For those of you with partners that enjoy shooting.

K

Kimio

New member
This may be too personal of a question for some, but I was wondering how some of you met your significant other. Was it at a gun show, through friends, just happened to be there at the right time at the right range.

I sadly can count only one hand the amount of women that I know of that are interested with recreational shooting and target practice. Most women I meet tend to be intimidated by firearms in general (I blame the media and general lack of knowledge on the subject matter for this)

Many that I meed flat out think that fire arms should be banned or extremely regulated (Which again I feel is attributed to lack of knowledge)

There are those few gems that I do find, but the shooters world certainly appears to be a male dominated sport.

If your partner didn't start off with an interest in firearms, how did you introduce them to it to them, was it just a casual trip to the range with some friends or did she suggest it?

No particular reason for asking, just curious :) I look forward to hearing what some of you say.
 
I've had several GFs that were neutral or slightly anti. As relationships progress it's nearly inevitable that you take at least a little interest in the other's hobbies. I convinced most to at least learn about guns and shooting. More often than not, once they learned and I got them to the range, they became the ones asking when we could go shooting again.

Maybe, I've just been lucky.
 
My wife was in the Army Reserves when I met her in college. She certainly wasn't anti guns or anti hunting, but really didn't care about them. She would go shooting with me if I asked, and with handguns she would beat me every time but never seemed enthused by it. When she came back from a deployment to Kosovo I got her into shooting small game and later that year she decided she wanted to go deer hunting and would I please find her a rifle to do so with? Heck Yeah! Off to the gun show, came out with a Ruger 77 MKII and a used Redfield 3-9X scope. I worked up some mild 100 grain handloads that it really liked and was right next to her when she shot her very first deer!

I would say take her with you with the intent of lettng her have fun, meaning low recoil, low noise, not too long at a time. Have some reactive targets, I use a lot of what we call "hedge-apples" they explode fantastically and decompose quickly, plastic bottles of water are good too, just have to pick up the empties. Clay targets hanging on nails or even GI Joe type figurines at short range are a lot of fun. If she likes the shooting take her anytime she wants to, if she expresses a desire to hunt take her. I have since lost my only decent stand to her hunting but have never regretted it.
 
Met mine at a country store deli up top gun shop downstairs. After a hard morning of shooting the bull with my gunsmith buddy i went up to get us some lunch. There she was, the rest is history.
I've gotten her an entire cowgirl setup, from 6 gun leather to ruger single6 hat boots, she loves it. And we do go to the range together so she can make me look bad too.:)
 
I met my wife while I was working for her Dad (breaking horses)...he's the reason she likes guns and shooting though...she had 2 shotguns, 3 rifles, and 2 pistols when I met her :D

Her Dad and I were discussing shooting groundhogs and coyotes when she walked up and jumped right in on the conversation...I've been head over heels ever since.

Here she is trying to decide which shoes match her 45...
1009111144.jpg


And some pre-season practice with her 270...she hits what she aims at!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS0pqkxm_V0
 
Last edited:
I met my GF at a completely non-firearms related function; and prior to knowing me she had never even held, much less fired, a gun.

However she was by no means anti...heck she wasn't even neutral. When she was going through some pictures and saw a picture of me hunting with my dog she asked when I was going to take her :)

I responded to that by saying, "well first we have to teach you how to shoot a gun" just to see how she would respond. She snapped back, "Well I have all day, when are you free?" .....:D


Anyways, now she has shot each of my guns, and prefers my M&P9 for handguns, my AR for rifles (we found out that the .308 is too much unless we use the reduced loads), and she likes the Beretta 391 Urika 2 Gold Sporting for shotguns. That shotgun has a shortened stock and a 26" ported barrel. It is a fantastic gun.....but as soon as I saw the look on her face when she broke a clay on her first shot I knew that I was not going to get to shoot it much more ;)
 
For the most part, women are not interested in firearms. Usually it is the way they are brought up. Those that are brought up around firearms and are encouraged to participate usually become avid members. I have had 4 wives and only one was interested. She grew up around them and her father would take her hunting. We raised 3 daughters and spent 24 years together. All three daughters like to hunt and got to the range too. My youngest daughter (#4) loves to shoot but her mother dosnt care about it at all.
 
doesn't care about it, goes along to humor me. She knows basic safety and does shot some clays and .22.

She got her horses and dogs (great for me because she trains our dogs)
 
My wife was a refugee from a war zone so she initially did not like guns... but she did not fear them or hate them either.

When we started dating I told her to always walk on my left side as I carried a pistol on my right side and she did not have any problem with that and said she actually felt safer. Soon after I took her out to watch me shoot one of our local IPSC matches and she enjoyed it so I took her to watch me shoot a bowling pin match, followed by steel match, high power rifle match and rimfire match. She became regular at our matches and she started helping out with a lot of back ground stuff. I never pushed or even asked her if she wanted to shoot but after about two year she asked me to take her shooting and teach her. After we got married we would go shooting together almost weekly.

