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I just got to the point of relaxing after spending 2 full days on Douglas Ridge rifle range participating in the RWVA appleseed course. I wanted to spend a little bit of time getting my thoughts on paper while they were still fresh. I'll be walking through I how I got to the point of firing my first range round yesterday.

TL:DR @Joe Link made me shoot, made me get a rifle, made me spend a bunch of money, and I'm thankful for it.

I apologize how much worthless info there will be in my post... OK here goes.

Approximately 1 year ago @Joe Link attended the appleseed event. He came home extolling the virtues of the class and told me I had to join him for the next one. He was like a tenderfoot trying to get his 1st merit badge. He was adamant about wanting to get his rifleman patch.

We began talking about how he was going to build a 10/22 to shoot with the next time so he would do better. Eventually I caught the bug and decided that I wanted to get a simple low cost 10/22 so I could go to the range with him and practice. Joe sent me a link to a bi-mart ad for a standard 10/22 with an extra mag and I decided to buy it.

Unfortunately... I also made a trip to Cabelas and a forum member's house that same night...

Day 1 I ended up with a stock 10/22, a magpul x-22 hunter stock, a tactical solutions extended magazine release, a tactical solutions picatinny rail, and a tactical solutions x-ring barrel. I put all the pieces together and put a Burris XTR 3-12x50 scope and bi-pod on it and thought I would be done with the rifle.

Joey managed to find a deal somewhere for a similar rifle with a green mountain barrel. We were set to begin our journey into bar tar heroin... I mean ruger 10/22's. Using these 2 tools we made numerous trips to ranges. Genuinely having fun trying to shoot smaller and smaller groups.

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Novemberish 2016:
At this point he began trying to convince me to do the appleseed. I saw how much better he was shooting than me and I decided he was probably right. I agreed to sign up and thought it would be fun to invite my dad to join us. That turned into Joe inviting his dad and brother.

As our excitement grew we decided to invite an anti-gun friend our ours. We promised him we'd "sponsor" him with a rifle, ammo, and his range fee. He agree, but now we needed another rifle...
(unfortunately he ended up not being able to make it so we had to find another friend to go)

Since I had built my setup I had a bunch of take off parts. I thought it would be easy to find another receiver and trigger. That proved to be a costly ($$$$$) mistake.
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I decided that I wanted some Kidd parts to for my gun so I ordered up a Kidd receiver, Kidd bolt, Kidd trigger, and some various other random Kidd pieces (guide rod, screw in trigger pins, kidd bolt buffer).

I was able to put all the "stock parts" back onto the loaner rifle and that should have finished everything. I threw a cheap 1x4-24 scope on it and it was set.
View attachment 358834

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My anal retentive nature got the best of me and it bothered me to have an 80% kidd gun... So I bought a Kidd barrel to complete the setup. I didn't want to use the full size scope on it so I picked up a 1-4x24 vortex scope and SSALT mount. I figured it would be lighter weight and more usable for the 25m shoot.

I was really happy with the rifle, except the bolt hand some drag on the bolt. It cycled fine and I figured it would break in before appleseed (forboding words).

View attachment 358835
View attachment 358854
(the cheek riser looks like it's a different color in the picture, it's not)((the book is "cabin porn"))

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For some stupid reason I was looking on gunbroker.com and found another 10/22 that I bought. Completely unneeded and impulsive buy.

The rifle came with a Stage 1 brimstone tactical (based out of Camas washington) trigger, 20" kidd barrel, old school metal trigger housing, 4-12x50 Hawke scope, magpul x-22 stock, chinesium bi-pod.

My honest plan for this gun was to take the 20" kidd barrel & brimstone trigger off, throw a cheap KSA barrel and stock trigger pack on it and sell the whole thing. THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN (To the displeasure of my wallet and my Fiance)((Speaking of my fiance she has been very supportive through this whole process))

I have wanted to try out Sig Sauer's optics for a while now so I decided this rifle would be a great host for one of their graphite colored scopes... So I picked up a Sig whiskey3 3-9x50 scope for a crazy good price, bought a x-22 grey stock, a warne x-skel grey mount and a volquartsen bolt upgrade kit. Essentially I wanted a grey build.

