dasmi
Member
Some of you may have seen my thread regarding an upcoming road trip with a close friend of mine. As I will be armed throughout this trip, I wanted to make sure this friend is familiar with my weapon, in case something happens to me and she needs to use it. So, I took her to the range tonight. The gun I'll be carrying will be my 4 inch Ruger Service Six. We shot 50 rounds of .38 special 158 gr FMJ tonight through that. I also rented a S&W 22A to start her off on, and we shot 100 rounds of Winchester Super-X with that one. Some observations:
New shooters do not realize that the spent brass will come flying out of the side of an auto-loader. I shot the 22A first, to show her how to hold the gun and such. She nearly peed herself when the brass came winging out of there. So remember, explain to new shooters that this will happen.
At first she was very afraid of both guns. I let her get used to the 22A first, and after 20 rounds or so, she was enjoying herself, and getting pretty accurate at 5 yards. In 100 rounds, we had four failures to fire. Probably due to the fact that it was a range gun. The four failures were struck by the firing ping, however, so it could also have been dud ammo. I showed her how to clear the round, rack the slide and continue shooting.
Then, we moved on to the Ruger. This one also took her some getting used to. She was pleased that it didn't fling brass, but the recoil and noise did make her uncomfortable. In the end, she could put all six rounds COM in a loose group. She knows how to load and unload the Ruger, and she knows that in the unlikely event a round doesn't go off, to keep pulling that trigger.
I am now a lot more comfortable that if something were to happen to me, and she had to use the firearm to defend herself, or me, she could, and would. All in all, it was a great night. She went from "that is really scary" to "that was so much fun! take me again soon!"
As a side note, that was my first time shooting a .22lr handgun, and I must say, that was the most fun I've ever had shooting, with the exception of the M1 Garand I shot last weekend. I'm going to have to pick one up very very soon.
New shooters do not realize that the spent brass will come flying out of the side of an auto-loader. I shot the 22A first, to show her how to hold the gun and such. She nearly peed herself when the brass came winging out of there. So remember, explain to new shooters that this will happen.
At first she was very afraid of both guns. I let her get used to the 22A first, and after 20 rounds or so, she was enjoying herself, and getting pretty accurate at 5 yards. In 100 rounds, we had four failures to fire. Probably due to the fact that it was a range gun. The four failures were struck by the firing ping, however, so it could also have been dud ammo. I showed her how to clear the round, rack the slide and continue shooting.
Then, we moved on to the Ruger. This one also took her some getting used to. She was pleased that it didn't fling brass, but the recoil and noise did make her uncomfortable. In the end, she could put all six rounds COM in a loose group. She knows how to load and unload the Ruger, and she knows that in the unlikely event a round doesn't go off, to keep pulling that trigger.
I am now a lot more comfortable that if something were to happen to me, and she had to use the firearm to defend herself, or me, she could, and would. All in all, it was a great night. She went from "that is really scary" to "that was so much fun! take me again soon!"
As a side note, that was my first time shooting a .22lr handgun, and I must say, that was the most fun I've ever had shooting, with the exception of the M1 Garand I shot last weekend. I'm going to have to pick one up very very soon.
Just in case it does happen.
We laughed about that one- How many times could you line up and do that! 