Pistols and Patriotism: Project Appleseed Pistol Clinic AAR

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Way back in 2014, shortly after starting the first iteration of this site on a free WordPress blog, I attended a two-day Project Appleseed event. It was a hot August weekend in the hills of Santa Barbara, California. While most people brought along Ruger 10/22s or something similar, I showed up with an iron sighted 20″ AR (that eventually became my M16A5). While I came up a few points short of earning my Rifleman patch that weekend, I still think it was the best introduction to rifle marksmanship that anyone can do. The fact that the instruction intertwines with a good bit of Revolutionary War storytelling is a cherry on top.

Not long ago, I told you that my focus for the rest of this year and probably next year shifted to pistol shooting. With that, I’ve been working through dry fire and reviewing several books on the topic. One day, I discovered that the fine folks at Project Appleseed put together a pistol training course to coincide with the excellent rifle training I did ten years ago. Even better, I looked at the schedule and saw that there was a one-day pistol clinic scheduled for October 1st at the NRA Headquarters Range in Fairfax, Virginia. So I signed up back in July and started the wait.

The rest of this post walks you through the program and my experience with the pistol clinic. Enjoy!

Note: I borrowed photos of the actual event and instruction from the shoot boss, Bill. He posted them to the official Appleseed Forum and his Flickr account, so hopefully he doesn’t mind me reposting them here as part of my report.

Project Appleseed

Just about every story within Project Appleseed revolves around the events of April 19, 1775: the battle of Lexington and Concord. This was, more or less, the official start of the American Revolution. Back in the late 1990’s, Jack Dailey wrote a series of pieces for Shotgun News under the pseudonym “Fred.” While the articles were partly an advertising bid for Jack’s business, Freds M14 Stocks, they contained bits of history and a call to develop basic marksmanship skills.

Eventually, this spun off into a CMP-affiliated group known as the Revolutionary War Veterans Association, who went around the country teaching rifle clinics called Appleseeds. Like the namesake Johnny Appleseed, the goal was planting the seeds of patriotism and the tradition of marksmanship in participants.

Without going into detail, know that every Appleseed event involves telling the three strikes of the match. Each part of the story occurs during breaks in between blocks of marksmanship instruction. The three strikes story involves many real historical figures such as British General Thomas Gage, British Major John Pitcairn, Militia Captain John Parker, Militia Colonel James Barrett, and more colorful figures. The stories track the events of the day from the Lexington green to the North Bridge of Concord, then back to Meriams Corner and the retreat back to Boston.

By the end of the day, the British officers realized they had greatly underestimated the skills and fighting spirit of the colonists, and the Revolution was afoot.

Pistol Clinic Instruction

After initial safety briefings, we headed out to the range. As with my rifle experience ten years ago, the first event is a “Redcoat Target.” Whereas the rifle event uses F-Type Silhouettes, the pistol clinic uses a series of tombstone-shaped targets. In both cases, the targets represent what you’ll be shooting later in the event for score. With the Red Coat target, there is no scoring rings and the only thing that matters is hitting the target. Any hit on the red zone or breaking the line counts.

For the pistol clinic, the final shot is a small circle representing “Major Pitcairn’s button.” The purpose of this first drill is for the instructors to evaluate where each student is at. I’m happy to report that I cleaned the target (though just barely edging the button on the final shot), and it earned me a special patch for the event.

From there, we received basic instruction on each of the pistol marksmanship fundamentals: stance, grip, sight picture, breathing, trigger control, etc. Much like the rifle clinic, this is all good quality instruction of the basics. After each lesson, we would fire a series of drills and the instructors helped students implement the lesson. The expectation was that students would see incremental improvement in their shooting after implementing each new item.

For most of these drills, we used a large target with a series of twenty 3″ circles. I liked this target for general training, and I’m going to pick up a bunch for my own use. We also used training versions of the tombstone target, designed for positioning at different distances to simulate the stages of the qualification test.

My Weak Point

Given that I cleaned the opening Red Coat target, I was not really the focus of much instruction. Several students in the class were very new shooters who were having trouble keeping hits consistently on paper, much less producing small groupings in the various drill targets. That said, the most revealing portion of the course was the ball and dummy drill.

