Project Appleseed - Marksmanship Goals

Marksmanship Goals

The ultimate goal of the rifle marksmanship clinics known as "Appleseeds" is to teach students the ability to maintain a 4 minutes of angle (MOA) precision and accuracy when shooting through the use of traditional sling-stabilized United States Army shooting techniques, using a rack-grade rifle with iron sights. This translates into becoming a rifleman, defined as: a "marksman capable of hitting a man-sized target from 500 yards away." A 4 MOA precision and accuracy translate into being able to put all rounds into a circle with a diameter of 20 inches at 500 yards, equaling the center of mass of a human. At 25 meters, this same 4 MOA precision and accuracy translate into firing rounds accurately into a circle of approximately 1 inch diameter.

Two elements are fundamental to Appleseed rifle clinics: the Six Steps to Firing a Shot and natural point of aim (NPOA). The six steps, as taught by the Appleseed Project, include:

1. Sight alignment
2. Sight picture
3. Respiratory pause
4. Focus
   1. Focus your eye on the front sight
   2. Focus your mind on keeping the front sight on the target
5. Squeeze the trigger
6. Follow through
   1. Hold the trigger back
   2. Call your shot

Detailed instruction by instructors on each of these steps is taught to all attendees as a group with additional one-on-one instruction as necessary.

Natural point of aim is a firing technique that does not rely on the shooter's muscles to aim the rifle. Using a sling, a relaxed body, and the NPOA technique, a rifleman can consistently shoot 4 MOA groups at 500 yards.

Demonstrating the ability to achieve a 4 MOA accuracy and precision requires achieving a score of 210 or higher on an adapted ("Quick and Dirty") Army Qualification Test (AQT), out of a possible 250 points. The AQT uses timed stages to test shooting skill from standing, sitting, and prone positions. The test simulates ranges of 100, 200, 300, and 400 yards. The 400-yard simulated target is approximately 6.25 square centimeters (about one square inch), and is shot at a range of 25 meters. This translates into a 4 MOA wide target which is the rifleman standard in the Appleseed program.

The adapted AQT requires 40 rounds, 10 for each stage, where stage 1 (single target) is fired standing, stage 2 (two targets) is then done standing-to-sitting with a magazine change, stage 3 (three targets) is done standing-to-prone with a magazine change, and stage 4 (four targets) is fired prone with a single magazine. The Appleseed target contains a "V", analogous to the "X" seen on military targets that is used to serve for breaking ties when shooting competitively for score when all hits are in the black on the target.

Shooters who score 210 or better on the "Quick and Dirty" Appleseed AQT earn the Rifleman designation and are issued a Rifleman patch. Upon earning a Rifleman patch twice, participants are eligible to enter the Instructor In Training (IIT) program to teach marksmanship skills to others.

Similar to the U.S. military marksmanship ratings of Unqualified, Marksman, Sharpshooter, and Expert (see Marksmanship Badge (United States), the Appleseed ratings have the same levels, with the exception that instead of "Expert", the equivalent performance level is called "Rifleman".

The choice of selecting a 25 meter range for Project Appleseed stems from several factors. First, most rifles are zeroed at 25 meters to make them ready for use at distances up to the point blank range of the rifle, regardless of rifle. Zeroing a rifle at 25 meters, and becoming proficient with it, therefore readies the rifle for the majority of common uses. Second, there is an established USMC practice of training long range shooters using a 1,000-inch range to practice long range shooting basics independent of environmental and bullet effects, through shooting at reduced scale targets, thereby allowing a shooter to focus solely on Rifleman techniques without having to account additionally for wind, bullet shape details (boattail, etc.), ballistic coefficients, elevation offsets, altitude effects, and similar details. A 1,000-inch range exactly equals 25.4 meters, which rounded to two-digits is precisely 25 meters, the exact distance that Appleseed clinics focus upon. After practicing at reduced scale targets on a 1,000-inch range, the USMC practice is to then transition trained riflemen to a 1,000 yard range, where mitigating techniques required for accounting for secondary effects are taught with the knowledge that the Rifleman fundamentals were made solid at the 1,000-inch range. The skills from Appleseed, shooting scaled targets representing distances up to 400 yards, can therefore provide a foundation of training civilians or military personnel for transitioning to CMP shooting out to distances of 600 yards, to NRA-sponsored National Rifle Matches at Camp Perry shooting out to varying distances, to Wimbledon Cup and F-Class shooting out to distances of 1000-yards, or to even greater ranges, for a variety of shooting sports, by simply reducing the scale of the targets used at an actual distance of 25 meters.

After shooting at an Appleseed, a .30-caliber or similar full-power cartridge rifle, or a 5.56mm (.223) intermediate-power cartridge rifle is essentially ready for real use in most circumstances, with only slight differences needing to be accounted for to reach out up to 400-500 yards.