[little rant] Dudes that push high recoil guns on their wives bug me.

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Corpral_Agarn

Corpral_Agarn

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I host a weekly women's shooting event every Thursday night (going on 5 years!). It's free and we get a lot of new or "I haven't shot a gun in years" folks.

It is one of my favorite events to host. Very low key and seeing a very apprehensive person go from "I'm afraid it's going to kick" to "I got a bulls-eye!" is incredibly rewarding. And I get to participate in building the community.

Guy brought his wife down last night.

He wanted her to come down and get instruction because "she don't listen to me. Anybody else says the same thing, that's fine! but not if I say it."
I'm picking up that maybe this guy is kind of a jerk but I am all about the customer service.

I address the woman and jokingly say "Hey no sweat that's why we are here. who knows by the end of the night you might be out shooting him!"

They showed up just a little late so they rented the gun on their own (I usually make suggestions for the new folks to avoid any J frames making their way into new shooters hands).

She gets out to the range and I go over grip, stance trigger, what to do about the recoil, etc.

We are about to load her magazine and I notice it's a 40.

Me "Mam do you know this is a 40? We usually recommend 9mm"

The guy leans in: "I want her to have a 40."

Me: "Is this gun for you or for her?"

Him: "it's for her."

Me: "The 40 isn't recommended for new shooters. The 40 has a lot more recoil for not much gain. We like to focus on outfitting folks with guns they can use effectively over the effectiveness of the gun. Many experts on the subject even go so far as to say that the 9, 40 and even 45 have similar performance anyway."

Him "an extra 300 ftlbs of energy on target. And I'm a vietnam vet, I know what a 45 will do to a person."

Me "that's fine. I'm just letting you know that 40 simply isn't a magic bullet and is not recommended."

Him "I want her to have a 40."

I am not getting any help from the woman and she says she wants to shoot the gun her husband wants her to shoot.

So I shrug and we get her loaded.

So I start giving pointers her grip and how important the left hand is going to be and the guy literally leans over/between us and says "make sure her thumb is off the slide" (she had her left thumb in the proper position but it was contacting the slide a little. Not critical, IMO).

I stop.
I turn to him and say "do you want to teach?"

Him "no no."

Me "then let me."

Her first round is pretty centered on the target.

Her second shot (and subsequent shots) were flinching so bad she isn't hitting the 8.5x11 target at 5yrds.

Meanwhile the two brand new ladies in the lane right next to her are shooting the same gun in 9mm and just destroying the center of the target.

The guy turns to me and makes some noise about 40 again and I point out those other two ladies "These two are the same experience level as your wife. First time shooting a handgun today. They are shooting 9mm. Starting with a high recoil gun will develop real bad flinch habits that will be extremely hard to overcome down the road."

Every time I came over to their lane, he was in her lane 'instructing'.

At that point I just let them do their thing. These weren't going to be the customers I was going to reach this night.

End of the night there was maybe 5 holes on the bottom left edge of the target. She shot 50 rounds.

As an instructor (part time) the reason I do the job is because it's very rewarding to see the improvement and the leaps forward in skill levels early on.

This exchange just... rankled me.

And that's my rant LOL
 
Anecdote Warning:
A guy here was getting his jollies with "the Porsche of pistols" (HK P7) and had considerately equipped his wife with a SP101 and all the Magnum ammo she cared to shoot. Which was not very much or very well. We caught him looking the other way and gave her a box of wadcutters. A couple of cylinders convinced her that the little gun did not HAVE to hurt and after that the hits just kept on coming. I think she was outshooting him by the time she was done.
 
Hear hear! I've seen it and had my own frustration with it in gun shops and on the range. I'm not an instructor, so I keep my month shut unless the woman or inexperienced person is alone and looks in need of help. I try to respectfully make suggestions also if I see a sales person leading someone down the wrong path.

Sometimes the shooter is the problem too.When I bought my former girlfriend a gun she was a lot more concerned about having a small gun in 9mm than anything. I explained that a smaller gun means more recoil, and she might want to consider a gun with a grip that fit her hand better rather than only worrying about how small it was, or if it fit in her little ass purse. New purses can be had, and off body carry sucks, but that's another topic.

