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I'll give you my take on teaching beginners how to shoot...
There is a tremendous flood of emotions a person has to compartmentalize when introduced to firearms. The older you are, the more you likely have to consciously work at this, especially if you've got innate prejudices or fears about guns. Massive anti-gun propaganda dollars in conjunction with the mass-media and Hollywood work together to convince people at very young ages to be "anti-gun"... part of that indoctrination is to convince you that guns are not only dangerous, but are complicated and scary inanimate objects that they'll never understand how to use them, so best left to professionals.
So, I've got some ideas on the best way to initiate somebody with firearms... starting with their physical comfort in the very beginning. Obviously a little bit of classroom time is a good idea. Show them the basic parts and function of a gun in quiet air-conditioned environment with no pressures or agenda. Make sure they understand the ins/outs of the safety rules and why they're important. Have them practice mock loading and unloading with snap-caps, and then show them how to disassemble and clean the gun even though you didn't actually shoot it. The psychological benefits of basic classroom work cannot be understated.
First time at the range and choosing a starter gun.
1) Teaching someone to shoot at an indoor range is problematic. It's claustrophobic in the shooting booth. As an instructor, you have to be leaning over their shoulders and cramping them. Hearing and eye protection cause additional sources of stress and all of this leads to a total **** experience. It's crazy loud, stinks, and there are usually other idiots in there doing stupid **** you want to avoid. I hate indoor ranges.
2) Use an oudoor range. Open spaces, quick dissipation of gasses, way quieter, more pleasant in all respects. Join a private range or go mid-week to a public range when nobody will be around.
3) .22lr is the only caliber you should be teaching with. Use CCI Quiets to avoid needing hearing protection. Trust me... even with good noise cancelling earmuffs, the psychological benefits of not having them on for the first shooting experience makes all the difference in the world to the shooter.
4) No need to teach on bolt-action .22lr. I always thought you should, and after teaching a few on my Savage Mkii, it was more trouble than it was worth. RUGER CHARGER PISTOL WITH RED DOT. Teaching to shoot on a rifle is stupid... too many things to worry about, shouldering, aiming, cheek-weld, positions of both hands, sandbags... bullshit. A Ruger Charger with a front bipod and red-dot is the ultimate teaching gun. 10rd mags and a large red-dot are my go-to. Make the initial experience as easy as possible with a simple gun, simple handling, simple sight picture, etc...
5) It only takes a few magazines with CCI Quiets out of a Ruger Charger for even the most scared first-time shooter to get over almost everything that scares them.
6) Put on some good noise-cancelling muffs and step up to some louder .22lr... another magazine or two to get over the jitters.
7) .22lr pistol is next. Highly recommend a compact semi-auto for smaller-handed, and a medium-sized semi-auto for larger hands. Dudes can easily step up to a single-action .22lr revolver, but ladies seem to get spooked by the manual cocking. Plenty of double-action .22lr revolvers out there is you have one. I love my Ruger SR22 for teaching... yes, it is has full-controls, but you can introduce them one-at-a-time to a noob. A Ruger MkIV or Glock 44 (I have not shot one) are likely other excellent choices for options with simpler controls.
The next steps should be up tot the shooter. Medium-frame revolver with .38spl, Glock19, .22lr bolt-action, AR15 (.22lr models or conversions are stupid easy to shoot), etc...
Don't jump right into a .44mag or Taurus Judge because you think it'll be funny... **** you for ruining a good thing. Take it easy and slow and at their pace.
I worked a bank, fresh out of school. Tellers all had .38 pistols (half a dozen of us, in a country town). Never had any training, until one day, a year or two in, the boss wakes up one morning, and says 'hey, when was the last time ... etc'. So most of the staff (dozen or so) troop out to a range, and the boss (2IC actually) gathers everyone around, hands out the guns, and starts teaching. Cutting to the chase, the first batch go to the mound, load, the boss is still talking, and 'bang', the BIG boss branch manager's secretary (a ditzy, other-wordly woman who was there for God only knows what reason) has pulled the trigger prematurely, facing the wrong way, the round goes somewhere between several pairs of legs, and ricochets off with a satisfying whine into the distance. Cue cancellation of pistol training. Never did get any training while I was there, but we had an army cadet unit at school so I had a good grounding in firearms safety, and had fired stuff up to LMG there. Not many had that though.
The most stupid part (apart from putting automatic pistols in immature and totally untrained hands) was that the standing instruction was 'we are insured, give them the money and don't resist'. WTF - so why do the tellers need guns if we have to just hand over the money anyway? Never did hear an explanation.
