Thread: city kids and shooting

Most rural kids and many urban ones are familiar with firearms from a young age, so it was a bit of a surprise to me yesterday to see just how non-intuitive a shooting stance is to those unfamiliar with it. Had a couple of teenage boys from inner-Auckland on the farm, and I thought I'd show them what this shooting thing is all about. I showed them how a 10/22 works, the correct way to hold a rifle, all the things to be aware of with semi auto in particular, then let them have a go. They both did the same thing, put the stock over their shoulder and try to see the sight while leaning so far backwards it was surprising they didn't fall over. Maybe this was some kind of natural aversion to getting too close while firing? They had no difficulty grasping the mechanics of how a 10/22 functions, but it took me ages to get them to understand the way to hold it, to have the stock against (not over) the shoulder, to lean a bit forward rather than right back, and to get their faces down close enough to develop a cheek weld. One of them couldn't even see the red dot for ages, his head was so far off line.

It's no wonder some people are so far removed from firearms reality, I would have thought just watching tv and movies would have taught them something about holding a firearm.

Anyway, after a bit of teaching I let them empty a mag or two into the dam for the full bullet splashing experience. The big grins made it worthwhile.

Watching TV and movies might not help much - in a movie I watched the other day a right handed "sniper" was using their left eye to look through the scope!

One of my staff has her young nephew down here from Whangarei at the moment trying to keep him away from the gangs. He's just gone 17 and is probably a good kid under his hard exterior. We are going to give him a bit of work experience and I'll help him get a job if he can prove to me he'll keep his nose clean.
Plan on getting him into some hunting and he's pretty keen although first day out the other day having a go on the gongs he was more interested in getting some "gangsta" selfies whilst holding my 243. I think he's realised now that a Forbes is about the least gangsta piece of hardware out there and he's beginning to focus. Pretty keen to see him make something of himself and I think hunting and hard work will help endlessly with that.

The number of people, both young and old of both sexes (there are only two by the way, we'll maybe three if you include hemaphrodites) that after instruction and a demonstration, shoulder a gun then lean backwards to try and balance it is a source of amazement. Many of those same people try holding it a bit off their shoulder so the "recoil won't hurt as much" in spite of being told the opposite

@ Ben
It’s actually fairly common. When I was first teaching my partner how to shoot, she did the same thing.
Watching other first time shooters since, I notice the same thing.

I think once we have been shooting for a long time, it’s easy to forget what it was like holding a rifle the first time. Especially as for some of us the first experience was of a rifle that was too big, so we grew into our technique over time.

When I was teaching my partner, I didn’t have the answers to some questions regarding hold and position until I took hold of the rifle and observed myself.

What I realised is that teaching a newbie is a bit of an art where it’s easy to forget to teach the parts we do without thinking.

Originally Posted by Dusty Fog

good luck with that

Give the kid a chance. Living with uncle Ryan may just be the thing the lad requires to realize there is more to life than gangs

doesn't supprise me. If ya think about what a person who isn't around anyone who shoots sees. TV and movies really only show pistols or full autos fired from the hip . When was the last time you saw any movie (except maybe a sniper movie) where they use a shouldered gun.

Originally Posted by kruza

doesn't supprise me. If ya think about what a person who isn't around anyone who shoots sees. TV and movies really only show pistols or full autos fired from the hip . When was the last time you saw any movie (except maybe a sniper movie) where they use a shouldered gun.

I feel like shouldering a rifle and looking down the barrel should be intuitive (like pointing a stick or spirit level).... but obviously it's not.

First time mrs Finnwolf fired anything was the 22 at the Wanaka shooting range near the airport.

Bullets went everywhere.

Turns out she didn’t know about cheek weld and had her head wobbling around without touching the stock.

She hadn’t realized that the cheek piece was there for a reason, hadn’t noticed me with my cheek hard on the stock.

Knows all about it now though!

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

One of my staff has her young nephew down here from Whangarei at the moment trying to keep him away from the gangs. He's just gone 17 and is probably a good kid under his hard exterior. We are going to give him a bit of work experience and I'll help him get a job if he can prove to me he'll keep his nose clean.
Plan on getting him into some hunting and he's pretty keen although first day out the other day having a go on the gongs he was more interested in getting some "gangsta" selfies whilst holding my 243. I think he's realised now that a Forbes is about the least gangsta piece of hardware out there and he's beginning to focus. Pretty keen to see him make something of himself and I think hunting and hard work will help endlessly with that.

Good luck, I hope it straightens him out.
Decades ago the shepherd on the family farm used to get sent his rellies from South Auckland who were causing trouble. One of them didn't work out so well. He was a 14 year old, had never seen a live sheep or cow before as he had never been out of the city in his 14 years. He ran away, broke into our house while we were on holiday, and loaded Mum's car with blankets, alcohol and guns. He crashed the car into the picnic table. The shepherd caught him and handed him over to the police. Apparently he escaped, stole a police car and crashed that too.
On the other hand, there were several nephews etc who got themselves on the right track, and regularly came back to the farm to visit, go hunting and fishing, and put down a hangi.

I hope you were using lead free bullets Ben LoL

Yes, lots of people put the stock on top of their shoulder. The other trick I've noticed is tucking it under the arm pit.

My wife's first firearm experience was shooting clays with a 12ga. She was complaining of a sore arm. She had been holding the stock against her bicep!

If they don't want to listen and follow basic instructions give em a go on a .375H&H. I'm sure they will listen with full attention after that...

Seriously, having come through the military system where they started with rank and smelly newbies and had to start from zero - I fully understand that you get a lot of people that think that firearms attack at both ends. But it's a pain having to go through everything step by step, then uncover the misconceptions and deal with those, unpick all the phobias and then start from scratch again.

My wife when I met her was a slip of a thing, just got back from cycling around Europe and 175cm tall/60Kg. Her worst thing was shouldering the rifle, she was really reluctant to pull the butt into her shoulder securely as being a very small boned female there wasn't much to pull the butt into. After the first crack on the edge of her boob she got the point I was trying to make... That was sort of the way things went forward from there, she still doesn't listen and moans when things don't go the way she expects.

Originally Posted by chindit

Give the kid a chance. Living with uncle Ryan may just be the thing the lad requires to realize there is more to life than gangs

Maybe they thought they were using an RPG launcher…��