Teaching a friend to shoot

M

Merad

New member
So I was having a conversation yesterday with a friend who was looking for a new hobby to try. We were just chatting about her interests and so on, when she surprised me by saying that she really wanted to visit a gun range. We're talking about a 25 year old female, so not your typical firearms enthusiast. So I offered to take her to the range where I'm a member, and we're planning to go in a few weeks.

We didn't have a chance to talk about it specifically but I'm assuming she has never touched a gun before. I'm thinking that we'll get together sometime before the actual range visit to talk about safety, let her practice loading, unloading etc with snap caps.

I plan to start her off on a Ruger MkIII and/or Marlin 60. Then let her graduate to my P226, or rent a Glock at the range if the Sig is too large for her hands.

Just looking for tips or pointers that anyone can offer. I'm a reasonably experienced shooter and very safety conscious but not a certified instructor by any means. I highly doubt that she'll take up shooting as a regular hobby so I'd really just like to give her a good grounding on safety, with some basic introduction to target shooting and so on.
 
Perhaps I am just a crusty old misanthrope, but I strongly favor avoiding public and commercial ranges, especially for introducing people to shooting. Doing so allows me and my student to concentrate on the tasks at hand without the intrusion of others and without the necessary structure needed in a crowded range environment. Your friend wants to check a target now? Check it now. A question arises while you are down range? Answer it immediately and at leisure, you inconvenience no one with the delay. Reactive targets? Wonderful for new shooters, rarely allowed on public or commercial ranges. Likewise shooters' golf. There is no minimum range to a target, only to the backstop, also great for new shooters. Having the place to yourselves means no one will set up in the next lane with an autoloader to throw cases at you and your friend, or a major piece of artillery with a muzzle brake to challenge your hearing and eye protection (at close quarters, even relatively minor loads can be like catching one in the face in a pillow fight,) something that can spoil an experienced shooter's session or ruin a new shooter's.
 
Pax, thanks for the link. It's particularly nice to see the female perspective on introducing a woman to shooting. It turns out that she's just slightly beyond being a total newbie (has shot a shotgun "once or twice"). But I think there will be some fear to overcome (the comment "guns are scary" came up in our conversation). That may not be a bad thing, though. Hopefully a touch of fear will help give her a respect for safety rules.

Chuck, I definitely agree. I do have access to a place out in the country that we could use. I brought that up but she expressed a strong preference for a "real" range. Shouldn't be an issue either way tho, the plan is to do our range visit in the middle of a weekday when it's usually empty.
 
I've been teaching my cousins that fall into the same category as your new shooter. 21-23 females and I tell them to make sure to not wear anything low or scoop necked and tennis shoes. I take them to my local indor range that has a private lane and rents guns. When you get to the range draw an oversized site picture on the target where you want them to shoot, then just tell them to line up the gun sites with what you drew on the target.

All three of those girls can now blow out a 10 ring on any pistol target shorter than 15 yards, beyond that they stay in the pie plate which is nice since if we shoot over 15 yrds with pistols we aren't shooting paper.
 
I will happily teach the basics of safety and shooting to people. I think enough to have fun.
But I think if people want to be serious about the sport, they need a more "formal" education.

When you learn from a friend it's pretty much goofing around. When you've put money down to pay an instructor you tend to pay attention.
 
My two cents: if you rent a gun, get something with a little more heft than a Glock. All the new shooters I take out hate them (especially the females). They have a hard time controlling the recoil, and stovepipes are almost guaranteed. It's a less-than-pleasant first time experience.

The Beretta 92 is my preferred semi-auto for teaching. A 1911 usually works pretty well too. And a .38 will allow her to focus more on grip, stance, etc. and not have to worry about malfunctions at all.
 
Formal training would be preferable, I agree. If she shows any real long term interest I'll push her in that direction. But I expect this is probably just going to be a once or twice satisfy my curiosity type thing.

Good point on the light weight of the Glocks... Hadn't though of that. Hopefully my Sig won't be uncomfortable for her, since it would probably be ideal (heavy). Otherwise I think all of the rental guns at our range are polymer. Glocks and XDs. Oh, and it won't be the very first thing she shoots. That honor will fall to my Ruger MkIII.
 
Merad, if she really wants to go to a "range," that's fine. Just make sure she's aware of the probability of higher noise levels, smoke, etc. I very strongly recommend double hearing protection (plugs and cups), especially if it's an indoor range.

I also recommend you teaching her, or getting her to do her own reading about, sight pictures, muzzle awareness, four basic safety rules etc well before you get to the range.

As far as Pax's recommendation about shirts: Been There, Done That. Ex-wife still opted for a scoop-neck camisole and high heels... And got a hot 9mm casing down her cleavage. Luckily, while she didn't listen to me about clothing, she had paid very close attention to the briefings on muzzle control, and malfunctions. So, although she hopped around doing the "get the brass out of my bra" dance, she kept the muzzle down-range the whole time, and let me come up next to her and remove the gun from her hand - whereupon she reached down her cami and pulled out the casing.

Despite all that, she had a good time, and ended up with a Beretta Brigadier for her birthday. That gun saved her from one attempted assault (or worse) by two guys who followed her home while I was deployed, and from an attempted armed robbery or carjacking at an ATM... so overall, her range ordeal was worth it.

Still, it was preventable.

High collar; flat, closed toe shoes; double hearing protection; eye protection. These are definitely good ideas.

(Of course, Pax is generally full of good ideas.)

Good luck,

M
 
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All good suggestions. One added suggestion.

MAKE IT FUN! If you can go to an informal range and after you get the basics down, a session of kick the can, shooting some ballons, and some plastic bottles full of water are allways a treat.
 
MLeake,

If you warn 'em and they do it anyway, it's not your fault when they find out for themselves. ;)

pax
 
I just returned from teaching the wife of a young friend of mine how to shoot.

He's shot IDPA off and on for years but as near as I can tell had never really worked on the fundamentals before starting to shoot real fast. And I've not been able to convince him to do so when we shot together.

I told them that she would be able to outshoot him in just one trip to the range. She did :-)

We shot my 22/45 for about 40 rounds then sampled .357 Magnum (6 rounds) and 9mm (20 rounds) . As expected, she developed a flinch. So we went back to the .22 where I had her squeeze the trigger and hold it back, get back on target, then ease the trigger forward for the reset click. 10 rounds fired that way resulted in the tightest group of the day - all in the black.

2 of the 3 of us had great big grins. (her hubby hadn't been able to keep them on the paper when shooting the .22)

I really enjoy teaching new people - especially women because they will follow the instructions very carefully and get great results immediately.

(It was too cold for concerns over necklines or bare toes.)
 
Of the guns mentioned, i would probably go with the Sig. The weight will help her feel like she has more control, which is important for beginners.

As far as clothing goes, i would just tell her to bring a flannel shirt to throw over whatever she wants to wear; it can be buttoned up high and also covers the arms (i still have a scar from hot brass that landed on my upper arm a couple of months ago and stayed while i kept shooting, lol, guess i should have paused to let it fall). If she happens to show up in heels, well, in that case, she's probably the kind of girl that wears them all the time, everywhere. Consider it situational training.

And of course, as was already mentioned, make sure to go over all of the safety rules before you hand her the firearm. Explain how everything works (even if she doesn't seem interested in the mechanics). Try not to get annoyed if you have to give her frequent reminders over things like which button ejects the magazine (they might all look the same to her the first couple of times).
 
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