First I am ancient and so unaware of the "way things are today"
That said, I am a former lightweapons Infantryman AND later an Cannon Battery Officer.
ABout devloping bad habits....... You can do that learning the standard PT and you can even do that "memorizing the material the recruiter gives her" for such can change from day to day and dispite the efforts of standardization from post to post.
If you get an AR -15 keep in mind its guts will not be the same as an M-16(x) or M4 in that the selector and related components will be different.....but she shouldn't be messing with those according to "the book" anyway.....of course when I got to my first actual Infantry unit,despite showing folks the manuals instructins to leave internals alone, we were required to strip ye old M-16A1
down to an empty lower.
I can not see how learning to do a basic strip of the AR15 system (seperte upper and lower, remove handguards, remove bolt carrier group, dissassemble group carrier group into bolt, carrier, Firing pin, FP retaining pin, and bolt cam pin (or whatever they are called now)) can hurt her.
Just have her not try to do the same things BEFORE the instructors in basic. They may want a different order for instance. At one time I was taught the handguards came off first and another time I was expected not to remove them until upper and lower were seperated.
Still having experience doing it in any order beats fumbling around ignorant in my book. As pointed out, in the coast guard and USAF she may not get much training in either OR ENOUGH TO RETAIN IT FOR WHEN SHE MIGHT REALLY NEED IT. (caps intentional) After a year of breaking down Dad's AR she is likely to retain it a while.
Learning to shoot is not going to hurt. Again just because she learns "your way" does not mean she can not learn "their way" if she does not just decide your way is the only way and fight what her instructors are saying.
I "learned to shoot" with your basic open tangent sights like on your AK. Then I really learned to shoot at 14 in High school JROTC using peep sights on a Remington 513T bolt action. Now that 513T is NOTHING like an AR, but sight alignment, sight picture, eight steady hold factors BRASS and trigger control are sort of generic.....
When I went in I was fortunate to have had about four hours of handling and stripping the M-16A1 thanks to a local unit loaning the highscholl program ONE rifle and me taking advantage of that by becoming the assistant instructor for that rifle. I likley took it appart fifteen times in that little time for various classes (including one for a local Nation Guard outfit). By happen stance I got to fire TWO rounds from an SP1 Colt civilian AR15. Stil I feel that put me way ahead of other Trainees and I ended up being noticed and while otherfolks were doing nasty work here and there I found myself detailed to helping the "bolos" (those that could not qualify and qualification was not a option in Army BCT in the VN era (error?). Just an added plus for me knowing more already.
After my enlisted service I went through COllege ROTC while at college on the GI bill. In those days COllege ROTC varied greatly from college to college. I learned that many colleges did little more than class room and drill days. Ours did more. We spent most drill days doing hands on training, and had Field training excercises (FTX) with both day and night training and an over night near the end of the year at the Florida Ranger Training Center out near Fort Walton and Egland AFB.
Our seniors actually planned and did most of the non classroom training and about half of the classroom training based on what the Juniors would face at Advanced ROTC Camp at Ft Bragg over the summer for eight weeks. My senior year I was assistant Training officer and determined that folks needed to learn to shoot M-16A1s. Unfortunately at this time Most COllege ROTC units and mine had no service rifles. We did have 513Ts available though and I was abble to get some "rubber rifles" (Graphic Training Aids from Ft. Benning that were non functional solid "M-16s") I used these in classes to have the cadets learn the various positions (Stand, Kneel, sit, prone, and supported) and the hold factors for these positions. Then they moved to 513Ts and shot. They only got about 50 shots total over a couple of weeks (one day a week) because of time constraints. I then borrowed M-16A1s from a reserve unit and the CObray made .22 Adaptors and repeated those two classes combined (ROund robin style) allowing each Cadet to fire 20 rounds of .22 LR in an M-16A1 (The old 1-12 twist gave better accuracy with the adaptors than one gets now) at scaled down type E targets much like Appleseed uses and the then standard Canadian bull zero target. I had them use 9 to 12 rounds to zero and then shoot the silhuette. Finally I had them on a later day trip to a local police acadamy where they zeroed with 5.56mm M193 ball ammo at 25 meters and fire at Type E silhuettes at 100 meters with 20 rounds.
Dispite being spread out among the many companies at Camp and dispite shooting with different instructors from different units the qualification scores of my university at that summers Camp were highest that summer and rumored to be highest in quite some time.
Later as a COmmisioned officer I rarely found that my troops that "learned to shoot" having no experience before BCT were as good as those with ANY decent marksmanship training before service. I had YMCA and BSA shooters as well as Kwanas club BB gun shooters that all performed quite well.
I fail to see how having your daughter learn all she can about caring for and shooting an AR15 can hurt her nor indeed do anything but help her.
But as I said, I am old and out of touch with modern traing theory.......
-kBob