My wife isn't scared of guns per se. Her main concern is having them in the house with kids around (this was large when we had some of hers living with us, because they would do first and ask questions later). I am responsible enough to keep things locked away so that isn't an issue. I will be working on getting her more comfortable with the tools, especially considering the current state of affairs.
While I agree with vast majority of Sam's points above, some notes I'd like to add for absolute novice, based on my own experience...
1. Prone position
You really need to put some effort into ******* up if shooting prone, very difficult to point a gun in an unsafe direction. If the rifle is properly supported, then you don't need to worry about the mechanics of actually handling anything. Let gravity do the work for you, worry about the rest later. Everyone already knows how to lie on the ground, its zero effort.
2. Bolt action rifle
Forces you to slow down and makes you more aware of everything that's going on with the machine. Eventually the movements become muscle memory and the rifle disappears. Even better if its a bolt action without a magazine. Very low risk of accidental/negligent discharge when your only option is the one in the pipe.
I'm not military or LEO, but I spent a number of years as a shooting sports director at a Boy Scout camp, teaching basic marksmanship skills to hundreds of pre-pubescent boys. I've found that semi-autos, while fun, tend to turn it into a race to see how fast you can dump the mag and can add additional complication that new shooters don't need. Force the shooter to slow down and suddenly they start to pay more attention to their actions, and it becomes second nature. One round, one shot, reload, repeat. Very quickly the gun disappears from the equation and the focus goes to putting all the holes in the paper downrange. Its amazing watching people develop that skill. I've also run shotgun, handgun and archery programs (age appropriate of course) and while my absolute favorite was shotgun, basic rifle marksmanship is probably where I have the most "hours" of instruction.
Also fun fact, while doing a Girl Scout only week at the camp I was approached by some of their leadership and asked if I'd open up the rifle range for the girls, and offer some instruction. After clearing it with council leadership (and our lawyers, lol) I ran the program for the girls exactly as I did for the boys. Girls in that age rage are night and day better at accepting instruction than boys, and develop the skills shockingly faster. I'd wager 80% of them would out shoot the boys if starting from the same baseline (almost zero) experience and the same introductory training.
But the above is all related to basic firearms introduction, not necessarily home defense situation. As everyone else has mentioned, practice practice and practice some more. Do it until its second nature. Put in the hours and lean the skill. You might well be better off wielding a bat compared to a shotgun or a pistol you don't know how to operate (although the shotgun gets bonus points over the pistol in the bat example for obvious reasons, lol)
I just came back from our local indoor range. There was a guy near me who brought his son, I would guess around 7 or 8 years old, first time shooting.
Had a little Ruger SR22 semi. Set a target out at around 15 feet, then proceeded to give him one round at a time. Kid would shoot, release, load the next round, insert the magazine - repeat. Took a long time working through a box, but by the time I left he was pretty comfortable with the pistol and shooting pretty consistently.
Seemed like a pretty sensible way to start somebody - don’t be in a hurry, understand the process.
I had the same experience as a child with a High Standard .22 pistol. One at a time works well for learning the mechanics of what you are doing. And it gives a noob time to decompress between shots.
The wife and I went to the range this last weekend, we took out her Henry .22 lever gun and I brought my Winchester 9422, along with the little Bearcat, the Buckmark, my pile of XDs and the M1 Carbine just for ***** and giggles.
She had trouble with her Henry but is scary goodwith the Carbine. I regret that I only brought one box of ammo for it, and that .30 carbine is impossible to find and crazy expensive at the moment.
After talking it through, it turns out she was struggling with the sights on her Henry. This isn't entirely surprising because they are essentially the same kind of thing you would find on a $40 Daisy BB gun. I'm not super keen on throwing an optic or a red dot on a lever gun, but she really liked the post and aperture on the M1. I figured someone has to make something like that for the Henry...
Williams & Lyman receiver mounted apertures came to mind, but it turns out they cost more than the rifle, plus require machine work. I don't have a mill so I don't really feel comfortable drilling holes in this thing. A Marbles tang sight is also an option, but again, even more expensive and requires you to drill at least one hole and that sight is pretty fragile. Continuing my search, it turns out Henry now offers what they call the "Henry Small Game Rifle/Carbine" (H001TLP) that comes with a Skinner Sights rear aperture sight, and provides a sight picture very similar to that post and aperture of the M1:
The Skinner Sights website is an abomination of web design, but the overwhelming majority of people online who have bought their products or used their services have had positive experiences, so I decided to go for it. The sight comes with an 0.095" aperture, but I bought an additional 0.125" aperture to go with it, just to see what works for her. If worst comes to worst, you can remove the aperture entirely and the sight base works like a 0.200" ghost ring. It requires a couple of holes, but Skinner offers a drill and tap service that's cheaper than I can even buy a drill and tap, and the machine tools and experience to do it right. I'm sending the receiver cover (a non serialized part) to have it drilled and tapped for the sight, and also sending the front sight base & band assembly to have it machined for a 3/8" sight dovetail. That way I can swap front posts as necessary. A new receiver cover is under $50 from Henry so its not like I'm destroying the rifle by having some holes drilled in the cover. I'll let you guys know how it all turns out
M1 Carbine is a very underrated rifle. Excellent defensive gun for the ladies... light, low recoil, low muzzle blast, easy to manipulate.
