All right, the long anticipated range report. It was a huge success!
First I want to clear something up. I described her as an "anti" which was probably a bit harsh. She certainly wasn't actively anti-gun, and holds generally conservative political views. Her fear of guns and family members owning them stems more from fear of losing a loved one in an accident rather than any sort of political opposition to the RKBA. After all, she did express initial interest is going to the range and learning how to safely shoot a gun.
Before going to the range I sent her an e-mail with the 4 rules and some other general tips for a range trip. I asked her and her husband to read them and try to remember them. Then while over at her house, I let her handle and dry fire a pistol, and covered some of the mechanics and safety aspects of guns.
I noticed then and throughout the range day on Sunday that the majority of her and her husband's misconceptions about guns didn't come from the Brady Campaign, but from Hollywood.
We arrived at the range bright and early, it was cold, but the sun was shining and it was comfortable in the high 50s and low 60s later in the day.
I brought about a dozen firearms, most of them .22lr. I apologize for the lack of pictures, I was focused entirely on teaching and safety until later in the day when I remember to snap some photos.
We started by going over the safety rules again, then after laying out most of the guns I gave a brief description of their function. Everyone put ear pro on, and I had her double up.
She seemed more interested in pistols so I scrapped my plans to start out on a single-shot Stevens .22 rifle and we started with a .22lr conversion on a 1911. I don't have a dedicated .22lr pistol, which is something I need to fix.
After explaining sight picture, grip, stance, trigger squeeze, etc. I had her dry fire a few times before loading one round. Her first shot was about 3 inches low of the bull from ~7yds... pretty good considering she had her eyes firmly clenched shut as she squeezed the trigger. After she realized the gun wasn't going to bite her, everything improved from there.
I had her shoot a few more rounds on paper to improve her groupings and get more comfortable, and then had her break a few clays that I glued to the target backer. Of course reactive targets were a big hit. After that she took a break and I repeated the process with her husband.
Next I set up a bunch of clays and had them compete, 3 rounds at a time, to see who could hit the most. She won, with the help of some creative scoring by her brother
After putting a few hundred rounds through the .22, they were ready to try new things and we stepped up to a S&W 686 shooting lightweight .38 spcl wadcutters. This is about the most accurate gun I own and is a good transition from .22
After that we moved to a Stoeger Cougar in 9mm. The noise and recoil startled her on the first shot, but she got comfortable pretty quickly. When she swapped it out with her husband, his second shot was a squib load! Winchester White Box ammo, appeared that there was no powder at all in the case. The first factory squib I've ever experienced. Fortunately I was watching him closely and after making sure it wasn't a hangfire, I had him clear the weapon. I didn't want to spend 15 mins trying to hammer it out of the barrel on the range, so the 9mm was packed away for the day.
Next we went to a 1911 in .45, shooting fairly light loads. She shot it a few times, then decided she didn't like it that much, which wasn't suprising. Her husband however shot quite a few rounds and really liked it.
I had a few leftover pumpkins, which we proceeded to blow up with some old Speer Gold Dots. After seeing how much fun this was, my sister decided she wanted to shoot the .45 some more after all, and proceeded to put a magazine of Gold Dots through my lightweight commander 1911.
We then backed up to 25 yds or so and started with my Mossberg Plinkster, breaking clays and shooting at a steel spinning target. Tons of fun.
The big hit of the day was my Savage 93R17, with a 3-9x scope on it. She couldn't get enough of this gun. Nailing full ginger ale cans with a .17HMR is quite spectacular.
Also shot was my AR with a .22 conversion, which was pretty popular, and a Mossberg 500 with birdshot. Everyone liked the AR, even though it was heavy for her, its a 18" heavy barrel middy with a rifle length rail. She wanted to shoot the 12ga, and did once. Brother-in-law really liked the Mossberg, and enjoyed blowing pumpkins to bits with 3 inch slugs.
We shot some other stuff but those were the highlights.
By the end of the day, she was talking about how much she liked the .17HMR and she wanted one like that. Brother-in-law was asking me about pricing and good brands for handguns, ARs, and shotguns. We also talked about setting up a time for me to give them a better class on safety for guns in the home and for self-defense. We also are setting up another range day to go out to the long-range rifle range and shoot some bigger rifles.
We all went over to our parents house later that evening for our annual Christmas tree decorating, grand illumination, and dinner. The conversation was centered on our range trip, and our father remarked how she went in one day from "guns are evil" to wanting an arsenal.
Some lessons learned:
-Accurate guns. A misconception I have seen among many new shooters is that guns are laser beams, like they are depicted in movies and video games. It is difficult to explain to a new shooter that they are doing great when not every round is hitting the bullseye.
-Shooting all .22s gets boring for a new shooter quickly. I can shoot .22 all day and have fun, but for their first experience they want to try new and bigger things.
-Mix of paper and reactive targets. Always start with paper, as it gives better downrange feedback. Reactive because they are fun!
-Bring more ammo. When a new shooter really likes a particular gun, they will shoot that gun for the rest of the day.
Thanks to everyone here for their advice and their help in making this a successful day!
A new member of the shooting community shooting her evil black rifle
P.S. I thought I had some great video to post of the 12ga induced pumpkin showers, but apparently I can't work my camera
