Took my mom to the range.

[kirby]

First off, there will be no pictures.

I'm a new gunnie. I told her that I was picking up a new handgun last week and she kinda stopped the conversation and it went something like:
"Her:Oh. Hmmm. How many do you have?"
"Me: 2"
"Her: Oh. What do you do with them?"
"Me: Well, I'm new at this, aiming is hard and I want to get better. So I spend a lot of time at the shooting range."
"Her: They have shooting ranges up here?" (up here is Northern California.)
"Me: Yup, anyone can walk in and just start shooting up the place!"
"Her: Hmmm. Well. Does [wife's name] go?
"Me: Yea, she's not a big a nut as I am, but she likes it."
"Her: Okay....well...I really want to try that. What do I have to do?"

...and off we go. We spent an hour with her handling the guns unloaded and with snap caps at my house. I explained how the range would work. Basics of sight alignment and sight picture that I could remember from my NRA First Steps class. I tried my best to not fall into Mother/Son and instead be patient, answer all her questions and generally do things in the order she wanted to go.

I'll pause here for a question...
I explain the four rules (I didn't call them that. Sounded too official). So, here I am saying "all firearms are loaded. never let the muzzle point at anything you're not willing to destory, etc." Then I think it's important that she become familiar with handling the guns and that requires quite a bit of "waving around" so she can see various parts like the slide lock or magazine releae. She instinctivly wouldn't cover me with the muzzle, but we did point the muzzle lots of places besides the wall I had designated the "safe direction". I didn't see any way to do it otherwise. There was a lot of hands on manipulation of the firearm while she figured out what worked for her. Now, I KNOW the gun was unloaded because either the action was open or I had just closed it after checking it was unloaded. But I felt wierd explaining "the rules" then having to break them to show her various parts of the gun. Any ideas?


We went to the indoor range and when we walked to the shooting bays, I thought I almost lost her. As soon as we walk in, there's a load blast. She froze and looked at me like: "I'm done!" I ushered her back in the "air-lock" and explained that we really could be done now. I'd shot over the weekend and was happy to go home now. (I know her well enough to know how this would turn out). She plays her part and says: "I'm not going to be the chicken, I want to have fired one from each gun". (.22 and a .40).

So we march back out and I discover that she HATES the noise from other shooters. She flinches every time they fire. But, when she's aiming downrange she doesn't flinch at them and she doesn't flinch when she fires. Well, she flinched the first time, I tricked her and gave her an unloaded magazine for her first shot. I watched the flinch, told her to let the BANG surprise her and she wouldn't miss. Later, she explained that while aiming she didn't hear anything at all.

We had a great time. She shot a lot of .22 probably 20 rounds of .40. Her fear of the .40's bang went away after about the 2nd shot. Overall shot was pretty consistently in about a 6" group at 7yds with the .22. Of course, I couldn't hit keep any sort of group with my .40, inspiring all kinds of confidence. Really, I haven't shot worse than that ever.

Some notes:
- Spend time with the firearms first. That helped a bunch. She was really uptight about looking stupid at the range and having handled them first helped a bunch.

- Be ready to leave/stop/give-up at any time.

- Fire first. Mom was REALLY nervous about the sound. She started with watching me from behind the safetly line, then moved up to be right next to me while I fired over the course of 3 shots. The downside to that based on seeing that she was CONVINCED the .40 was going to hurt her wrists. It didn't but there was apprehension there.

- At 7 yards at my local range, you can't always see the holes, especially with a 22. If you can see them, a new shooter can't see their 5th, 6th, 10th shot. They need feedback. Get a shoot-n-c or visishot target.

- Watch that muzzle. I got caught up helping her find her shots and wasn't watching the muzzle. Nothing happened that I saw, but I wasn't looking at all for at least one magazine.

- Start with one shot in the magazine, explain that no matter what happens after that first shot, they'll have an empty handgun. Also explain that you will not let them do something unsafe. That's why you're staying with them in the lane.

- Know when to shut up. At first she didn't remember all the steps to setting the gun down (drop the mag, lock the slide). She would look and I would tell her what to do, being specific if I needed to. After a bit, she was doing it right away but I was still coaching her.

 

[V4Vendetta]

Great job. I wish I could get my mom to go shooting.:banghead:

 

[XLMiguel]

good job!

