, it almost makes me like Alexander Hamilton.

(Props to The Sister for recognizing Lin-Manuel Miranda from the season opener of House.)

There’s an Appleseed shoot in my neck of the woods on Nov. 28/29 – weekend after this upcoming weekend. A buddy and his girl are going, and I’m contemplating tagging along. I think the Girl Child is old enough to handle at least the first day without me (I can always beg off the second if she doesn’t do well) and The Inconvenience is willing to watch her alone for the day.

Pros:
1. Women shoot free, ‘cept for the $10 range fee (per day). Last I checked, I qualify for that.
2. I’d like to shoot an Appleseed not with a behemoth .308. Furthermore,
3. I’d like to shoot an Appleseed with my carbine. It would be a good bonding experience.
4. SHOOTY GOODNESS! Lord, I am so overdue.
5. I can drag The Sister along; she’s never been. Never mind, she says she won’t miss the below-referenced football game.

Cons:
1. It’s probably gonna be cold, and possibly rainy. (Don’t give me that look!)
2. I have out-of-town guests visiting for T-Day, and I’d have to bail before they left Saturday morning, probably. (Unless they want to Appleseed it up as well? Eh, eh, E&B?)
3. I’d miss the last home Vandal game of the season.
4. I can’t guarantee the Girl Child will tolerate it well.
5. I’m perpetually ammo-broke in the 5.56 department. I could take our Remington 597 (I guess .22s are being encouraged, anyway) but our mags are a) scarce and b) finicky. I know, you can technically shoot an Appleseed with a bolt rifle, but – ugh, what a PITA.

My pros list sounds significantly more substantial than my cons list, doesn’t it?

Hmmmmm…

Any of you local yokels plan to go, or care to be convinced?

Breda had to tell a bunch of wannabe experts to STFU with all the “help” when everyone decided to critique a video of her shooting an M14 for the first time.

My reaction to the video, for the record, was: “She took that better than I would have with the same stance, and I’m not operating with a prosthetic leg.” Go, Breda.

That said, it also reminded me of the time I decided to attend an Appleseed shoot. With a borrowed M14. A tricked out M14, at that. Um, ouch. I did complete the first day, which was the official coursework, but I took the second, long-range fun day off to nurse my very bruised shoulder and twitching arm muscles.

But, hey – I did it! And that’s why I have absolutely zero, zip, zilch problem embracing my perfectly girl-sized AR-15. I earned it, dammit.