Shooting with Termite

My buddy Jonathan called me this week. I've known him for several years, we met on an internet gun forum (aka: Termite) and later realized that we lived just several miles apart. He wanted to help familiarize his teenage daughter with a revolver, so we went out to my private range to do a little shooting.

That's Jonathan and his lovely daughter, Nicole. She's a student at Louisiana Tech and wants to learn about revolvers. We began with a short safety course, talking about the Four Rules and instilling things like muzzle control and trigger discipline. Then we dry-fired a bit, got our eyes and ears covered, and started to learn the basics.

Her pistol is a little Smith and Wesson Centennial, an alloy framed revolver. We tried some .38 special loads and she seemed to handle the recoil fairly well. That's a light pistol and she wasn't sure about the grip. Her pistol has a Crimson Trace laser grip and it seemed to irritating her firing hand in recoil.

Her Dad let her try his Ruger, a heavier pistol to let her concentrate more on sight alignment and trigger control. That heavier pistol soaked up the recoil better and she was able to settle down and fire it just fine. Within a few cylinders, she was going through the firing drill like a pro. Of course, we stopped from time to time to laugh, answer questions, and reinforce both the practical and safety aspects of shooting revolvers.

She did really well with the revolvers, handling loading, unloading, and misfire drills. I had some .38 special loads that, frankly, had misfires. While I normally don't try to induce misfires, it's important to understand why they occur and what causes them. (In this case, I don't remember checking each round for powder, although that's part of my process.) Still, she handled them just fine.

After a short session with the Ruger, she went back to the Centennial, saying that she liked it's compact size and weight better than her Dad's big Ruger. A little familiarization goes a long way and shortly we were shooting a variety of pistols with different grips so that she could form opinions based on actual experience.

She shot everything on that tailgate, including my Airweight, so that she could learn what grip type she best enjoys, or more particularly, what types don't work for her. A valuable learning experience for any shooter. By the end of the morning, she was doing quite well, as evidence by her target with her revolver.

As we ended the session, I asked her if she'd like to try my .44 and she happily agreed to try it. I had it loaded with Skeeter's Load and after showing her how to operate the pistol, she gladly gave it a try.

In that photo, I managed to catch her in recoil with the big revolver. I'll also note that I got the same insane giggle that I've gotten when I let other young ladies shoot that handgun. It's quite heartwarming.

All in all, a beautiful day, a lovely young lady and a sack full of revolvers. What a way to spend a Saturday morning!