pax said:
People who start on a .22 often develop sloppy, lazy habits for how they hold the gun and how they (don't) control recoil. Without truly good grip instruction (which is rare at beginning levels), these people can take their lazy, not-firm hand position and really hurt their hands by holding the larger calibers loosely, without good control. This makes them more likely to not want to move up, or to quit the larger caliber before it seems they've even given it a real try.
(By the way, for counter balance: People who start with larger calibers -- most notably, but not only, the .40 -- often develop a lasting flinch pattern that takes serious work to eradicate.)....
All of which reinforces the utility of a good instructor and the importance of a well managed introduction to shooting for the novice.
As I've mentioned before, I help teach Basic Handgun classes with a group of instructors. Probably 80% to 90% of our students had never touched a real gun before. Our class enrollment runs 20% to 40% female. We have students of all ages from early 20s to us more seasoned types. We've had entire families attend together. Most of our student show varying levels of anxiety at handling real guns.
We go through the course material in a step-by-step, measured and supportive way, doing a lot of "hands-on" work with the students. The students handle a variety of revolvers and semi-autos under direct supervision, one-on-one, of an instructor. They use dummy rounds to load and unload the guns, dry fire and generally learn how things work and feel, and they get continual safety reinforcement. These initial hands-on exercises help students get familiar with handling guns and lay a foundation for safe gun handling habits.
Then in preparation for live fire, and after talking about how to actually shoot (grip, stance, sight alignment, trigger press, surprise break, focus on the front sight, and eye dominance), we work one-on-one with students on grip and stance using "blue" inert training guns.
Before going to live fire with .22s, the students shoot airsoft (the quality type) in the classroom so they can get a feel for sight alignment and trigger control (and reset) without the noise and intimidation factor (for beginners) of firing real ammunition.
After the students fire their 25 rounds of .22 (working one-on-one with an instructor), we put out a variety of guns from 9mm to .44 Magnum so the students can get the experience of firing the larger calibers. Shooting the centerfire guns is at each student's option. Most fire them all, but some choose not to.
When someone has gone through our program, it's not uncommon for her/him to be shooting 1.5 to 2.0 inch groups at seven yards with the heavy calibers. A few months ago, a petite young woman who had never fired any type of gun before out shot everyone, including her husband, with the .44 Magnum -- putting three rounds into about an inch at 7 yards.
This group (six rounds at seven yards) was fired during the last part of the live fire period at one of our Basic Handgun classes. It was fired by a middle aged woman who attended our class with her two adult daughters. She had never fired a handgun before our class; she had fired a rifle only a few times. It was fired with a Ruger Red Hawk -- three rounds in .44 Special and three in .44 Magnum.
And here is one of her daughters looking with an instructor at a group of six shots she had just fired at seven yards with a Colt Python (three rounds of .38 Special and three of .357 Magnum). She had never fired a gun before.