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Gil Martin
08-07-2011, 07:28 PM
Yesterday was Youth Field Day at our local gun club. I usually ran the Outdoor Safety and Survival Training, but this year was shifted to the 50 yard rifle range. What a blessing. Savage Arms gave us 4 AXIS .223 bolt action rifles and scopes. A local gun shop provided a case of .223 ammo. My buddy and I sighted the rifles in last week and I made hundreds or bullseye and groundhog targets at work on the copy machine.

The Youth Field Day hosted 225 children and was divided into two sections; the younger kids number 125 and shot .22 rifles, went fishing, shot crossbows and did some map reading work. Our group was the older teenagers numbering 70 who shot muzzleloaders and our .223 course. There were six volunteers at our station and we had an instructor at each bench with each shooter. The youngsters fired three rounds at the bullseye target than went forward to check the results. They then fired three rounds at the groundhog target and retrieved their targets. Most of the shooters kept their targets and most shot nice groups near or in the bullseye. Not one rifle needed any scope adjustment.

The NRA gave us 50 shirts, 100 pins and 100 gun safety brochures. All the best...
Gil

Jack
08-07-2011, 09:07 PM
That's a great thing to do, Gil!

Dan Morris
08-08-2011, 06:23 AM
Always nice to see the next generation of shooter get started!
Dan
:D

Adam Helmer
08-08-2011, 12:36 PM
Gil,

The Tioga County Youth Field Day will be at Ives Run on Saturday August 20, 2011. We are limited by the facility to 150 kids and adult sponsors. We have 10 stations and I will be spending my 12th (or 14th) year on Blackpowder. We give every kid and adult a shirt, hat, fanny pack and turkey call every year.

I am glad the downstate counties have a YFD.

Adam

powell&hyde
08-08-2011, 02:09 PM
That is awesome Gil, I use to help out many years ago with the boy-scouts introducing them to firearms. Its always great to see some one teaching our young ones about firearms. Congrats.

M.T. Pockets
08-09-2011, 03:54 PM
That's fantastic Gil, I'm impressed with the number that turned out. Young people are still interested in the outdoors, but times have changed - they need interested adults to take them.

buckhunter
08-10-2011, 09:03 AM
Sure beat playing XBox or whatever they call it today. Good Job.

Rapier
08-10-2011, 12:30 PM
Good on you Gil & Adam. Youth = our future.:)
Ed

Adam Helmer
08-21-2011, 02:20 PM
Yesterday we had the Annual Tioga County (PA) Youth Field Day at Ives Run in Tioga, PA. We had 159 kids ages 8 to 15 in 10 groups every 35 minutes all day long except for a 40 minute lunch break. I was on blackpowder with two other people. One person loaded our 5 rifles, I did the introduction to muzzleloaders for a few minutes and then capped all ML arms at the firing point for each kid. After they fired, I handed the empty rifle to worker #3 and he handed me a loaded rifle.

Our 159 kids shot an average of 4 times and then each kid's required adult sponsor fired at our balloons 30 yards from the firing point. My pedometer said I walked 6.6 miles between 0900 and 1600 yesterday! That is a bit much for an old guy, IMHO. Many adults were women who never fired a gun before. Most broke the balloon targets while firing a 50 grain charge of Triple 7 and 50 caliber patched round ball.

All the young folks will be voters one day and I hope they take a positive view of firearms into the voting booth with them.

Adam

Rapier
08-21-2011, 03:13 PM
Way to go Adam, and the 6.6 is a good streatch of the legs for a young guy.
Ed