Teaching Sight Picture Part II

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Prof Young

New member
So I've been working on teaching six year old grand son to shoot. At first it was just fun to go shoot the gun and what he hit didn't matter much. Most of that shooting was with a Cricket that had a low magnification scope on it. We have moved up to where we are trying to hit the target, especially in the bullseye. It became clear that he just could not figure out how to aim through the scope. I'd ask him if he could see the cross hairs and he just wasn't sure. He could get it on target but it was all over the place. So I read somewhere about using a peep sight. Dug through my gun stuff and found the sight that originally came with the Cricket is a peep sight. Removed the scope, and reinstalled the peep. Then I painted the front sight a bright orange. Told him to look through the peep, find the orange, and put that on the target. Danged if he didn't start hitting the bullseye right away. We are still shooting at only five to seven yards. Now, when he concentrates and take his time he is really on target. And he is beginning to understand what it means to "aim."

Life is good.
Prof Young
 
Sounds like youre on track. :)

Our kids learned on their Chipmunks, the predecessor to the Crickets. Spent a lot of hours in dry fire on the living room floor before ever firing their first live round. Paid off too. Their first live rounds were fired offhand at 10 yards from a chair in an indoor range. Most were right in the black of a 25 yards pistol target too. :)

Those little rifles are the best thing to teach kids on. They are scaled to fit them in all ways, making them a true learning rifle. No trying to shoot an oversized adult rifle that is to heavy and doesnt fit.

Personally, I think they should learn on the irons. Learn to shoot them properly, and you can shoot anything.
 
Their first live rounds were fired offhand at 10 yards from a chair in an indoor range.
Click to expand...

Pardon me but I am having a bit of a problem understanding the above. Were they sitting in the chair or somehow using the chair as a brace?

Way back when I learned with iron sights (aperture rear and circular front sight, IIRC) something like this:
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en...=1.25#imgrc=TQJSQIgfC72d4M:&spf=1558644476077

The YMCA had a rifle program one night a week but it wasn't until the third or fourth week that you actually got to shoot. There were a lot of drop outs during that time. Maybe they wanted to weed out anyone that wasn't "serious" but I think they removed an awful lot of the fun factor of shooting.

I agree iron sights are the way to go unless there is some medical reason not to.
 
Pardon me but I am having a bit of a problem understanding the above. Were they sitting in the chair or somehow using the chair as a brace?
Click to expand...
They were standing "on" the chair. They were 4, and to short to see over the counters. They needed a "boost". :)

The position was still "offhand", free-standing, no rest.
 
I am another “irons” guy but I think anyone can “get it” with a no magnification red dot very quickly.

I much prefer irons with a good rest though, even use the same concept with me hand in a “V” and a finger held in front “I”, centered in the V, now close one eye. If you have V I or I V you have found the non dominant eye, if it’s still centered similar to a W, that is your dominant eye. Now we can begin.

I have ran circles with some folks in the past before I realized this is the first thing that should be done with anyone after the basic safety briefing.
 
"...how to aim through the scope..." You don't aim through a scope. You aim with one. Not the same thing.
At 6 he might be too young to understand the concept of focal plains. As in his eye not being capable of focusing on more than one thing at a time.
Using the peep then going to the scope will help. You just tell him to put the cross hair on the target like he did with the front sight. And lose the paint on that. Bright sunlight will make it disappear.
 
"...how to aim through the scope..." You don't aim through a scope. You aim with one. Not the same thing.
At 6 he might be too young to understand the concept of focal plains. As in his eye not being capable of focusing on more than one thing at a time.
Using the peep then going to the scope will help. You just tell him to put the cross hair on the target like he did with the front sight.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I taught my daughters on iron sights, and my oldest has continued on and loves to shoot with me. The first time I had her shoot with a scope it was an adjustment for her. She had a hard time finding the correct eye relief and focusing on the cross hairs her first time out. She picked it up very quick, but she was older (maybe 11) when she shot a scoped deer rifle the first time so it wasn't as hard to grasp. I don't think any type of traditional scope would have suited her to learn on at 7 or 8.
 
It's much to complex for a 6-year old to comprehend, but the issue of what distance the scope is calibrated for enters into the discussion. Remember parallax? Many scopes for centerfire rifles are set for a 100-yard distance, and I think I read that most "rimfire" scopes are set for 50 yards. At any other distance, if you move your eyeball off the axis of the scope, the crosshairs will shift, making the scope inaccurate if you put the crosshairs on the center of the bullseye.

This is why they sell adjustable objective ("AO") scopes. On those, the parallax can be dialed in to match the shooting distance, which alleviates the parallax discrepancy. AO rimfire scopes can be found for around $25.
 
Good information . . .

Yeah, all this stuff about scopes and parallax makes perfect sense. I hadn't taken all that into account. Anyway he is getting it now with the peep sight. Life is good.
Prof Young
 
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