Feh. The NEShooters.com All Star High Power Rifle Team comes out of the woodwork to hate on Fred. What other thread can I just roll in and take a drive by shit on someone else's hard work while they're busting their ass trying to get an event going? You wouldn't even do that to a half assed pictureless overpriced classifieds listing, so why would you do it here?
Everybody goes out shooting for different reasons and under different contexts. Jose doesn't know it, but he planted the seed of getting started in High Power in my mind on another forum years ago. Derek gave me the final nudge a couple months ago and I had an awesome time. I thank you both. But frankly, if it weren't for Fred and some others you'd probably think are a bunch of kooks, you'd probably find me today more interested in owning safe queens than I'd be in shooting them well.
Fred is a man who is particularly impressed by the events of a single day in history, April 19, 1775, where right in our own backyards hundreds of Americans picked up their rifles, left their homes behind to burn, and shot British soldiers from Lexington and Concord all the way back to Boston. Paranoid kook fantasy? No, it happened right here and it didn't happen by accident. Those Minutemen were already prepared into 50 man companies and assembled from as far as Salem and Marblehead in an age without cell phones or internal combustion engines.
The theory behind Appleseeds is that if more Americans understand the sacrifices the very first Americans made and apply that context to the time at the range, we'll be far less likely to throw our own rights under the bus ever time some hack nanny politician suggests it's for our own good. Nothing imprints stronger on the mind than a new hands-on experience with a no-nonsense standard. And all you need is 25m, and a backstop.
The method
1. Learn your history
2. Learn your rifle
3. Learn to Show #1 and #2 to your neighbor.
Does it work? Of course it does, or we wouldn't be bending over backwards to get new shooters to come out to the range with us. I've seen them go from "Why do you need all those rifles" to "Which one should I get?" to "Which one should I get next?" You don't think that person sees right through the next 50BMG ban coming down the pike? You've probably all done the same, so what's so horrible about this one?
On a more fundamental note, we love what we're doing, think it's fun as hell, and want to share it with others. That's why Jose's all over the place promoting HP and Derek'll take the time to write me 25 emails in two days about Reading Rifle and shooting jackets. God bless both of you, but don't get so high on your horses that you have to look down on what Fred's doing with Appleseeds. How does promoting Appleseeds make me the equivalent of a guy wearing assless chaps waving a rainbow flag marching down main street? NRA High Power isn't the only place good things can happen.
The basics are the basics wherever you learn them. The guys who run appleseeds are mostly high power shooters too. They advocate it as the best place to go out and put your finer skills to the test under pressure, which of course, it is. He's sending you more shooters, we're all on the same team.
As Nickle mentioned, I just came back from a Two-Day Appleseed in PA. I brought three other newer shooters and most of their equipment with me and that was such a logistical circus I didn't have time to take any pictures. Two of them afterwards asked me separately if I'd help them make plans to set up an Appleseed at a range in New York. I'm proud to say those shooters were my Father and two younger brothers. Haven't been able to stop working since then long enough to write a review (spent it here defending the whole concept instead), but I'll post it here when I do.
Not one mention of the UN all weekend, btw, if that's the only thing anybody wants to know. But if you're too cool to listen to a couple minutes of Paul Revere and George Washington stories in the morning, stay away. I did get my first Rifleman score, (though only once) and had a hell of a good time, so they must be doing something right.
If you're into the UN thing, there was a UN Appreciation day at Fred's own range a couple months back. By far the funnest time I've had shooting so far. He's running one against the redcoats this week. Those are fun shoots, not Appleseeds, so if you want to start bitching about those, make sure you go after the Cowboy Action and IPSC shooters too, and all those Satan Worshipping clubs that were doing Easter Egg shoots last weekend.
Finally, here's an interview about the Appleseed shoots straight from the horse's mouth if anybody can get over themselves long enough to give it a listen:
http://www.jpfo.org/TTA20060330.mp3