 

[TheEgg]

What kind of hearing protection did you get for her? Did you try doubling up(ear plugs AND ear muffs)?

Indoor ranges can be really loud and the noise and muzzle blast are often the MOST intimidating thing for new shooters.

 

[kirby]

Yea, I forgot to mention that. I double up, so she dobuled up. We had a conversation before we went about how loud it was going to be. One, she's always been "flinchy" around loud noises. Two, my doubling up with plugs and muffs convinced her it was going to be really bad. Now that I think about it. I think it's the fact she can't see the other shooters making the noise vs. she could see the gun when she or I was shooting.

 

[pax]

Excellent job. Glad you and your mom had fun and it sounds as though you did a great job introducing her to firearms!

She instinctivly wouldn't cover me with the muzzle, but we did point the muzzle lots of places besides the wall I had designated the "safe direction". I didn't see any way to do it otherwise. There was a lot of hands on manipulation of the firearm while she figured out what worked for her. Now, I KNOW the gun was unloaded because either the action was open or I had just closed it after checking it was unloaded. But I felt wierd explaining "the rules" then having to break them to show her various parts of the gun. Any ideas?

Yes. Three options. Mix and match to suit yourself.

1) Explain how to move your body around the immobile gun, rather than moving the gun around your immobile body. Pretend the gun is on an unmoveable pedestal, and is welded onto the top of the pedestal so it faces the safe direction at all times. She can then move herself around as much as she needs to to see whatever, while the gun stays in one place. Just like seeing a museum exhibit!

When it's time for hands-on manipulation, explain that there is an invisible metal rod coming out of the safe wall and going straight through the barrel of the gun. She can pull the slide back, turn the gun upside down to look in the magazine well, fiddle with the slide stop & magazine release -- again, moving around that invisible pedestal if she needs to -- but the gun itself can never be turned away from the axis defined by that invisible metal rod. This is very, very good practice for safely manipulating a loaded gun at the range, where because of other shooters around there really-and-truly is only one safe direction.

2) Disassemble the gun partway to show internals. A gun without a barrel isn't a gun, it's only a hunk of steel, and safe direction doesn't apply. (Note, before the barrel is off, it's still a gun. Don't get in the habit of pointing it somewhere unsafe just because you're going to disassemble it!)

3) (If you have access to land...) Take the exploration outside, somewhere where there's more than one safe direction. Gives you a little more wiggle room.

HTH.

pax

 

[GRIFFIN1]

I took my mom to a Glock show in Longview, TX a few weeks ago. You pay $3 and they will let you shoot the Glock of your choice. You can shoot as many times as you want, but you have to wait in line for about 15 minutes between each 10 round magazine. Since they didn't have a G18, I picked the G19 for her to shoot. Considering it was her first time shooting anything, I was surprised at how well she did with the 19. The next gun I had her shoot was a 17C. For some reason she didn't shoot the 17C as well as the 19.

Yesterday, my mom called and told me that I was going to take her and my 6 year old nephew to the shooting range on Saturday. Other than a Ruger 10/22, I don't have anything a 6 year old can shoot, and I'm not really sure he is mature enough to handle a 22. I think I'll go buy a BB gun so I can start him off on something that will probably not kill anyone.

 

[kirby]

Yes. Three options. Mix and match to suit yourself.
.
.
.

That's good adivce, I cheated a bit then. The problem arose like this. I don't have a good safe direction wall, I'm in a condo. So, the floor is my safe direction. Our place has a lower crawlspace with dirt underneath, not a concrete slab.
I'm trying to show how the slide lock/release works and trying to find a good way for her to do it. We're both lefties, it's a varient 1 HK USP. I can operate it but my method works for me, with stronger and longer fingers than my mom. What I settled on was this "cheat" of rules 1 and 2.

Once I'm sure it's unloaded, slide locked back, magazine out. I'll let myself wave it around more . Not at people, but at walls and ceilings and such. If I set the gun down at all, I'm in the habit of going thru the motions of dropping the mag, locking the slide, checking the breech even if there's no mag and the slide is locked. Oh well. If the gun leaves my hand, it get's the check again. I didn't even realize I did it until she pointed it out. Asking if she did something that made me "re-safe" everything. So, now I've got this unloaded/action-open/no magazine gun in my hand. I'll let myself release the slide and still wave it around a bit. Again, if it leaves my hands (even if it didn't leave my eyesight), I'm compelled to re-safe it. On top of that I get nervouse when I release the slide.

