About 5 years ago a fishing buddy of mine for the last 20 years and a lady he knows moved in together. This lady has 2 sons. I have been taking her sons and my friend to the gun club where I'm a member for about the last three years just to plink and for my friend to sight in his rifle for deer season. The boys are 13 and 15. Since the boys never had any firearms training, I started from scratch with them on safe handling of a firearm. I have had to speak loudly at times and yell a few times to get their attention when I felt that they were not following the established range safety rules. I have watched them mature in their handling of weapons for the last 3 years (but I still set on them if I feel they are doing something unsafe). I told my friend that when they are at home what he says goes, but when they are at the range my word and the range rules are law and he has no problem with that.

This year Oklahoma has a youth only hunt scheduled for next weekend. His youngest son (because he treats them both as his sons) wants to deer hunt for his first time. I dug out my T/C carbine stock and mounted my (still a virgin) .308 Bellm barrel on it for him to try and took them to the range 2 weekends ago. His boy shot it like it had been made for him. This coming weekend he will try for his first deer with my rifle and handloaded ammo. I took the rifle home to make sure every thing was tight and let his son sight it in again if needed last weekend. I talked with my friend later in the week and he said his son was heart-broken because he could not take it home with him. I didn't have to make any changes and took the rifle to him last weekend. I told him not to get too attached to the rifle because I wanted it back at the end of the season.

Helping his sons learn about shooting and safety has brought back many fond memories of taking my own son to the range and showing him how much fun he could have while still being safe. My friend told me that his boy has slept with the gun case for the rifle at the foot of his bed since I took the rifle to him last weekend so that all he had to do was put the case on the bed and get the gun out of the safe on the morning of the hunt.

Too bad we can't be kids forever. I think I have enjoyed introducing new people to the fun of shooting as much or more than shooting myself. Watching a kid pull the trigger on a rifle round chambered in a pistol and then listening to him tell his friends about the gun that he had just shot makes me feel young (or younger) again.

Teach a kid to shoot safely, it will make you feel great.

Dennis

My brother has a "daughter" much like your friends sons - she's his wife's from before they met. Anyway, I traveled up to see them all over the fourth, and while we were there we had to go shooting (good family tradition). His daughter is now 9 years old, and has her own BB gun and has shot various .22s. After banging away with some of the big guns, I drug out my Contender with the 14" .223 barrel on it. With my brother's permission, I let my niece take a couple shots with it. She loved it! After about 5 rounds, I could barely pry it out of her hands. She's hooked now, and wants her own (real) gun. My poor brother, no more new toys for him.

Shooting with a young person sure made me anxious for my own little girl (8 months) to grow up. I hope she takes an interest in the shooting/hunting sports.

I had a similar experience a week ago today, only it was not with children. Instead of introduced a couple of dedicated Riflemen the merrits of Single Shot Handguns. The pair of Riflemen were a Father and Son that I have known for many years. Ever since Minnesota changed their law and are now allowing Handguns to be used in the Shotgun Slug Zone these two have been hankerin to try their hand at Long Range Handguns.

Well a week ago today it all came together. I ventured over to their farm site with 3 Contenders: Super 14 .223 Remington Factory Barrel, 15" 6mm T/CU VVCG's Barrel, and a Super 14 .30-30 Ackley Improved Barrel.

We started out shooting off of the Bench to get them familiar with the Guns and Handgun Scopes. While the groups were not quite as tight as I can shoot most of the time, they were all under an inch. Then the father asked how I shoot these Handguns in the Field, so I dug out my home made Crossed Shooting Sticks.

Next they sat on the ground with their back to a tree and rested the Contenders in the Crossed Shooting Sticks. Yep the groups opened up a bit (which was to be expected) but every group would have accounted for a dead Whitetail. They were impressed.

Next to spice things up a little bit we placed several Pumpkins in front of the target stand (which turned out to be a mistake, we had to clean the target stand when we were done), and they shot the pumpkins from the Crossed Shooting Sticks. Once they had exploded all of the pumpkins they set out to shoot all of the pieces from the bench.

The father finished up the day shooting my Super 14 .223 Contender (40gr. Nosler Ballistic Tips loaded with Blue Dot to a Muzzle Velocity of 2899FPS). He shot the best group ever fired with this Handgun / Load combination with a 1/4" 5 shot group at 100 yards. He impressed me as I have never shot a group that small with that Handgun, so I chided him that it was beginners luck, so he proceeded to do it again only thins time it was 3/8".

All in all a fun day was had buy all, and now 2 dedicated Rifleman have seen the merits of T/C's Single Shot Handguns. Knowing these two like I do, I think I have created a couple of dedicated T/C Fanattics, but it sure was fun.

Larry

mistake please ignore

[ 10-13-2003, 16:54: Message edited by: DennisF ]

Yeah, i take kids antelope hunting in CO or WY every year. This last year was the only time we didn't do 100% (the kid had to get back to a football game. oh well). I love taking kids hunting, and i always make them "earn" the shot, and meet the landowner.

Hey guys,
Yes, kids can truly be a joy! Of course, they can also be a real pain at times, as well, but so far, my experiences hunting w/ my kids has been much more pleasure than pain. My 3 daughters dabbled w/ hunting. My 9 y/o son (youngest of the 4 kids), appears to be eaten up w/ it, at this time. This past weekend we went squirrel hunting and he killed his first 2 squirrels. He used a Mossberg 20 gauge "Bantam" (This is a really good starter shotgun that's downsized appropriately for kids and is nicely priced)to kill both squirrels. I hope I ALWAYS remember his excitement and joy when he got his first squirrel. I also carried a Contender 22 LR carbine that he used, but he quickly found out it's much tougher hunting squirrels w/ a rifle than a shotgun. I've got a 300/221 Contender carbine barrel ordered from OTT. I've told him that if he does well w/ the 22 LR, then he can hunt w/ the 300/221 when deer season comes around. I'll probably continue to carry both the shotgun and the 22 LR carbine so he can continue to become familiarized w/ the latter. Gary T.

I also have enjoyed teaching my kids and grand kids how to shoot. Though I was caught off guard this spring when my now married Daughter annouced to me that she want's to start Deer Hunting. This really blind sided me as she is the Chello player and plays with our city orchestra. I knew that she liked shooting but never thought that she would take up hunting. MAN I'm just to happy as she has asked me to help her harvest her first Deer. Man it just don't get much better than that.

[ 10-30-2003, 01:06: Message edited by: Handloader ]