New Shooter Report

Last Saturday was "I'm bored" day at the Rustmeister household. Steady rain, nothing good on the tube, stir craziness setting in, time to GET OUT. It was time to go shooting.

I knew what was happening, but rather that tip off my kid, I just said "I'm going out. Want to go?"

This is hit-or-miss with him, as he's now 13 and sometimes too cool to hang with Dad. Somehow, he caught on (musta been that look in my eye), and came with us. Us being me and my GFs 10 yr old granddaughter (yes, I'm that old).

Now, granddaughter (let's call her Kris) has been around firearms most her life, but never shot. Why is beyond me. Anyway, we went up to the newly-opened indoor range at Brighton Arms and rented us a .22 revolver. Also in attendance - a Ruger Blackhawk chambered in .30 Carbine. It was in need of a holster, and the shop had a big box full of sundry holsters for 10 bucks a pop. Found one, too.

We got set up for the range, all paperwork filled out, ears & eyes secured, ammo purchased. Time for Kris to shoot.

She wanted my son to go first, so he popped off a few rounds in the .22 and then six out of the .30. Big grins all around while shooting that. The Blackhawk has much thunder & lightning going on when shooting. It's a real attention getter.

Then came Kris' turn. We went through the four rules, sight picture, how to load the gun and hold it properly, etc. I also had to get on to her about her bugger hook on the bang switch a couple times, but that's to be expected.

I have to say, she was a natural. The pistol was a single action job, and she handled it well. She even got the off-hand thumb-cocking going on without me even showing her. She even touched off the Blackhawk once, voluntarily, but didn't much like it.

My big moment was when I sent the target all the way to the back of the range and popped off a few with the 'hawk. Shooting offhand, I managed to hit pretty close to where I was aiming. I was pleased. Impressed the hell outta my son, too, which pleased me even more.

It was a couple hours well spent. The kids had fun, a new range was broke in, stir craziness was abated, and we get to welcome a new shooter to the fold.

It doesn't get much better than that.

Reposted from the Gun Blogs.