So, I'm clearly breaking the rules and I've convinced myself it's ok, but it's hard to drill the four rules into someone while you're cheating a bit. I like the "rod from the wall to thru the barrel idea". I'll go with that next time. I think I have someone else interested at work. Maybe I should put out a sign:
"Free first time firerarms training. Qualifications from Internet forums!"

 

[pax]

Ahhh, gotcha. It is indeed hard to do all that while pointing at the floor!

Did she figure out a method she could use to lock the slide back?

Some ideas for building a safe direction in an apartment or condo:

Get enough phone books to fill a three-foot-deep cardboard box. Longer is even better. Set the full cardboard box on a chair against the safest wall. Make sure the short end of the box is facing you, so you've got three feet of solid paper to stop a handgun bullet. That should be safe, but don't take the word of some internet nobody for it ... get twice as many phone books as you think you'll need for this, then take the extras out to the range to double-check that it really works with your gun and your ammunition at the distance you would be standing.

If you're a book collector, you can use a very, very full bookshelf (aim at the end of the shelf, so if the gun were loaded & fired the bullet would travel the length of the bookshelf & be stopped by the number of pages it'd gone through). Again, the longer the bookshelf the better off you'll be. Use the phone-book test to be certain it'll work for you using your gun and your ammunition and your distances.

If you want to get a little creative or inventive, you can probably figure out some way to contain a double layer of sandbags so they're hidden from casual view. Test how much sand you'll need at the range.

If you're up to spending money, you can buy something like a Safe Direction case or a bullet-resistant vest to hang on the wall.

I know this all sounds paranoid, but ... well, when you're working with something that could kill someone, a little paranoia is a good thing. Plus as you point out, it's hard to convince a newbie that the rules matter, while at the same time ignoring the rules when the rules are inconvenient.

***

By the way, it sounds like you did as well as you could with what you had on hand, so please don't think I'm picking on you!

pax

 

[kirby]

re: locking the slide back...
No. To much force required while trying to manipulate some little lever. She was anxious to shoot. We just decided that our "rules" where that if she didn't empty the magazine and needed to hand off the gun, she was to get my attention and tell me. Since I was stading next to her this wasn't hard. She was very good with trigger discipline from the second she hadled the guns (I remember needing to be corrected several times by my NRA instructor) so this proved ok, we even practiced a "handoff" (get my attention, lay the gun down pointed down range, etc.

re: picking on me...
No, I don't think that. I'm anal/paranoid by nature, I wrote the story to share and figure out what I could improve. I like the phonebooks idea. I've been thinking about something like that for dry firing at home.

'nuther question: When at the range, I feel it's important to stand near a new shooter. "Near" means, I can reach out and control the muzzle direction if I need to. I tired standing on both strong and weak sides of the shooter and since I never had reason to grab the gun, I didn't see an advantage. Standing to the right did prove that flying brass won't hurt you to my new shooter, though.

 

[pax]

Re locking the slide back as a lefty, here's the method I use. First, drop the magazine and rack the slide a couple times, so you're sure there's not one in the chamber. This is important because you're going to be working near the ejection port, so if you use this method be sure you don't ever get in the habit of ejecting & then locking back in the same motion. Eject, rack a second or third time to be sure, then lock the slide back.

Left hand should be mostly in a firing grip, but with trigger finger far off the trigger & flagged out from the frame.

Put the middle two fingers of your right hand on the right-hand side of the slide, just behind the ejection port (watch out for pinchies...). Wrap the rest of your right hand over the slide, laying the base of your right thumb along the slide and pointed toward the muzzle. From here, you should be able to pinch the slide with the strongest muscles in your palm, and use your right thumb to lift up on the slide catch at the same time. If you can't quite reach the slide catch with your right thumb, move your hand around until you can -- but remember those ejection-port pinchies! Hold the slide firmly with the palm of your right hand and lift up on the slide catch with your right thumb, then shove the frame forward with your left hand.

Don't pull back on the slide. Shove the frame forward. Hold the catch up while you do that.

If there's a physical-strength issue, help her remember to do the motion quickly, shoving the grip forward as fast and as far as possible. Make sure she knows she cannot possibly hurt the gun this way. It's usually easier to shove the grip/frame forward than it is to jerk the slide backward, so describe the motion to her in those terms. In reality, it usually ends up being a push-pull kind of motion, but describing it that way doesn't often help.

