I have a grandson that is a natural marksman. He can hit what he can see since we had to hold the rifle for him.
I am a Marine, his father is Army and we both love firearms. His other grandfather is also a gun nut but more into turkey shoots and speed shooting. This kid has it made as far as firearms go.
Now that he is tall enough (he was a 22week premie with a birth weight of 1 lb 14 oz) to shoulder a rifle it is time to teach basics and hope he hasn't developed too many bad habits.
Since I am the ramrod to this, we will be using the Marine Corps way, butt loads of sight alignment and sight picture.
JJM, a member here, was good enough to sell me his Winchester 69A bolt action .22 that will chamber the short, long and long rifle rounds. It was cleaned and the rear Lyman sight was fine tuned and it will easily feed the ammo I intend to use.
Most of us wish for our youngsters to have the best equipment and hope for the best result thereby being it's own reward. We have done that. Now it is time for him to have to work for it!
We will be using the Aguilla Colibri 20gr subsonic ammo. For those of you who have not shot it, it is the primer only .22 without gunpowder. It can be very accurate at the 25 yard range with the only sound you hear from using the longer barreled .22's are the firing pin "click" and then the projectile cutting paper. It is designed to chamber like a .22lr, but I find it can be troublesome in some of the .22lr only rifles.
It accomplishes two necessary tasks, 1) the lack of hearing protection not only affords comfort but also ease of communication with the shooter and 2) the lack of speed and energy will create a ballistic "arc" in as little as the 25 yard range.
This is where the sight alignment and sight picture come into play. The slightest canting of the rifle will give you terrible lateral results. If necessary you could make a bold vertical line through the "bullseye" and insist the round must hit the vertical line as a "10".
I chose to use the Lyman peep sight because it will easily show the effects of both breathing and heart beat on the sight picture all while giving a better field of view.
Sure, I have weapons that will go through targets at 100 yards like a laser that he could use, but that allows you to carry your bad habits with you as you progress up the levels of shooting.
After mastering these arcing slow moving projectiles even a standard velocity .22 will seem like cheating. (Not to mention grandpa is having a blast being the beta test group for this lesson.)
Don't get me wrong, this kid is already a shooter, but who doesn't have room for improvement?
I am a Marine, his father is Army and we both love firearms. His other grandfather is also a gun nut but more into turkey shoots and speed shooting. This kid has it made as far as firearms go.
Now that he is tall enough (he was a 22week premie with a birth weight of 1 lb 14 oz) to shoulder a rifle it is time to teach basics and hope he hasn't developed too many bad habits.
Since I am the ramrod to this, we will be using the Marine Corps way, butt loads of sight alignment and sight picture.
JJM, a member here, was good enough to sell me his Winchester 69A bolt action .22 that will chamber the short, long and long rifle rounds. It was cleaned and the rear Lyman sight was fine tuned and it will easily feed the ammo I intend to use.
Most of us wish for our youngsters to have the best equipment and hope for the best result thereby being it's own reward. We have done that. Now it is time for him to have to work for it!
We will be using the Aguilla Colibri 20gr subsonic ammo. For those of you who have not shot it, it is the primer only .22 without gunpowder. It can be very accurate at the 25 yard range with the only sound you hear from using the longer barreled .22's are the firing pin "click" and then the projectile cutting paper. It is designed to chamber like a .22lr, but I find it can be troublesome in some of the .22lr only rifles.
It accomplishes two necessary tasks, 1) the lack of hearing protection not only affords comfort but also ease of communication with the shooter and 2) the lack of speed and energy will create a ballistic "arc" in as little as the 25 yard range.
This is where the sight alignment and sight picture come into play. The slightest canting of the rifle will give you terrible lateral results. If necessary you could make a bold vertical line through the "bullseye" and insist the round must hit the vertical line as a "10".
I chose to use the Lyman peep sight because it will easily show the effects of both breathing and heart beat on the sight picture all while giving a better field of view.
Sure, I have weapons that will go through targets at 100 yards like a laser that he could use, but that allows you to carry your bad habits with you as you progress up the levels of shooting.
After mastering these arcing slow moving projectiles even a standard velocity .22 will seem like cheating. (Not to mention grandpa is having a blast being the beta test group for this lesson.)
Don't get me wrong, this kid is already a shooter, but who doesn't have room for improvement?