Taking a new shooter

[JohnTRourke]

Was at the sporting clays range today and a few guys in front of us had taken one of their wives for the first time shooting shotgun.

The good.
They were using a 28ga. Good, easy to hit with, light, no recoil.

but that was the extent of the good.

the bad.
1. Starting on a sporting clays course. A sporting clays course is HARD. it's tricky and it's all an optical illusion. do something simple. get them started on something easy (skeet low 7 is the perfect start point, takes about 3 shots to get them to blow something up, they are then hooked, walk up close on a trap range works too (only if nobody else is there))
I doubt she ever hit anything (we never saw it) and of course it's frustrating and she wanted to quit and didn't care.

2. not having a clue what you are doing. If you don't know, you can't teach someone else. (i'm not saying you have to be a great shot to be a good teacher, but you do have to understand HOW to hit the bird and impart that knowledge to others.)

3. Not understanding how to teach. Form is EVERYTHING in shotgunning. They couldn't get her mount right (she was leaning back as new shooters are prone to do) so of course she couldn't hit shit, nor could she be comfortable. There are ways to teach a pre-mount that take about 60 seconds and people get it instantly (the lightbulb clicks on) and then things blow up.

4. Being related to the person you are teaching. They were starting to get mad at each other. her for being frustrated, him for her not listening to him. pay the $100 for a lesson. lot cheaper than court.

5. The gun was way too long for her. (pretty small woman) so it didn't fit so she couldn't mount it right (#3) so she couldn't hit shit.

Please take new people shooting!!!!!!!!!!!!
Please do it right so they enjoy it. 25-50 rounds or so so they don't get sore and hate it
make things blow up (easy easy easy stuff )
then pay for a lesson for them the next time after they are hooked.

[StagLefty]

Great subject. I worked at the Scout camp for several years on the shotgun ranges.
We started the younger kids standing right behind the trap house-wasn't as intimidating as standing back at the normal positions. We have sporting clays also but that to me is for advanced shooters.
Always teach them to lean forward with knees bended. After a few shots they would see it was more comfortable and made sense.
Ask my son what a great teacher I was with him [ROFL1] I never instructed him on any range after I realized how hard I was on him. We actually made a pact among us that we not teach our own kids.
We had standard shotguns and shorter ones for the boys. The gun has to fit the shooter.
Not teaching a newbie proper methods can result in a bad experience and possibly losing that shooter to our shooting sports forever due to 1 bad experience.
Thanks for a look back in time Brian [Beer]

[ray1970]

I agree that a sporting clays course is definitely not the way to build confidence in new shooters. Heck, I normally shoot in the high seventies and low eighties and there are days it makes me want to quit shooting all together. When I took my step son for the first time I took my old single shot .410 and simply set up some soda cans full of water on some old fence posts and just let him blow the things apart from about fifteen yards away. When I started the wife shooting I let her shoot a scoped .22 rifle off the bench at about twenty-five yards. Building the confidence of new shooters by making their shots "easy" is the best way to get them interested.