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Rifle Shooting Merit Badge
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As always, Troop 168 sets up camp upon arriving on Friday night and assigns one patrol to flag duty. Just after the crack of dawn, we hold revelle and roust everyone out of bed. Patrols then get breakfast in their bellies. First thing after eating, the flag patrol gets to work. That means lashing together dining fly poles to make a 25' tall flagpole and to then conduct a flag ceremony for the troop. At this campout, the Panther Patrol had the honor and raised the flag in good form. We were blessed with warm weather this weekend, so shorts were the order of the day under clear, blue skies. After the flag ceremony, Scout patrols returned to their campsites to clean up after breakfast. Meanwhile, the adult leadership set up the firing range. Of course, the Dud Patrol (yep, the adults) had to try out the range for a few hundred rounds. This was like the call of the wild and the patrols finsihed cleaning their campsites in record time. |
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Rifle safety is the most important lesson learned during the Rifle Shooting Merit Badge. For three weeks before this campout, troop meetings concentrated on gun safety, range rules, weapon handling and cleaning. The troop, fortunately, has two trained marksmen and several adults highly-qualified with both pistol and rifles. Scouts are only allowed to use 22-caliber rifles under extremely strict supervision. Instructors helped each Scout as needed to fine-tune their shooting ability. Notice the eye and ear protection (those appearing to not have on ear protection are wearing ear plugs). |
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Keeping the guns sighted through the several thousand rounds fired meant adults had to spend a few rounds adjuting scopes. Each boy brought 300 rounds and several adults brought a thousand (or two or three) for all to share. Each boy ended up firing soemthing like 500 rounds. Only a few Scouts had no experience shooting before the campout and the progress they made was remarkable. |
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Range rules were very strict. In truth, before we began shooting, leadership expected to have a few problems with Scouts remembering all the rules. When the day was over and the plywood target backs had been shredded from the 1,000's of rounds, leadership realized not one single infraction of those rules had occurred. It's worth saying: diligence on the firing line can never slacken for even an instant, but the Scouts proved they respected the rules and understood their necessity. Preparing for this campout is a fair amount of work, but the rewards for the boys are tremendous and worth every bit of effort required. |
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Although each boy progressed significantly during the shooting day, the troop couldn't award completion to any Scout for the merit badge because that can only be done by an NRA Certified Instructor. H & H Gun Range in Oklahoma City has been generous in letting our Scouts come to their range and practice for drastically reduced prices, and to qualify at no cost. H & H has earned our thanks. The afternoon ended with a shoot-off between the boys. These boys can shoot. Two ended up having the same target scores during the contest and had to have a final shoot off to determine which was the better. It was a close-run contest. This is one of the boys' favorite campouts ... they still talk about it. |
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