Did she listen? Nope, which is ultimately why we broke up. She picked a Ruger LC9s, and while it's an excellent gun, it's not what I'd suggest for a first shooting experience. I was trying to steer her towards a Sig P320 compact or even an HK VP9sk, or something of comparable size. As a result she had such a bad flinch she was missing pie plate sized targets entirely at like 5 yards. She was putting them in the dirt two feet in front of the target.

She wasn't listening to the advice I was giving her either on trigger control and slowing down so I could really watch and diagnose the problem. She just kept spraying bullets.

Finally I had to tell her I was getting sick of buying all the ammo and watching it get wasted. My basic wording was "So here's what you're going to do, you're going to count three seconds off in your head between shots, and when you pull the trigger, I want you to keep the trigger pulled until you are back on paper with the sights." Flinch in anticipation of recoil was the cause, and it's because she insisted on getting a gun that she wasn't ready for. So I told her she was flinching. She insisted she wasn't and that there was something wrong with the gun. So I loaded it and shot it. Every round went in the center in a group that was probably an inch. "Darling, it isn't the gun." I could see she was deflated by that.

The next range trip was perfect. She forgot to deactivate the safety, and when she pulled the trigger she flinched so badly she blushed. Then when she ran off to use the bathroom, I loaded her magazines and slipped a snap cap in. Same thing, major flinch. After that she realized she needed a lot of help, and I had her focus on capturing the trigger and more importantly, I talked her through the thought process of realizing the gun wasn't going to hurt her, so anticipating recoil was a problem. I paid special attention to getting her to pull the trigger and making sure the sights don't move. She improved quite a lot after that, but I firmly believe choosing that gun right away was an expensive experiment that was bound to cost a lot more money.

Whether it's the shooter, or the shooter's other half, people who don't listen and buy an inappropriate gun are headed down the path of major flinching.
 
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Unless high recoil is an unavoidable necessity (there's a need, for instance, for a magnum load), I do my best to avoid it. And I'm an economy-size guy.
And, re "instruction," I've noticed some people can't get out of their own head or out of their own way. Sounds like that cat had needs of his own that had nothing to do with his wife's quality of shooting or her enjoyment.
Sad.
 
WrongHanded said:
A Sig P239 SAS gen2 in .40S&W. It's hers now. I sometimes miss that little gun.
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al-salute.gif
 
Corpral_Agarn said:
I am curious to know what she learned on when she was a beginner, though.
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Mrs SwampRat learned on my Python with .38 loads. Was totally against guns when we first started dating. Took her to the range, let her play with Bambi (my Python) with wadcutters then full .38's. Likes going to the range now.

She has an FN57 she bought and a Ruger SR22 I gave her cause they're cheaper to shoot on a regular basis.

This is her target from the first day at the range with her five seven at thirty feet.

DSCN2263.JPG
 
hso said:
I've taught women to shoot off and on for decades and I imposed a "No Men" rule to stop this sort of stupidity. Someone shows up with hubby in tow...hubby isn't allowed on my range or they both have to leave.
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Good call.

In 5 years this is the first... Problematic husband I've run into.

I might have to start the 'no dudes' rule.
 
When I instruct new female shooters I prefer that the husband / boyfriend not be present. The only women I couldn't teach to shoot was my wife. and all new shooters start on low recoil guns, once they have the basics down then move on to bigger and better things. I would suggest to her to find an NRA women on target event. Lot of them have female instructors and let them shoot several different guns.
 
I heard a presentation by Vicki Farnam on exactly this kind of waste disposal orifice male. She tore up some dude who was complaining that his wife or GF didn't like the compact Kimber 1911 that he bought her. I had a work colleague (not a friend, he was a ...) who complained that his small, elderly wife wouldn't practice with a pistol grip 12 gauge. Then he bought her a 40 SW Glock. Didn't like that. He was such an expert that when we went shooting (once), he crossed his fingers in back to the slide and ran the slide down his hand - BLOOD.
 