I bought one of the re-patriated Korean war lend/lease Carbines for $179 in the mid-eighties. It rode around in my trunk with 10 loaded mags during the LA Riots... I regret selling it considering what they're bringing these days, but at least back then ammo was cheap and plentiful.
Hard agree, fantastic little rifle. Mine is one from the batch the CMP repatriated in the 2000s from post war Bavarian/Austrian service in the late 40s and early 50s. It's "L.G.K.T." (Landes Gendarmerie Kommando Tirol) marked on the trigger group, but otherwise its a combination of early and late WW2 features. Those Austrians really know how to service and store a rifle because its in really good shape. The receiver, barrel and I think charging handle assembly are all "I.B.M. CORP." production. Yes, that IBM. It's quite the International Business Machine, lol
It's one of the things I absolutely love about military surplus rifles, there's so much history in these things its absolutely stupid. I also have a 1916 Lee Enfield No1 MKIII* with both British WW1, German interwar AND British WW2 proofs, and no import marks. If *THAT* rifle could talk, it would probably speak a couple different languages. I'd love to add a M1917 Enfield or a Lend-Lease "U.S. PROPERTY" stamped Savage/Enfield No4 Mk1* to my collection of misfits, but I'm not sure that's economically viable anymore. And by that I mean "they're too ******* expensive these days."
Might be nice to see some more old growth steel in this thread, if you know what I mean
I have no friggin' clue what you are doing, but I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter
Lol.
It's a transferable M16, with a LM7 .22 belt feed upper. I've been tweaking with it. I saw a picture of a 1919 tripod, and as the LM7 is based on the 1919 action, I decided to do things to make it look a little more like a 1919. The tripod I made won't make 1919 purists happy, but it does the damn job. I also designed an adaptor to accept a modified (almost 1/2 scale) mini ammo tin. The one version of the adapter, I added a pintle, and it mounts into the tripod. Next up, machining a perforated 1919 barrel shroud. I also will make an adaptor that takes a mini .30 cal tin, compared to the .50. The .50 holds 200rds nicely, whereas a .30 will only hold 100rd belts or so. Might make a tombstone tin for the .50 to allow 300-500rd belts. Making belts is also on the list--bought the girlfriend a sewing machine, and have been printing things to make belt-making feasible.
Dad, 78 YO, just gave me great grandfather's percussion musket. I know ZERO about it other than I used to see it laying around the house when I was a kid in the 70's. The barrel has been detached as long as I can remember. I would like to do a restore on it and asked dad if he would be upset if I made it "pretty". He said he didn't care since it was my rifle now. He told me he never met his grandfather but can remember the musket being on the wall in a back room in the house covered in soot (coal heat). He cleaned the soot off at one time and felt bad about doing it. The original ram rod is broken inside the barrel and the end that was outside was thrown away. I don't see any markings on it so I am assuming it is hand made but I don't really know about these things. I didn't check the caliber but it is not something big like a 50. My goal would be to make it pretty, functional, make some ammo for it then shoot it.
Looks to me like it could have been one of those kits you used to see all over.
I haven't found any marking on it yet but it is still grungy. My guess is the rifle is from the late 1800's (based on the age of the owner) but I don't know. These were really simple hillbillys from BFE, West Virginia. Once I get some good pictures of it I will post in some musket forums and see what they say. I measured at the muzzle and got 34 caliber but I don't know if it is worn out from age, etc. Not sure what the common calibers where. Dad says he has the powder horn and boolit mould at the house and forgot to bring it. I remember playing with that stuff back in the mid 70's. They were stuffed in an old trunk with keepsakes and such. Pulled the broken rod out yesterday and it was made of wood. I thought they were always metal but again, I don't know ****.
06-04-2020, 07:25 PM
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While I agree with vast majority of Sam's points above, some notes I'd like to add for absolute novice, based on my own experience...
