Maryland Appleseed has had a rough Spring due to the range closures and social distancing requirements imposed by the State. We went from having a bunch of sold-out shoots and a whole year of events to a lot of cancellations, uncertainties, transfers to future events, etc. I know it was frustrating to attendees and I can assure you, it was just as frustrating to our instructors and state/national leadership. We have a mission, that mission is more important than ever, and we can’t perform it. But we are starting to get opportunities to do so.
Last weekend (June 27-28) we had our first area event since early March at Leetown Gun Club (IWLA) in Kearneysville, West Virginia. It is a great club – we had one of the range bays all to ourselves and the clubhouse had real bathrooms.
It was hot and sunny all weekend – high 80s to low 90s. When a breeze blew or we were under cover, it was downright pleasant. When we were in the sun, it was pretty damn hot and I was sweating buckets. There were threats of thunderstorms but we none rolled through. West Virginia was beautiful to drive through on the way there and back and it was my first time away from Maryland since March.
We had a bunch of our former and current Maryland cadre there – Cold Warrior, Aninha, BeSwift, Brickhouse, Double A Ron – along with 4 other students, many of which had been to a prior Appleseed. With that much instructor firepower, so to speak, I asked if I could shoot at the event. Instructors get to shoot for free but we don’t always get the chance to shoot due to class sizes. This one worked out just right.
My original plan was to try for a perfect 250 AQT score. Those are pretty hard to get – Maryland has 5 or 6 people who have done it (some more than once) but some states don’t have any. I have been in the high 230s to mid-240s at past events and in practice. However, those last few points are hard to come by– one 3 in an otherwise perfect bottom row and you lose 4 points. A malfunction or a mental lapse anywhere and you are done.
I packed my Appleseed-edition Tippmann M4-22 ( review here) and figured if I achieved my goal (or got too frustrated trying) I could switch to my CZ Scout, which is a fun little rifle to shoot. I almost brought an extra scoped 10/22 but it seemed like overkill to have 3 rifles for 2 days. The Tippmann is typically in the 240s for me (high score of 246), so I was pretty confident that it could do the job if I would do mine.
It didn’t work out the way I envisioned.
I cleared the Saturday morning Red Coat with the Tippmann and we got through Squares and Green Coat practice targets as well as 2 of the 3 Strikes of history. The Tippmann was grouping well - as long as you don't look at that horrible standing stage...
The student next to me was having issues with her 10/22 – it was reliable but wasn’t grouping well. Still don’t know what the issue was but we did have several scope mounts come loose during the event (Blue Locktite is your friend).
She was getting pretty frustrated so I offered my Tippman right before the first practice AQT – the mission and students are more important than a patch. She ran it for the rest of the weekend and ended up topping out at an excruciating 209 score on her best AQT (oh did we scrutinize that target for one more point). It was her first time running an AR platform and she seemed interested in getting one. I call that a win!
So, out came the CZ Scout for the first practice AQT. It is a looker of a rifle, if I do say so myself.
I did a review of my “adultified” CZ455 Scout last year. A quick overview of the mods:
1. Removed the rear sight and added a Tech Sights rear aperture sight (TSM120CZ) to the rear dovetail that works with the existing front sight
2. Replaced the compact youth stock with an adult-sized CZ Training Rifle stock
3. MCarbo spring kit to (slightly) lighten the trigger
Now, while I had not been warming up with it all morning, I know how to run the rifle and trusted the zero. I had practiced quite a bit for the 200-yard rimfire with my CZ455 Training Rifle (AAR here) and had done an untimed practice AQT at Berwyn a couple weeks ago, achieving my highest score with it of a 228).
The rifle validated that – I scored a Rifleman qualifying 213 on the first AQT of the weekend.
We then finished off Saturday with a Red Coat – and those have proven to be a challenge for this rifle. On the Saturday afternoon Red Coat, I missed 1 in the 300 and 1 in the shingle. On the Sunday morning Red Coat, I missed a lot more than that.
While I have cleared all of the silhouette targets at various times, the Shingle is my nemesis with my iron sighted CZs. I believe there are several reasons for that.
First, the CZ front sight is relatively wide at .08 inches wide, which is about 11 MOA (if my math is correct). As a point of reference, standard AR A2 front sights are .07 inches and national match sights are .05 to .06 inches. That makes the CZ front sight great for rapid sight acquisition and focus, but a bit harder for holding on the 3 MOA wide shingle (the smallest of all Appleseed targets).