That was many moons ago (25+ years) and now she has a gun safe of her own with filled with dozens of rifles, shotguns, pistols, revolvers and even a derringer. She has more holsters than shoes in her closet. She has a carry permit and carries a Colt Officer model in 45ACP daily in her purse or in her Dillon brief case. When out in the woods she'll carry her Commander in 38 Super in a belt holster. She is small so she can not handle heavy recoiling guns but she can manage her heavy barreled .260 target rifle or 1911A1 45ACP without problem. She and I shoot local IDPA, IPSC and highpower rifle matches regularly. We even attend shooting classes/schools together occasionally.

She does not hunt but she comes hunting with me to take care of the camp and cook. She'll even sit out at the stand with me on occasion when the weather is nice... but she doesn't shoot any animal. She does buy hunting license every year along with deer permit.

I guess I'm luck to have found her.
 
I met my wife cause she lived with her parents, who are my brothers neighbors. She was raised with guns in the house, and her dad going hunting, and did shoot occasionally when she was younger, but was never really into them until we started dating.

I would have been ok if she didn't want to shoot with me, as long as she understood that the target shooting, hunting, and reloading is something i enjoy, and I have no plans to give it up.

She never hated guns, just had other hobbies and interests that she prefered at the time. Her dad has been a LEO for about 25 years now, the last few as a Lieutenant in their Detective division (was also officer in charge of the SWAT team for several years), and used to take her to the range and shoot M4's, Galil's, all the AK variants you can think of, highpowered rifles, and all kinds of pistols and shotguns. She said she had lots of fun doing it, but it sounds like it was just something to do with her dad at that time, instead of something she was really into herself.

She started shooting again when we started dating (think it was our 3rd or 4th "date"), and even bought two pistols of her own before we got married, and is now looking at getting her own shotgun. She started going more regularly until problems during pregnancy with out daughter forced her into pretty much a bedrest situtation. Now that our daughter is here and a few months old, she is looking to get out and shoot more.
 
My wife likes to go, not as much as I do, but she likes shooting and hunting.
So far I have gotten her to take an antelope and a pretty nice mule deer.
Just picked her up a Ruger American in 243 last week:D
 
Thank you for sharing your stories so far everyone, it's really cool hearing how some of ya'll met your significant others.

Oh and congratulations on the little one Crankylove, one of my best friends is expecting his third I think come sometime late spring of 2013.

I've yet to find someone (or they've yet to find me, heh) who shares a passion for firearms and target shooting, hopefully someday.

Would love to hear more from ya'll here on TFL!
 
Thanks Kimio, it's definitely a change, but I am glad she's here.

I have already started introducing her to my hobby, starting with a picture of her and my 5" Kimber (which she is named after, for some reason the wife didn't like Remmington, Ruger, Browning, or Winchester.......but decided Kimber was ok :)) when she was about a month old, and I recently discovered that a ziplock baggie of deprimed and sized .38 Specials makes a great rattle for her.

She has watched a couple reloading sessions so far, but doesn't really seem to be interested in that yet..........but 5 months old may be a little young for that still.
 
Met my girlfriend in chemistry class, when i met her she was not into guns per se but she had shot a few and even had around 10 old guns under her bed from her late grandfather that she had never shot. I took her shooting on around our 5th date or so. She likes to shoot as long as its not to hot so I guess I'm just lucky that she was open to the idea when I met her.
 
My wife is up for trying about anything. When we started dating 35 years ago, I asked her if she wanted to go shooting and she said, "Sure."

So, she started going out with me when I went shooting with friends. Over the years I've gotten her a number of revolvers and semi-autos. She has her own key to the gate at the shooting club - and shoots action pistol competition every two weeks. She helps with the 2x yearly women's introduction to pistols class, and is angling on training to become an NRA certified pistol instructor.

The only thing she doesn't like is cleaning and lubricating the guns....I take care of that for her. I also take care of her woodchipper and chainsaw...yeah...she wanted that stuff too...
 
For the most part, women are not interested in firearms. Usually it is the way they are brought up.
Click to expand...


I have 4 daughters. 3 like shooting. 1 does not. All raised in same house by the same people. All got formal firearms training. Different Strokes for Different Folks......

Many people, male and female alike, have never been exposed to guns, outside of Hollywood depictions .....
 
I blame the media and general lack of information for peoples hatred of guns. I try to offer information if the individual is open minded enough to listen, sadly, many people I talk to are not. They're either indifferent or are against them. Only a handful of my friends have changed or were fans of the sport to begin with.
 
I bet some (many) ladies are gunshy cause some jacka55 'pulled a trick' on her or a friend-like giving her a 357 and saying-It dont kick!!!

Start em out with ear protection, 22 LR (single shot rifle) and you will have a shooting friend. She will graduate to 22 handgun very easily in about 4 range sessions.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top