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The only "preaching" if you want to call it that is that they strongly urge people to get involved in our governmental process...vote at the least. Mostly though, it is a really neat history lesson on April 19, 1775. A story telling style of the event of that day. You shoot and train on a position or two and take a break while one of the instructors shares a part of the tale. Do some more shooting/training and break for lunch and another instructor shares another part of the events of that day in our history. They share things we never heard about in school and tell about lesser known individuals and their roles during the struggle that unfolds. if you look on the site, I believe they tell the name of the book much of their information comes from. We actually found it at the local library. We appreciated the breaks in the shooting to sit down and listen (in the shade ). I believe nearly all of our instructors grew up hunting and thought it would be a piece of cake when they first took the class but found it was not the case. One of our leaders was even an Olympic trainee for marksmanship and shot in the military and became an instructor because he was so impressed with the program. All the instructors are volunteer and do it because of a love for Country, shooting and teaching. My brother had a friend who came but had to leave early Sat. and one of the instructors went off to the side with him during a break and gave him a crash course on what he would miss. It really impressed him that they would go out of their way like that.

PS. If you are really that good, you can get a great deal. From what I remember, if you can shoot a qualifying AQT score from the get go, your weekend is free. Course they might ask you to become an instructor.

TGIF

I forgot to mention. You would be well advised to practice dry firing in the prone and sitting/kneeling positions about 5-10 minutes a day for about 2 weeks just prior to the event. My daughter and i did a little and we paid for it....talk about sore..... We also started "practicing" loading rounds in some mags for about 2 weeks before the shoot. Kept a couple of mags and rounds handy and daughter and I would unload and reload them each day to get fingers toughened up. She was glad we did. 500 rounds is a bunch of loading. Take lots of sun screen, water, bug juice, hat,...... We took some of those pop-up canopies for a little shade and it helped some.

Targets are at 25yds to and sized to simulate 100yd shot for sighting and technique training. The AQT targets are sized to simulate 100yd - 400 or 500yd shots if i remember correctly. You will shoot it from standing, standing to kneeling/sitting (transition), sitting and I think we went from standing to prone (transition). There are also required mag changes during the course of fire....2 shots in one mag...change and shoot 3 more, etc.

Have Fun!

We went last September at the College Station shoot. My dad (71) and brother went with me and my daughter (15). It was hot and it rained on us a while on Sat. but WOW, what a great time. The instructors were great and really took time to give personal instruction and they ran a tight line. We all shot 10/22s with scopes (they make you crank them all the way down to min magnification) and it is tough. Shot nearly 500 rounds and we were exhausted by Sun afternoon but we are going back. My daughter even said she wants to do it again...Yee Haw!! My dad could not get down on the ground for prone or kneeling/sitting so they let him bring a small table out Sun to shoot from. He could not qualify for the patch but he could enjoy the history lessons, fellowship and shooting. I try to tell everyone I can to go to one even if they are experienced shooters/hunters. My father was on a pistol team in the army (way back) and several other shooter were ex-military shooters and all of them commented on the teaching we received as excellent. Some said they had been in the service for 4 years and never received the quality of training. We had several female shooters and a couple of young teenagers. You can't beat the price...it was $70 for me and kids under 21 and ladies were free for the 2 days. I believe it changed a little this year. Something like $5 or 10 for kids and ladies. In summation I would just say...GO GO GO !!

TGIF