For Christmas, I rented a cabin in the Texas Hill Country to take my wife and baby. We took my wife's nephew, who is 11 years old and does not have a father in his life. He plays a lot of video games but has never shot a real firearm. I took a pistol for protection, and a cheap chinese .22 spring air pellet rifle for fun. I asked the boy's mother if he could try shooting the air rifle. She is very anti-gun because she is a liberal and also there was a shooting at her school a long time ago, but she said OK. I introduced him to basic safety, muzzle control, trigger squeeze. The air rifle has a basic 4x scope (iron sights would be better for an intro, I admit). Anyway, after a lot of attempts and trigger squeeze vs. jerk, he finally started to hit targets off a rest. We then set up a "rotel" can hanging off a branch, and he was able to hit that off a rest at 15 yards. Also, while he had a lot of trouble cocking that tough spring piston, he finally got the hang of it. Well then we needed a better challenge, so we found an old empty propane tank and set that up at 25 yards, made a nice "DING" (I cautioned him about ever shooting at pressurized tanks, etc.). Then we moved it to about 55 yards, and we were hitting hit regularly off the rest, granted with about an 18 inch hold-over. He loved it!! We then put a plastic two-liter out there, which also made a satisfying "thwack" sound and fell over when hit, and was a bit more of a challenge. Then we put out a wine bottle, an even greater challenge, with a nice "ding". On his last shot with his last pellet, he hit and knocked over the wine bottle from 55 yards, granted from a rest, and with an 18" kentucky hold-over -- he was elated! My best shot was to hit a two-liter off hand from 55 yards, he was impressed. i will continue to work with him on air-guns, gradually move him up to .22. This boy needs a lot of mentoring and direction, and I think shooting is a great way to give it. He is anxious to work on his off-hand non-resting shooting form. Anybody else have any similar stories, maybe about how you got intro'd to shooting or did the same for a young man or woman.
Introducing a young man to shooting
- Thread starter Strafer
- Start date
- Status
You are doing a great service for this 11 year old boy. My parents split up at about the same point in my life and if it weren't for my uncles, I don't know that I would have ever been exposed properly to the wonderful world of shooting.
Thanks. Yeah, he calls me "uncle," and my uncle (mother's brother) was instrumental in teaching me to shoot, and drive, and drink -- not necessarily in that order. Everybody needs father figures and uncle-figures, and there are way too many kids who have neither.
- Status