Second, the top of the front sight is not completely horizontal – when the rifle is not canted, there is a shallow angle from right to left on the sight blade.
I know that both of these issues could be fixed with careful filing, but I am a coward
Whatever the cause, I have found it more difficult to hit the shingle with this rifle than even other iron sighted rifles (not easy in any event). I am going to do some focused practice on that, see if I can nail down a sight picture that consistently works.
After the Sunday morning Red Coat, we did one more sighter square to confirm zero (if you haven't done an Appleseed, that is a 1-inch black square and a 1/4 inch grid shot at 25 meters - I felt good about that) before jumping into AQTs.
My first two AQTs of Sunday were a bit disappointing – 200 and 201.
I find that iron sights are unforgiving – they can certainly deliver me a Rifleman score and more (I witnessed someone score a near perfect 248 with them) but the wheels can come off. This is partly because you do not get any immediate feedback beyond your sight picture during the follow-through phase (the shot broke, you are holding back the trigger, and you take a mental snapshot of where you think the shot landed).
With a scope that can resolve 22LR holes at 25 meters (3-4X will do that), I can see that things are working...or that they are not and make adjustments. With irons, you just have to trust your sight picture and NPOA.
We took a break for some Dangerous Old Men, lunch, and plenty of water. I came back feeling fresh and the next two AQTs felt smooth and strong.
One of the concerns about running a bolt action at an Appleseed are the rapid-fire stages (55 seconds for stage 2 and 65 seconds for stage 3). You not only have to cycle the action each time but quickly re-establish your sight picture. With practice, you can be just as fast as any semi-auto rifle – I was getting off my first shots on the transition phases faster than the semi-auto rifles, the best being 9 seconds (and, yes, we were all doing the transition). I also typically finished the course of fire with 5-10 seconds left.
Cadence is critical – you still need to do the follow-through phase described above, but then immediately cycle the action, front sight focus, fire – rinse, repeat. This is where dry-fire practice can be extremely valuable. Learn the indexing point for your magazine while in position, maintain cheekweld, minimize movement while manipulating the bolt, run the bolt with authority, and reestablish front sight focus as soon as possible.
Both were qualifiers at 216. I guess that was my capacity with the CZ for the weekend. I was hoping for higher scores but this is a game of millimeters.
To maximize the number of AQTs we could do for the weekend, we switched over to doing Rapid AQTs – that is doing all 4 stages (with 4 magazines of 10 rounds each) in 4 minutes. Problem being, I only brought magazines for 30 rounds (2 10s and 2 5s) for the CZ. Another bonehead packing error like not bringing an extra 10/22.
Luckily former instructor Double A Ron (who had already racked up a 234 on Saturday and was consistently qualifying as a Rifleman) had brought a second 10/22 that day with a customer trigger, nice stock, aftermarket barrel, scope, and 4 extra 10-round magazines. Did I want to borrow it? Yes please!
The first rapid AQT with the new rifle was not great – a 208. I switched ammo from standard velocity to high velocity (which it was zeroed for) and scored a 236 on the next rapid.
The next target was another rapid and things fell apart in stage 3. I had a unfired round that did not eject from the tight chamber (there is a warning right on the barrel) and so I had a succession of bent rounds as I tried tap, rack, bang drills and finally ran out of time. This happened at another event using a match barrel but in that case, I dropped a couple rounds in a stage. On a rapid, it is a killer.
We ran a boresnake through the chamber and barrel to get out any crud and added a little lube ahead of one last rapid fire AQT. This time I scored another 236. Like I said on the back-to-back 216s with the CZ Scout, I guess that was my capacity for the weekend.
I decided to switch back to the CZ for the last Red Coat, hoping to solve the Shingle. Missed again and dropped a shot in the 400. Well, maybe next time.
Apart from the shooting, it was a wonderful weekend. It was great to catch up with old friends, meet some new ones, renew appreciation for our history, and get back into making Riflemen.
Some of you may be interested in our COVID precautions. We were outside (which helps), practiced social distancing as much as possible (spacing mats and equipment areas). I admit that masks were used sometimes but not all the time – hoping the distancing and fresh air helps. The Shoot Boss did have extra masks for anyone who needed one. We washed hands, disinfected, and did “chicken wing” style handshakes. Definitely felt weird coming from a state with a ton of restrictions and weirder since Appleseed requires a lot of close quarters coaching and loaner equipment.
