Let me start off with telling you a bit about my wife: she was born and raised in Germany so our gun culture is very foreign to her. She's shot several handguns with me on the range and did remarkably well. Moreso, she listens well and takes safety as her top concern.
I finally convinced my wife to come with me to my friend's house where is has a small range equipped for rifle shooting. As a milsurp guy, I brought about a dozen rifles of varying calibers. I also brought my CZ 455 Ultra Lux (22lr bolt action).
Now, a smart person would start off with the .22lr but me being me, I figured it's best to get the big calibers out of the way and move our way down. So, she sat on the bench and I handed her my trusty 'ol kar98k (I was nice, I fitted my rubber pad on the buttplate). She did everything right, even kept the buttstock firmly seated in her shoulder. Then, slowly pulled the trigger and.. boom! haha, BIG MISTAKE!! She's seen it shot in movies but she had no idea what 8mm feels like until now and boy was she pissed! She didn't even want to look at my other rifles so I packed everything up except for my 22lr Ultra Lux. It took some convincing to get her to come over but I loaded it with subsonic ammo and took a few shots for her to see that's it's nothing like 8mm. "Oh, that looks like fun!", and sat down. Phew. Ok. She's giving it another try.
Fast forward an hour later and she's keyholing shots at 100yrds and loving every minute. She's shooting paper, steel, 2 liter bottles of soda, and apples. She's in the prone and tearing through box after box of 22!
Next week she asks if we can take a day off and "shoot that gun again". I also brought along my CZ 512 (22lr semi) and my Ruger MKIV Hunter. She let me shoot maybe 10 rounds. The rest were "hers", a tax I had to pay for punishing her with the kar98k.
Today, she's moved up in caliber and very much enjoys shooting the M1 Carbine, M1 Garand, 1903 Springfield, K31, Winchester 94 - you name it. Just not anything in 8mm, this caliber may be forever blacklisted.
As a former active duty Marine who always wore the expert marksmanship badge, I took pride in being the good shot. Now, my wife takes pride in giving me tips and my position has been dowgraded from teacher to student! It's all good because more importantly we're having fun and she's finally seeing one reason why Americans love their guns!
I finally convinced my wife to come with me to my friend's house where is has a small range equipped for rifle shooting. As a milsurp guy, I brought about a dozen rifles of varying calibers. I also brought my CZ 455 Ultra Lux (22lr bolt action).
Now, a smart person would start off with the .22lr but me being me, I figured it's best to get the big calibers out of the way and move our way down. So, she sat on the bench and I handed her my trusty 'ol kar98k (I was nice, I fitted my rubber pad on the buttplate). She did everything right, even kept the buttstock firmly seated in her shoulder. Then, slowly pulled the trigger and.. boom! haha, BIG MISTAKE!! She's seen it shot in movies but she had no idea what 8mm feels like until now and boy was she pissed! She didn't even want to look at my other rifles so I packed everything up except for my 22lr Ultra Lux. It took some convincing to get her to come over but I loaded it with subsonic ammo and took a few shots for her to see that's it's nothing like 8mm. "Oh, that looks like fun!", and sat down. Phew. Ok. She's giving it another try.
Fast forward an hour later and she's keyholing shots at 100yrds and loving every minute. She's shooting paper, steel, 2 liter bottles of soda, and apples. She's in the prone and tearing through box after box of 22!
Next week she asks if we can take a day off and "shoot that gun again". I also brought along my CZ 512 (22lr semi) and my Ruger MKIV Hunter. She let me shoot maybe 10 rounds. The rest were "hers", a tax I had to pay for punishing her with the kar98k.
Today, she's moved up in caliber and very much enjoys shooting the M1 Carbine, M1 Garand, 1903 Springfield, K31, Winchester 94 - you name it. Just not anything in 8mm, this caliber may be forever blacklisted.
As a former active duty Marine who always wore the expert marksmanship badge, I took pride in being the good shot. Now, my wife takes pride in giving me tips and my position has been dowgraded from teacher to student! It's all good because more importantly we're having fun and she's finally seeing one reason why Americans love their guns!