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
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
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.
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
Or in dealing with a home invaders in your own home.
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.
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.
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.
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 
I can imagine this is what an Appleseed shoot is like
http://www.archive.org/details/Rifle_Marksmanship_with_M1_Rifle_Part_1
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.
The average is around 30-something shooters at most shoots, but there have been 2 that actually broke the 100-mark. Fortunately, we knew those would be big ones ahead of time & were able to arrange large enough ranges that there were no relays needed. In spite of numbers like this, there have still been around 2000 attendees since the program started 2 years ago.
Shrike, I may have an old course of fire on my harddrive at home; if it’s still there, I can email it your way.
Looks like it would be a good basic course teaching the fundamentals of marksmanship
That’s what it’s intended for.
They teach high power oriented shooting, which by this board’s definition would be considered antiquated, since it is really geared toward WW1 type shooting conditions. The sling is tight on your support arm to the point where it cannot be used to load magazines into your gun, so they use their firing arm to do so, etc. The shooting stances are the High Power ones where you are almost standing sideways to the target, not the modern carbine stance as I was taught at a number of classes.
To their credit, they are not claiming to teach things that are suitable for Fallujah, or modern combat. Their whole premise is using High Power type shooting as a vehicle to rekindle America’s interest in riflery and as a byproduct hopefully get them more interested in protecting their gun rights.
The bottom line is that they work very hard at doing something they believe strongly in and are understandbly proud of what their efforts yield.
I am not a part of their organization, but I went to one of their functions in 2006. They had about 3 coaches for each 20 shooters. I believe about 75 shooters showed up. I had a good time, especially since the 5.56mm ammo that I used for the shoot cost me about $100 for 500 rounds back when I bought it. No one bothered me about my using an Aimpoint.
I recently signed up for one in April.
I shot NRA Highpower for several years, then shifted gears and started taking defense/tactical oriented training to develop new skill sets and habits.
Now, I find my rifle skills have slipped considerably at any deliberate, or distance, shooting. Maybe a couple of days of this class will serve as a refresher.
I’d like to keep both types of skills up if I can. Both are good to have. As the saying goes: Specialization is for insects.
The $70 for the class is relatively cheap if it will help on the more sedate/distance/fine accuracy end of my rifle shooting.
And if it really does get people out shooting, and actually working on improving SOMETHING, then that is a worthy endeavor in itself. Maybe it encourages people to go on with other training, be it tactical, long-range, or Highpower-esqe. If so, that’s good too.
I’ll probably post a report after the class.
I think it would be a good way to get a child into shooting. I signed up for an upcoming class and will be taking my future brother in law who is 11. I am mainly going to take him.
People tend to bash events like this. I don’t really know why, but it is certainly misplaced and misunderstood. Inter-personal bullet exchanges do not occur at only 100 meters and under.
The skill-set ingrained by long-distance marksmanship is invaluable. The skills required for precision/long-range proficiency are the fundamentals of marksmanship. Lack of these skills preclude effectiveness with a rifle. As the distance to target gets shorter we simply compress the fundamentals to speed up shot delivery.
I do have issue with high-power standing and sitting positions, but they are still good skills to have. It is not a combat simulation shoot, or a realistic evaluation of combative marksmanship, but it is an excellent training tool, if taken in the correct context.
Great and noble goals. Maybe kindle some interest in learning things suitable for modern combat as well. Like mindset and manipulation.
Q. What do you call someone who stands up to shoot off hand in combat?
A. A casualty.
Pat Rogers
Can I still say his name here?
Mastering the fundamentals prevents the I can’t miss fast enough to catch up.
Remember, if you don’t shoot well, shoot often.
What is antiquated and unrealistic depends on the context in which the techniques are used.
Within the context of what the Appleseed program is trying to accomplish, what they teach is neither antiquated nor unrealistic.
Not all training involves stacking into a room or doing Monicas.
One of the concepts that work from goes as such-
“Learn to shoot your pistol as fast as you can.
Learn to reload your shotgun as fast as you can.
Learn to shoot your rifle as accurately as you can.”
-Jason Jones
Can we shoot shotguns and rifles fast? Can we reload pistols and rifles fast? Can we shoot pistols and shotguns accurately? Sure, but to maximize the ability of each platform, following these concepts will allow you to perform excellently.
There are pleantly of venues that train/force fast shooting and reloading, but few that really work on the accuracy that a rifle/rifleman should be caipable of.
I shot my first Garand match this past weekend and have been looking at these…not the same as shooting a carbine…different rifle, different purpose, different techniques…but I had a great time and have plenty of room for improvement. I don’t think anyone is arguing that shooting an M1 is practical in combat these days, but there’s still value in doing it.
I’d love to try out their bootcamp weeklong classes but can’t fit it in the schedule this year. In the meantime, I’m looking at one of the weekend Indiana or Ohio classes.
I’ll be shooting an M1 with iron sights, but probably bring an AR with optic as a backup. Looks like you can shoot whatever you want, including .22, but that its geared towards vintage rifles.