My daughter's first trip to the range

[Troublco]

I had the privilege of taking my 9 year old daughter to the range for the first time today. I've been wanting to do this since late December when she was one of the lucky winners of one of Pickenup's .22 rifles. She got the Savage M3 with a beautifully refinished stock. Well, Daddy took her to the range today and darned if she isn't a natural! The picture of her with the target show her 2nd (top of target) and 3rd (touching the X ring) rounds fired. EVER. She had an absolute blast (pun intended!) and the first thing she asked when we were headed home was....."Daddy, when can we go to the range again?"
By the time we were finished, she was shooting better than some of the folks that I qualified with last time at the Base....(Scary, but true!) Thanks, Pickenup. I think we have another lifetime devotee to the shooting sports.

[Batteriesnare]

Awesome, congrats!

[newracer]

Love it!!!!!!!

[cowboykjohnson]

congrats. that's a dream of mine some day.

[newracer]

I recently took a friends daughter to the range for her first time ever.

[DD977GM2]

I love being able to take my daughter shooting. Its diffrent with girls I think. The boys are great shots and i enjoy taking them. Just something a bit more special when my daughter goes. She was 12 and the pic is about a year old.

[Graves]

Very nice T.co, how far out was she shooting?

[GhostRider]

thats great!!! love to see the kids shooting. I teach several of the sons friends and my daughter has even brought a friend along a time or two. Both are great shooters but going in different directions. My son to rifles and shotguns and my two daughters to pistols. get to start training my nieces boys soon

[Hoosier]

I've been out shot by little girls with open iron sites before, on little .22 rifles. It's a tad embarrassing when you've got an AR-15 with a scope and they're hitting bulls-eye every time. Granted, they lived on the farm we were shooting and did it all the time, but still.

[Troublco]

Very nice T.co, how far out was she shooting?

I had her on the 25 yard indoor range. I'm going to find some bigger targets (I noticed that the front sight bead was the same size as the target I had up for her on this one!) and let her try the 100 yard line out next time.

There's something really special about taking a kid to the range the first time. In this case, it's one of those daddy-daughter moments that I wouldn't trade for anything. But even if you're taking a friend's kids, or other family member, it's still special. I know for my daughter it's something she had asked to do for some time now, I'm sure because she sees daddy going to the range periodically. I think there's a practical side to this for her, too. She's helped me process one of my deer before, and not only did she love helping but she was fascinated. She thinks deer and elk are delicious, so she wants to be able to help fill the freezer!

Kudos to everyone who takes a kid shooting. I think it's really important that kids learn proper gun safety (as opposed to no gun education at all, like so many people seem to think is 'best') not to mention encouraging the next generation of shooters.