I hope to see you guys on the Appleseed trail as we start back up in Maryland. Special thanks to my fellow instructors and students for a wonderful weekend.
Last weekend (June 27-28) we had our first area event since early March at Leetown Gun Club (IWLA) in Kearneysville, West Virginia. It is a great club – we had one of the range bays all to ourselves and the clubhouse had real bathrooms.
It was hot and sunny all weekend – high 80s to low 90s. When a breeze blew or we were under cover, it was downright pleasant. When we were in the sun, it was pretty damn hot and I was sweating buckets. There were threats of thunderstorms but we none rolled through. West Virginia was beautiful to drive through on the way there and back and it was my first time away from Maryland since March.
We had a bunch of our former and current Maryland cadre there – Cold Warrior, Aninha, BeSwift, Brickhouse, Double A Ron – along with 4 other students, many of which had been to a prior Appleseed. With that much instructor firepower, so to speak, I asked if I could shoot at the event. Instructors get to shoot for free but we don’t always get the chance to shoot due to class sizes. This one worked out just right.
My original plan was to try for a perfect 250 AQT score. Those are pretty hard to get – Maryland has 5 or 6 people who have done it (some more than once) but some states don’t have any. I have been in the high 230s to mid-240s at past events and in practice. However, those last few points are hard to come by– one 3 in an otherwise perfect bottom row and you lose 4 points. A malfunction or a mental lapse anywhere and you are done.
I packed my Appleseed-edition Tippmann M4-22 ( review here) and figured if I achieved my goal (or got too frustrated trying) I could switch to my CZ Scout, which is a fun little rifle to shoot. I almost brought an extra scoped 10/22 but it seemed like overkill to have 3 rifles for 2 days. The Tippmann is typically in the 240s for me (high score of 246), so I was pretty confident that it could do the job if I would do mine.
It didn’t work out the way I envisioned.
I cleared the Saturday morning Red Coat with the Tippmann and we got through Squares and Green Coat practice targets as well as 2 of the 3 Strikes of history. The Tippmann was grouping well - as long as you don't look at that horrible standing stage...
The student next to me was having issues with her 10/22 – it was reliable but wasn’t grouping well. Still don’t know what the issue was but we did have several scope mounts come loose during the event (Blue Locktite is your friend).
She was getting pretty frustrated so I offered my Tippman right before the first practice AQT – the mission and students are more important than a patch. She ran it for the rest of the weekend and ended up topping out at an excruciating 209 score on her best AQT (oh did we scrutinize that target for one more point). It was her first time running an AR platform and she seemed interested in getting one. I call that a win!
So, out came the CZ Scout for the first practice AQT. It is a looker of a rifle, if I do say so myself.
I did a review of my “adultified” CZ455 Scout last year. A quick overview of the mods:
1. Removed the rear sight and added a Tech Sights rear aperture sight (TSM120CZ) to the rear dovetail that works with the existing front sight
2. Replaced the compact youth stock with an adult-sized CZ Training Rifle stock
3. MCarbo spring kit to (slightly) lighten the trigger
Now, while I had not been warming up with it all morning, I know how to run the rifle and trusted the zero. I had practiced quite a bit for the 200-yard rimfire with my CZ455 Training Rifle (AAR here) and had done an untimed practice AQT at Berwyn a couple weeks ago, achieving my highest score with it of a 228).
The rifle validated that – I scored a Rifleman qualifying 213 on the first AQT of the weekend.
We then finished off Saturday with a Red Coat – and those have proven to be a challenge for this rifle. On the Saturday afternoon Red Coat, I missed 1 in the 300 and 1 in the shingle. On the Sunday morning Red Coat, I missed a lot more than that.
While I have cleared all of the silhouette targets at various times, the Shingle is my nemesis with my iron sighted CZs. I believe there are several reasons for that.
First, the CZ front sight is relatively wide at .08 inches wide, which is about 11 MOA (if my math is correct). As a point of reference, standard AR A2 front sights are .07 inches and national match sights are .05 to .06 inches. That makes the CZ front sight great for rapid sight acquisition and focus, but a bit harder for holding on the 3 MOA wide shingle (the smallest of all Appleseed targets).
Second, the top of the front sight is not completely horizontal – when the rifle is not canted, there is a shallow angle from right to left on the sight blade.