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When my wife and I married in 1983 the only handgun I owned was a Ruger Blackhawk in 41 magnum. I never pushed her to shoot but when she asked I handed her the revolver. She asked if it kicked a lot, I replied "no". She believed me, shot a cylinder through it and never complained about recoil. She didn't have any other point of reference and as to this day as far as she is concerned a 41 magnum doesn't kick hard. And to her it doesn't.

She has never been a big shooter but she does have a Ruger LC9s that she will carry and shoot just enough to stay fairly proficient with. For her It is the noise she doesn't like. As long as she has good ear protection she seems to handle most anything.

An awful lot of recoil is between the ears. Men and women get it in their heads that certain guns will dislocate their shoulder or wrist and never get over it.
 
A "trick" I use for recoil sensitive students is to tell them we're going to do an exercise to get some perspective on recoil and recoil management. I then have them perform a controlled magazine dump using a .45 1911 at point blank range to the target. Just let the gun recoil and as soon as it comes back on target squeeze off another round as fast as they can while concentrating on getting it on target. Almost every time while they're concentrating on the target, squeezing the trigger and getting back on target they loose their awareness of recoil discomfort. The whole time I'm encouraging them, "Great!, Wonderful!, That was fast!, You were perfect!" as they dump the mag into the target. We then switch back to the 9mm right away while talking about what a great job they did managing the .45. They now have a frame of reference for recoil and consider the 9mm to be easy to handle and they don't fear it or the larger caliber.
 
Recoil can mess with Mr. Macho too. I have a friend that I shoot with who was on the local police force. He started loading his own 357's and they were hot. This is an old timer and the gun was a 4" S&W 66. I shot a 275 with some light SWC loads and I knew Skiver hadn't shot a 270 in a year so I challenged him to beat it. "I'm out of shells", He growled. When I offered a box of my loads he made a comment about them not hot enough to hit the target at 50 yards. Well they were hot enough to shoot a 275. He grumbled all of the way to the line and proceeded to shoot a 292. He quit loading hot for practice rounds after that.
 
I find these stories about men getting angry that their SO can't shoot their gun or some obnoxiously powerful gun really horrendous. I mean if your SO is wanting to protect themselves with a gun, as shooting enthusiasts shouldn't we be happy they have an interest, and acknowledge it will be a journey? I mean my GF aggravated me because she wouldn't listen, even though I tried to just present facts to her to work with.

But ultimately it was her decision, and even though I was pretty sure it would end up costing me more money in the long run, I still needed to let her choose what she wanted.
 
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The only things I'd add is that I don't really think there's anything gender specific about the benefits of starting with low recoil guns/ammo. The difference is that women will say they don't like the recoil and blast. Men will "like" it and then blink before every shot and shove things low and left because they're determined to overpower the recoil. Insisting that someone else shoot something with more "power" is probably male-correlated.

I start all new shooters with .22lr's... and now my teach-'em .22 has a red-dot on it. I want it to be as easy as possible. I want people to experience hitting what they are aiming at. Start easy, add challenges.
 
My wife's first handgun was a .45 Tanfoglio "Silver Team" that she chose after shooting 9mm and .45 in different platforms because the CZ75 type handgun naturally fit her. She hates my 1911 types since they don't fit her. She has that .45, a .38 Super, and a 9mm in the same CZ75 family of handguns and is naturally accurate and comfortable with them, but still won't deign to shoot a 1911 in any caliber.

Good friend's wife wanted to overcome her aversion to handguns and learn to shoot. She wasn't comfortable with the CZs, but the 1911s fit her. We tried 9mm and .40 and. .45 in 1911 platforms. With her "pianist's hands" a double stack 1911 was what she naturally shot and she ended up carrying a Paraordnance P13 in .45.

A lot has to do with the ergonomics fitting the person in helping manage recoil and improving initial accuracy so I work to find what the individual points naturally and grips naturally before getting into serious instruction.
 
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