Earning the patch isn’t just about marksmanship; it’s about managing your equipment, your body, and the clock. After three clinics and 1,500+ rounds, here is what actually made the difference in breaking that 210 barrier. 1. The Rifle Matters (Reliability is Accuracy) If you’re fighting your equipment, you aren’t focusing on your “Six Steps of
With my new 10/22 build finally zeroed and cycling perfectly, I kicked off Saturday at 4:00 AM, heading north toward the Sacramento Valley Shooting Center. This was my third Appleseed in four months. My previous outings had peaked at a frustrating 207—missing the patch by a literal eighth of an inch. I’d spent the last
So, as I started prepping for my next Appleseed clinic in a couple of months, I got to thinking about mounting a scope to my Sporter. But I really love that classic wood-stock-and-iron-sights look, and I couldn’t bring myself to mess with it. Instead, I cashed in all my saved store points at the big-box
My second Appleseed was essentially a repeat of the first, though with a much larger class this time around. Saturday was dedicated to the grind of learning and dialing in the rifles, so we didn’t actually make it to an AQT. That said, I managed to clear the 200 and 300-yard targets on the Known
Here’s the after-action report for my first Project Appleseed event—a two-day rifle clinic at the Sacramento Valley Shooting Center last weekend. This was my introduction to the Appleseed experience, and man, what a ride. I’ve shot competitively in the past, though we’re talking 35-plus years ago, and my body was clearly not prepared for the
A few buddies have been nudging me toward an Appleseed clinic for a while now. It’s a two-day deep dive into the bread and butter of marksmanship—traditional positional shooting and the fundamentals of every shot. For those who haven’t heard of them, they’re a national non-profit run by the Revolutionary War Veterans Association. Most of