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Ok so here's my actual appleseed stuff.

On day one of the shoot I was having a problem on the Kidd gun where my bolt was dragging when being racked. It would catch about halfway through the battery process. This was causing jams where the spent round would eject, but the bolt wouldn't cycle far enough back to insert the next round. Needless to say this introduced an added variable that was very frustrating.

The course was still a lot of fun for me and I feel I shot fairly well considering my 20+ years of bad habits. Despite my rifle issues, I scored better than I expected and I looked forward to the next day.

I heard about "story time" before going and I honestly expected it to be a non-stop bombardment of extreme right wing teaparty radical extremism. I expected all the instructors yelling at me from a soapbox extolling the reasons why I'm going to hell for having tried kale on a salad once back in 2003.

I was pleasantly amazed that it was historical and poignant for the topic at hand. It was a memorable experience that I really enjoyed. Essentially I felt that I could bring my non-gun friends to the course and not feel like they would be off-put by the experience.

Exhaustion set in by the time I made it home and I passed out after dinner. I only cleaned the 2 used gun by brushing the bores and lubing the actions. I wish I would have done a full takedown cleaning. I took some aleve and went to bed.

I woke up on day 2 excited to improve my scores and learn more. I picked my dad up and we headed to the range early. The morning session was decent for me. I improved on my day one score by 45 points. I was only 9 points away from qualifying, the goal was in my sights... nothing would stop me.

As we began shooting a qualifier my bolt problem got worse. My gun was jamming after almost every shot. When it didn't jam I was paranoid it did. Consequently my thoughts were on my equipment and my technique. I began to regress and get frustrated. At around 1pm I resolved myself to the fact that I wouldn't be passing and decided to try and help my dad improve his scores more.

By the time the final qualified arrived I said screw the kidd gun and pulled out the grey gun. It wasn't set up for a sling and the scope hadn't been fully dialed in. After shooting the last AQT I was actually impressed with how I did with the handicaps. I figure I scored around 170.

I feel that the instructors genuinely care for the students and the subject matter. They garnered our respect and really set us all up to succeed. A+ to them all

If I could change one thing it would be to a little downtime without stories to meet the other shooters and hear what they were experiencing. I think it would be great to know what everyone else was going through.

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Kind of disjointed I know... but I wanted to get my thoughts down tonight!

The following pictures are how the rifles look right after the shoot (picture 1), after cleaning (picture 2) and the final one... the grey build with my sig legion P299 for our instructor (Signess).

A+ course A+ instucters A+ people F- @Joe Link for making me spend all this money just to fail at qualifying.

Ohh, so he's my review of all my components... Better gear doesn't make you a better shooter, I didn't expect my tools to make me better, I just wanted to have no and pretty things.

View attachment 358851 View attachment 358852
View attachment 358853

So you leave a porn magazine in your living room?

Kinky....
 
So you leave a porn magazine in your living room?

Kinky....
Cabin porn :) it's a great read.

So update to this amazing thread...

Found the problem with my full kid gun. The hammer spring that protrudes out the back of the trigger pack was making contact with the magpul stock. I created a little relief on the stock and voila, all fixed.

Frustrating to say the least.

Also. That bugger @Joe Link convinced me to buy a 10/22 takedown the other day. Decided to build that up and somehow ended up with this.

I'm not a big fan of the scope rail hanging out. But the whole gone is pretty sweet. Magpul backpacker stock, volquartsen lightweight fiber wrapped barrel, brimstone trigger, tac sol mag release, and a Burris fastfire 3. Should be fun to take backpacking this summer :)

IMG_4891.JPG IMG_4892.JPG
 
Our Appleseed experience was similar, at least from the point of being exhausted afterwards! It was 90+ degrees, no breeze, and I was whacked out of my mind on allergy meds just to be able to breathe. We had a fantastic time, and my wife got her patch! We are planning to do another one this year, and I'll hopefully get mine. I was shooting a bolt action centerfire- so of course I bought a .22lr bolt action to use next time! Appleseed is a great reason/excuse to buy equipment that you really don't need.. It's part of the fun!!
 

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