I know that both of these issues could be fixed with careful filing, but I am a coward
Whatever the cause, I have found it more difficult to hit the shingle with this rifle than even other iron sighted rifles (not easy in any event). I am going to do some focused practice on that, see if I can nail down a sight picture that consistently works.
After the Sunday morning Red Coat, we did one more sighter square to confirm zero (if you haven't done an Appleseed, that is a 1-inch black square and a 1/4 inch grid shot at 25 meters - I felt good about that) before jumping into AQTs.
My first two AQTs of Sunday were a bit disappointing – 200 and 201.
I find that iron sights are unforgiving – they can certainly deliver me a Rifleman score and more (I witnessed someone score a near perfect 248 with them) but the wheels can come off. This is partly because you do not get any immediate feedback beyond your sight picture during the follow-through phase (the shot broke, you are holding back the trigger, and you take a mental snapshot of where you think the shot landed).
With a scope that can resolve 22LR holes at 25 meters (3-4X will do that), I can see that things are working...or that they are not and make adjustments. With irons, you just have to trust your sight picture and NPOA.
We took a break for some Dangerous Old Men, lunch, and plenty of water. I came back feeling fresh and the next two AQTs felt smooth and strong.
One of the concerns about running a bolt action at an Appleseed are the rapid-fire stages (55 seconds for stage 2 and 65 seconds for stage 3). You not only have to cycle the action each time but quickly re-establish your sight picture. With practice, you can be just as fast as any semi-auto rifle – I was getting off my first shots on the transition phases faster than the semi-auto rifles, the best being 9 seconds (and, yes, we were all doing the transition). I also typically finished the course of fire with 5-10 seconds left.
Cadence is critical – you still need to do the follow-through phase described above, but then immediately cycle the action, front sight focus, fire – rinse, repeat. This is where dry-fire practice can be extremely valuable. Learn the indexing point for your magazine while in position, maintain cheekweld, minimize movement while manipulating the bolt, run the bolt with authority, and reestablish front sight focus as soon as possible.
Both were qualifiers at 216. I guess that was my capacity with the CZ for the weekend. I was hoping for higher scores but this is a game of millimeters.
To maximize the number of AQTs we could do for the weekend, we switched over to doing Rapid AQTs – that is doing all 4 stages (with 4 magazines of 10 rounds each) in 4 minutes. Problem being, I only brought magazines for 30 rounds (2 10s and 2 5s) for the CZ. Another bonehead packing error like not bringing an extra 10/22.
Luckily former instructor Double A Ron (who had already racked up a 234 on Saturday and was consistently qualifying as a Rifleman) had brought a second 10/22 that day with a customer trigger, nice stock, aftermarket barrel, scope, and 4 extra 10-round magazines. Did I want to borrow it? Yes please!
The first rapid AQT with the new rifle was not great – a 208. I switched ammo from standard velocity to high velocity (which it was zeroed for) and scored a 236 on the next rapid.
The next target was another rapid and things fell apart in stage 3. I had a unfired round that did not eject from the tight chamber (there is a warning right on the barrel) and so I had a succession of bent rounds as I tried tap, rack, bang drills and finally ran out of time. This happened at another event using a match barrel but in that case, I dropped a couple rounds in a stage. On a rapid, it is a killer.
We ran a boresnake through the chamber and barrel to get out any crud and added a little lube ahead of one last rapid fire AQT. This time I scored another 236. Like I said on the back-to-back 216s with the CZ Scout, I guess that was my capacity for the weekend.
I decided to switch back to the CZ for the last Red Coat, hoping to solve the Shingle. Missed again and dropped a shot in the 400. Well, maybe next time.
Apart from the shooting, it was a wonderful weekend. It was great to catch up with old friends, meet some new ones, renew appreciation for our history, and get back into making Riflemen.
Some of you may be interested in our COVID precautions. We were outside (which helps), practiced social distancing as much as possible (spacing mats and equipment areas). I admit that masks were used sometimes but not all the time – hoping the distancing and fresh air helps. The Shoot Boss did have extra masks for anyone who needed one. We washed hands, disinfected, and did “chicken wing” style handshakes. Definitely felt weird coming from a state with a ton of restrictions and weirder since Appleseed requires a lot of close quarters coaching and loaner equipment.
I hope to see you guys on the Appleseed trail as we start back up in Maryland. Special thanks to my fellow instructors and students for a wonderful weekend.
