mentoring someone whos never shot a gun, before...

Grumpy

The Grumpy Grease Monkey mechanical engineer.
Staff member
have you ever taken the time and effort mentoring someone whos never shot a gun, before...
I guess I was brought up in a different world ,
but when I grew up every male, from age 4-through about 9 years old,
(without any exceptions) in my neighborhood grew up playing,
cowboys and indians or cops & robbers, or pretending you were in the army fighting nazis,
and by age 9-11 or so most of us had bb guns, or at least had friends that owned one,
and most of us had dads that took us out to shoot empty coke cans in the back yard,
with them occasionally.
now most of us were not given un-supervised access , too bb or pellet guns ,until we proved we could be trusted,
but I seriously doubt that many of the males and maybe 40% of the females were unfamiliar with exactly how a bb or pellet gun worked,
nor were they adverse to spending some time punching coke cans in the back yard or shooting rats at the local dump, occasionally.
thus it came as a bit of a surprize when one of my neighbors sons who is at least 30 years old asked to go to the local range, with several of us , and while in the car, he admitted he had never so much as touched a rifle (even a bb gun ) in his life, before,
and that was very obvious, once we got to the range!
as he had no idea what so ever as to how to hold , aim, or load a bb gun,
(which BY PURE LUCK)
breakbb.jpg

Id taken with us simply because, I had it in the cars trunk, and had failed to take it out before we left.
(if you don,t own a single shot break barrel bb gun,
its a good tool to teach your kids gun safety,
Ive owned one for 60 plus years)
nor did he have any concept of accuracy, trajectory,
the need for ear muffs, safety glasses, or fire arms safety
.....
so I spent well over two hours with the young guy going through the basics of gun safety, and how to use a basic bb gun,
before I let him near a single shot 22, for the first time.
I had the chipmonk single shot 22 bolt action in the trunck because my wife likes to shoot that rifle with 22lr ammo,

chipma.png

I think he was more than willing to learn,
but at first he acted like just touching a basic bb gun was likely to have it explode,
and blow his hand clean off!
it was rather pathetic, but at the same time rather amusing in an odd unrealistic way,
but after explaining how a spring compressed by a lever ,
when the barrel was pulled down, was released, when the trigger was pulled,
that allowed high pressure air to force a bb or lead pellet (we used) out of the gun,
and that there were no explosives, and after we worked on the basics of gun safety and marksmanship,
getting the sights aligned and target acquizition,and how to hold and aim,
he seemed to grasp the basics.. somewhat acquwardly, but he started to enjoy the process once he realized he was not in mortal danger if instantly blowing his foot off etc.
Once I allowed him a very well supervised chance to shoot ,the pellet gun and eventiually the single shot 22 ," my sons old 22"
he was much more relaxed and receptive to learning the basics.

decent starter BB gun

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Crosman-...-Barrel-Air-Rifle-with-Scope-1200fps/19342467
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Crosman-.177cal-Pointed-Pellets-500ct/19866100


darn good starter kid size 22 single shot trainer
https://www.chipmunkrifles.com/chipmunk_rifles.php

http://www.bulkammo.com/bulk-22-lr-ammo-22lr40grlrnam22federalmatch-325
 
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