Saturday, July 16, 2016

New Shooters

We have family visiting, from the metro area of the Miami/Fort Lauderdale area, to celebrate our matriarch's 95th birthday.  We hosted several of them yesterday afternoon, and took the opportunity to introduce them to shooting.

And when I say introduce, I men introduce.  This was basic safety and firearms handling at the most basic level.  Wax bullets are very good for new shooters, because it increases the safety factor by an order o magnitude..  Even with wax bullets it is possible to injure yourself, and all the basic safety rules apply, the danger of lethal injury is dramatically reduced.  Accidents will hurt, rather than being lethal.

Milady's niece had never handled a gun of any stripe and was curious to try, so after a basic safety briefing, we let her try her hand.


In just a few minutes, she was pinging the target with regularity.  She had trouble initially finding the sights, but once she figured out how to put the front post inside the rear notch, she was doing well.

Niece's son had done some shooting, but had ever run a single action revolver, all his prior experience being with semi-autos.  Once we taught him to thumb-cock that hammer, he got into it pretty quickly.


And, finally, niece's daughter wanted to try her hand.  Milady took her (literally) under wing to make sure that her first experience with handguns was pleasant, safe, and enjoyable.


So, in addition to enjoying the company of family that we don't often see, PawPaw and Milady enjoyed the privilege of introducing new shooters into the world of handguns, in a safe, practical, and enjoyable manner.   The ladies told me, frankly, being from a large metro area, with no experience, they were afraid of guns, but found our experience very enjoyable.

After the shooting, Milady checked her feast in the oven, and we cracked open a bottle of wine.  Not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

3rd picture. Very bad way to hold a revolver. Could blow the youngster's fingers off.

Retired Spook said...

Not likely, with primer-only loads, but I agree, with full house loads it could be dangerous. But under the circumstances, not a big deal, I wouldn't think.
And on the plus side, go on you for getting new shooters into the game, whatever it is!

Old NFO said...

Outstanding that they got a 'proper' introduction, and yeah that third pic is scary... Wouldn't want to do that with a full load either in a SAA or regular revolver.

Anonymous said...

Yup. 3rd pic NO GOOD. When I took a ccw class in FL years ago the lady on my right had her left hand wrapped around the cylinder like this and I was a too late trying to tell her to stop. Much pain ensued as she dropped the revolver. Safety people, safety.

Jerry The Geek said...

A thoroughly enjoyable way to spend an idle afternoon with friends and family.

I admit, I had never contemplated the advantage of wax-bullet ballistics as an especially safe way to introduce firearms to 'new practioners', but now that I see your example I'm convinced that this has two advantages

1: not intrinsically fatal in the worst circumstance;
2: entirely appropriate for a "Back Yard" environment.

I've been watching your posts/videos for a while, and while I won't be doing quick-draw soon (I can barely draw fast enough for IPSC matches), it looks like a lot of fun.

You're doing good work here. Keep it up, and ... thanks for keeping us informed.