Also for physical-strength issues, encourage her to lift up on the slide catch the entire time the slide/frame is in motion; the catch will then simply slip into place when the slide gets to the right spot. It takes a lot of physical strength to hold the slide back while hunting for that elusive little catch and so it's very much physically easier to find the catch, press the catch up while doing the motion quickly, and let the catch just slip into place when the slide gets where it's going.

I tired standing on both strong and weak sides of the shooter and since I never had reason to grab the gun, I didn't see an advantage. Standing to the right did prove that flying brass won't hurt you to my new shooter, though.

Actually, as a lefty teaching a lefty, you've got the best of both worlds. You can stand to the strong side to watch the trigger finger and avoid brass, so don't sweat it.

But if/when you are teaching a righty ... Ummm, this one's easier to show than to tell. Bear with me a little ...

Stand up. Hold your right hand out in front of you while making the dreaded "finger gun of death" so beloved of little boys everywhere. Pretend you've fired a shot, and you've relaxed a little so that your elbow is near your side while the gun is still pointed downrange.

With me so far?

Okay, now I want you to turn to the left, as if you are talking to someone behind your left shoulder. Ignore the "muzzle" direction of your finger gun, just let it track where it naturally goes when your body turns. Then look down and note where the muzzle went. Imagine that motion on a crowded range.

Now do the same thing again, but turning to talk to someone behind your right hand shoulder. Notice how far the gun tracks when your body turns.

Does this make a little more sense?

If you're standing slightly behind the right side, you aren't giving the right-handed newbie an excuse to turn in the more dangerous (left) direction. Plus of course you've got a better view of the right-hand trigger finger from the right-hand side of the gun.

For a lefty, the dangerous direction to turn is toward the right, but you won't want to stand to the right anyway -- because of the brass and because you've got a better view of the trigger finger from the left. So because of the better trigger finger view, and because of the relatively safer turn direction, you'll want to stand to the left of a lefty, and to the right of a righty.

Re the fact you didn't need to stop her from turning anyway. That's good. If you stay within reach a newbie will rarely turn too far if they turn at all, because the usual reason they turn is to look for their mentor. The big idea here isn't so much to physically stop them after they've tried to turn. That's an important bonus, but it's only a bonus. The real goal is to stand where they won't want to turn anyway, and where even if they do turn the gun is unlikely to track anywhere dangerous. You'll need to do that for your newbie until the safety rules are firmly-enough established in their muscles that they can resist the impulse to turn around and look for you.

pax

 

[kirby]

pax, thanks or the slide lock the slide lock motion. If/when we go again I'll try and get her to do that. I'm going to go home tonight ans analyze how I do it, I really don't know how it gets done. I did emphasize the push/pull motion (thank my NRA instructor for teaching that), but I didn't get the whole "just jerk it fast". Now that I think about it, she was treating my HK very carefully as if she would break it.


So, related topic. I'm probably going to take another new shooter from work. I'm 99% sure he's interested but waiting for him to ask with a specific time in mind. I made the offer after he intially expressed interest. It was kind of easy with my mom, we get along, I know her, it's ok being in her personal space, etc. This co-worker doesn't strike me as the stupid-uber-macho type, I think he'll be concious of safety and understand my paranoia about it. But, do I treat a male co-working any differently w.r.t. to standing close, etc?

 

[pax]

But, do I treat a male co-working any differently w.r.t. to standing close, etc?

I dunno how to answer that. I've always been female ...

Seriously, explain to him exactly what you are doing and why. Don't make too big a deal out of it, just briefly mention it and explain the deal matter-of-factly, and don't get weirded out. If you're not weirded out, he won't get weirded out.

(FWIW, the equal-but-opposite female instructor problem is, "Will this guy think I'm coming onto him?" Same basic issue ... same basic answer.)

If he does weird out on you a little, rather than stepping back, just step a little further to the side. You can see better from there than from behind, and it's less likely to worry him.

pax

 

[sm]

kbyrd-
Good job on taking mom out!

pax,
great advice shared - you really ought to write about this and/or partcipate in training folks...

Re: Backstops and Clearing Buckets.

pax again shared some great ideas. Being a female, she never got to be the "male" trying to figure out what to get a mom for a gift day.

