We have a relatively new intern on my team at work, Nashwa. She grew up in Texas and speaks fondly of it so I figured she was at least comfortable around gun owners. I had taken everyone else on the team, except my boss Jodie, to the range but not Nashwa.
I have invited Jodie many times. While she expresses great interest she has not found a time slot that works. I give her a pass because she recently finished up training with the FBI where she learned to shoot everything from handguns to sniper rifles. I’ll get her to the range someday but today was Nashwa’s day.
I had the training bay reserved just for the two of us from 4:00 –> 6:00. It turns out she had never fired a gun before. I asked if she was right handed or left handed. “Right”. Which eye is dominant? “Right”. I was a little surprised she knew. My surprise must have shown because she then said she wasn’t sure. I did a quick test and found she was left eye dominant. I first taught her shooting left handed and then part way through switched to right handed for a while. She decided to stay with left handed shooting.
I started her out with dry firing of a Ruger 22/45 Light with a suppressor. She looked like she had it down. But her first half dozen real shots were all high. Nice group. But they were about three inches high at 10 feet. I went over sighting again. Still the same problem.
I fired a few shots. It was maybe a quarter inch low at that range.
We went over the sighting again. “Oh, I wasn’t really looking at what was going on with the rear sight.” Hmm… I’ll have to work on how I explain sights.
I gave her a clean target and she was putting them just below the bulls-eye:
Ahhh… Yes. The new shooter smile.
I moved her to shooting a simulated steel match with four targets on one piece of paper and removed the suppressor.
She was getting all five hits in under ten seconds.
Next I gave her Major Power Factor loads in my STI DVC Limited. With essentially the same results. But after a few strings the misses started increasing and getting more and more wild. It was time to go back to the .22.
She still had some misses. Back to dry fire. We needed to end the day on a positive note.
The dry fire looked good. I pretended to put in a loaded magazine and she “fired” again. There was some serious movement of the gun when she pulled the trigger. More dry fire. And then, finally, live fire. She was back to consistent, solid, hits I shouldn’t have let her fire so many rounds through the .40. She was starting to develop a flinch.
After we cleaned up and packed things up we talked a little bit. She had two questions:
- Q: How much do I owe you?
A: Nothing. The first time is free for new shooters.
- Q: How often do you come here? I would like to go again.
A: Two or three times a week. But you don’t need for me come with you. You can come here by yourself if you want or bring a friend anytime they are open.
We now have a new member in the gun community and a team member at work that fits right in.
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