While I’m not a stranger to the ball and dummy, it’s not something I do frequently on my own. The drill is simple, though. Go to the line with some quantity of live ammunition and at least one dummy round or snap cap. The instructor stands behind you and inserts the dummy round at random within the magazine. Your task is to shoot the target as perfectly as possible, but you do not know when you’ll hit the dummy round. This drill is fantastic revealing anticipatory flinch, which I definitely had a few times. It’s obvious to you because you’ll unknowingly have a dummy round loaded, squeeze the trigger, and subconsciously “dive” the muzzle down to prepare for the recoil.

Something to work on.

The Pistol Qualification Target

After completing all instruction, it’s time to shoot the Pistol Qualification Target (PQT). The rifle version is a single target sheet, and I have many of them in my crate for taking to the range from time to time. The PQT involves two separate sheets due to the larger tombstone targets. The PQT has five stages all shot at 7 yards, with the targets getting progressively smaller with each stage.

Stage 1 is ten shots rapid fire in 15 seconds on a single target.

Stage 2 is two smaller targets and two magazines with six rounds and four rounds respectively. You alternate two shots on each target, reloading as needed, so that you end up with six shots on one and four shots on the other. You have 15 seconds.

Stages 3 & 4 is one handed shooting. Five shots in 15 seconds with one hand on one target, then another five shots in 15 seconds with the other hand on the other target.

Stage 5 is precision slow fire. You have two minutes to place ten shots across four small targets. Two hits each on the first two, then three hits each on the second two. Points are doubled for this stage.

My Equipment

Before I get to scoring on the PQT, I should tell you what I brought with me for the day. My primary pistol was a recently-acquired Ruger Mark IV Stainless Target pistol. Sitting atop the Ruger is a Meprolight MPO-F optic (reviewed here) on a Lobos mount. I’d only taken it to the range one time for a function check and zero the dot, so I’m relatively unfamiliar with this pistol. For the day, I primarily shot 40gr Eley Club ammunition. I had a lot of malfunctions with the Ruger, unfortunately, but I’ll get to that.

My backup pistol was the CZ P10F equipped with Trijicon SRO. I used this for all the drills where dry fire was part of the equation, or when I wanted to shoot the same drill again with a different pistol. As usual, the P10F shot flawlessly.

My Performance

Since it was a one-day clinic, we only got two attempts at the PQT. I’m happy to report that I beat the required score both times with a score of 230 out of 250 on the first attempt with the Ruger Mark IV, and 214 on the second with the CZ P10F.

I was a little frustrated with that first score, because I bet I could have had a 235 were it not for a malfunction near the last shots of one of the targets. The Ruger has been having some odd extraction issues that lock the whole gun up and require me to eject the magazine and cycle the action several times to clear the jam. This not only cost me time, but is also costs me a round from the magazine that gets all bend out of shape, so I effectively only got to shoot nine rounds out of a ten-round stage that I was scoring near perfectly on. Had I gotten it, then I would have had the top score of the day.

Still, a win is a win and I was happy to walk away with the Pistoleer patch.

Bonus Drills

Aside from the PQT, we also had a bit of an informal competition with big dot/little dot targets. Each sheet has two sets of five circles of different sizes. The drill was a timed run of two shots per target. Any miss added two seconds to your time. On my first go, I ran clean targets with the Mark IV all the way until the last two shots, where I had the same extraction malfunction that caused me to lose two shots from the magazine and run out of ammo. Still, even with the time penalty, I had the fastest time of the group.

On the second run, where I used the CZ P10F, I beat my time by a significant margin and again had the fastest time of the day.

Nice to win from time to time, lol.

Closing Out

To end the day, we shot another Red Coat, with the intention of showing progress made throughout the course of the day. Seeing as I cleaned the target at the start of the day, I had nowhere to go but down- and that’s what happened. Using the P10F this time, I ended up throwing one shot. To make up for it, I center punched the small button target rather than edging it. Aside from me, every other shooter showed progress on their ability as well.

Overall, I think the pistol clinic continues the Appleseed tradition of being an excellent introduction to marksmanship. The curriculum is a solid foundation, and the qualification test is an excellent measure of general marksmanship ability. I would highly recommend you attend Project Appleseed events, both the rifle and pistol version, as a fantastic way to begin your marksmanship journey or polish up on some fundamentals from time to time. Even better, bring a friend who is willing to learn!