Now various ladies, single, married, divorced - whatever get "bowled - over" when presented with their very own "Clearing Bucket" for the house, or office.

As pax alluded to , test the largest caliber someone will shoot to know and then add some more "stopping stuff" and make sure placed at the safest wall .

I recently assisted with a Big Decorative Brass Pot with a Silk Tree...fits in the corner of a bedroom, safest wall of a house and testing of sandbags, bags of old rusty nuts and bolts, concrete and dirt...layered under all that moss looking stuff silk trees thrive in...
Even did the nice heavy duty decorative plant dolly to put it on so Mom could move to do the carpet vacuuming and whatnot.

That mom sure was surprised, exactly the silk tree and brass pot she wanted.
Granted a bit heavier and stouter...she has the best looking clearing bucket in the neighborhood.

Do you realize how heavy a 4' dia pot , 4.5 high made of brass is? Can you imagine how heavy it must be with all the aforementioned stuff inside? One thing for sure - that silk tree is not going to "tump over" . Load testing proved in a Cardboard box a 12 ga slug is stopped as well with the configuration we did.

Kids just hung the early Mom's day card on a silk tree limb. Aww...some kids are so thoughtful.

 

[MSgt B]

First time I took my wife shooting was an indoor range.

She decided she "didn't like it very much" and didn't go shooting with me again for over a year.

The next time she went with me was outdoors. She was so amazed at the difference she couldn't stop talking about it. She is becoming an avid shooter now. (and she's alot more supportive about buying/trying out new guns!) She told me if I had started her out outdoors, she would have had a completely different attitude about it from the beginning.

 

[kirby]

Update on this.
Today Mom and I were making plans for lunch. She asked, if I wanted to come down to "her range" (one closer to her house that I've been wanting to visit) or are we going to the same one as last time! I explained that I didn't have time this week. But next week for sure.

She's hooked!

 

[Black Majik]

Absolutely awesome. You rock.

 

[AndyC]

"Her range" - love it

 

[Rich K]

You'e a good son. Wish my mom was still here, she would love it. Rock on.

 

[Matthew N. Dodd]

But I felt wierd explaining "the rules" then having to break them to show her various parts of the gun. Any ideas?

While visiting family I ran into the same problem when various cousins wanted to "go shooting". My solution was to buy an air-soft type pistol at Walmart ($16) that had a slide, magazine, trigger and sights that were similar enough to the real thing to practice gun handling, grip, stance etc. While we were on private land and wouldn't have had problems with other shooters etc. I wanted to keep things really simple and restrict firearm handling to the firing line.

 

[James T Thomas]

Pistol packin mama

An informative and enjoyable post. Thanks.

Your notes show a lot of insight, especially knowing when to break off the talking. I think you are right on there, and if I might add, I would try to group the instruction of a particular point followed by live fire to avoid monotony and maintain enthusiasm.
Example: trigger pull while maintaining sight alignment. If she can hit the target, I would let her go ahead and jerk the trigger as much as she wants just so that it is demonstrated, in first person, that her aim will be effected.
And though you are a gentleman, let her reload herself; pistol and magazines. Assist her, but let her unjam the pistol herself if possible. Ask her to call out the placement of her hits to you.

The method of shoveing the pistol forward while holding the slide; Pax, is excellent. If the shoveing is done with follow through, the pistol will be driven forward out of the slide gripping hand, allowing the slide to snap closed.
I've seen too many strong handed men lately allow their hand to remain gripping the slide and the hand quickly moves forward while the slide goes into battery. With many quality pistols this causes no problem, but as a habit, it can lead to failure to feed correctly, or the slide not going into lock completely. Poor procedure.

Note: After returning home give your mother a hug and kiss. Each time.
Someday she will not be there, or you will not, so let her know you love her.

 

[Brrlgrrl]

kbyrd,
Welcome, glad to have you and your Mom here in northern California.
I grew up using the range in Concord, CA with my Mom, Dad, and three brothers.
There is also an indoor range in Vacaville that is nice.
I'd still tell her the four rules are the four rules. Armed Females of America has a handy little business card with them printed on it. Nice touch, but then again, I like rules.

 

[eastwood44mag]

My mom went nuts when I bought a BB gun.

Glad to hear your encounter went over well.