# Shooting with Grandson



## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

Have had the grandson (7 years old) here for last several days and he's been shooting the .22 daily, probably 100 rounds or so and getting pretty good.
We've been setting up apples and tomatoes and blowing them to bits, as well as setting up clay birds at different ranges. Stuff like this is a lot more fun to shoot for a kid than punching paper.

He struggles with open sights, don't think he understands it real well, but does great with a scope. Have been doing a bit of archery too.
Fun to have a kid around that likes this stuff.


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## Alice In TX/MO (May 10, 2002)

Wonderful fun!!


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## 67drake (May 6, 2020)

Awesome grandpa! Your grandson will remember these things forever.
My oldest grandkid is my stepsons girl. She’s about 5 now. I was at a gun show a few years ago and saw a pink Red Rider. I bought it for her even though she was only about 18 months old at the time. I told my son I wanted to be the first to buy her a gun, so I had to act fast. Around that same time, I was in small engine shop. They had pink Stihl chainsaws on the shelf. Just a toy, but another present I jumped on.
I love spoiling the grandkids when Iget to see them! Leaving for Florida next Saturday to go see the 2 down there. I can hardly wait.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

if he has to hover his head around off the stock , Irons can be a lot harder.

making a paper cut out front sight , rear sight and target to explain by laying the target on the table positioning the front sight , on the target , then the rear sight so that they understand sight alignment and sight picture.
black construction paper on a colored target is nice for this demo.

masking tape and card board to build up the stock so that they align properly when they have a good cheek weld 

just having them walk around carrying the gun , Red Ryder or other so that they learn muzzle control while walking it is important when hunting , not to early to start good muzzle control


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## gilberte (Sep 25, 2004)

Our now seven-year-old granddaughter started shooting a bb gun here when she was about five. Last year I gave her my Ruger 10-22. We keep it here at grampy's house in the gun safe. Every time she visits she wants to shoot. We get her rifle out, review the gun safety rules, and she starts plinking away at her various targets which may include various fruits, cans, golf balls, etc. Then it's gun cleaning time, she loves the smell of Hoppes!
I may have to get a part time job to keep her in ammo though.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

GREENCOUNTYPETE said:


> Fishindude said:
> 
> 
> > Have had the grandson (7 years old) here for last several days and he's been shooting the .22 daily, probably 100 rounds or so and getting pretty good.
> ...


The thing I’ve found new Shooter’s to struggle with most, when it comes to iron sights, is that the front sight has to be in crisp focus, even if it means that the target is blurry. It’s something you can tell a person 100 times, but, until they see the results of actually firing a group they did that way, they don’t get it. Iron sights are counterintuitive at a biological level. No matter how much the brain has collected that it’s supposed to focus on the front sight, the brain wants to focus on the target. Even once they get the idea, some people shift their focus back to the target right before they break the shot.

I’ve had some success with sharp-eyed shooters who did well with an optic but fell apart with irons, by printing targets that were out of focus. I opened the target image in Photoshop and ran it through a Gaussian blur. No matter how hard their brain tries, they can’t bring the target in focus, so their brain is more likely to relent and let them hold focus where they want to. It’s kind of a play on the off-eye-dominance Scotch tape trick. It doesn’t always work immediately, but I’ve had it always work eventually.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

the fuzzy dot target you only aim at the middle it is pen and sharpie small lines and dots this was the trick after photo copiers were around but before digital image rendering was common place 

I got the trick from a bullseye pistol ins instructor he probably made up his master 20 years ago or more and just photo copies it 

you also can not see where you are hitting so you just have to make every shot your best


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

I think @GunMonkeyIntl just explained why I can work with iron sights but have a hard time using a scope. I've been near-sighted as long as I can remember so anything in the distance is a bit fuzzy.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Danaus29 said:


> I think @GunMonkeyIntl just explained why I can work with iron sights but have a hard time using a scope. I've been near-sighted as long as I can remember so anything in the distance is a bit fuzzy.


You can work with a scope, but it may not be the scope that is on any rifle that you pick up an shoulder. Just about every scope has an ocular focus that can be adjusted to shoot most any seeing condition. If your vision isn’t fully corrected with glasses or whatever, you may need to adjust that ocular focus off of where someone with good/corrected vision had it set.

If you can’t get both the target plane and the reticle in focus at the same time, you may need an optic with an additional side/parallax focus. That would allow you to adjust the ocular focus for the target, and the focal plane for the reticle to get them both crisp at the same time.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

GunMonkeyIntl said:


> You can work with a scope, but it may not be the scope that is on any rifle that you pick up an shoulder. Just about every scope has an ocular focus that can be adjusted to shoot most any seeing condition. If your vision isn’t fully corrected with glasses or whatever, you may need to adjust that ocular focus off of where someone with good/corrected vision had it set.
> 
> If you can’t get both the target plane and the reticle in focus at the same time, you may need an optic with an additional side/parallax focus. That would allow you to adjust the ocular focus for the target, and the focal plane for the reticle to get them both crisp at the same time.


I would be happy to get a fuzzy image through a scope. Nearly every scope I have tried to use gives me just a tiny point of the image if I see anything through it. Usually the view through the scope is black, just like the cap was left on.


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## GunMonkeyIntl (May 13, 2013)

Danaus29 said:


> I would be happy to get a fuzzy image through a scope. Nearly every scope I have tried to use gives me just a tiny point of the image if I see anything through it. Usually the view through the scope is black, just like the cap was left on.


That’s an eye-relief issue. It’s the same thing if someone who doesn’t wear glasses, and has the eye cups folded out on a binoculars, and hands them to a person who wears glasses. The projection plane of the optic’s lens stack is projecting the image out in front of the eyeball.

In your case, I’m betting that whoever set up the scope has longer arms and/or a longer neck than you. All focal issues aside, if you loosened that scope in its mounts, held your face steady on the stock, and moved the scope backward, you would see the pinhole image grow to fill the entire ocular lens of the scope. At that point, you would have the eye-relief correct, and then could begin working on focus.


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

Probably a more flexible neck too. I have permanent damage from an auto accident years ago and my neck is not as flexible as most people. 

You have explained it in a way I understand. GCPete tried to explain it several months ago but I didn't fully understand what he meant. This makes sense. Thank you.

I didn't know scopes were adjustable. No one ever told me that. It was just "here, try this" and both of us getting frustrated because I couldn't see through the scope. I did pretty good faking it by looking under the scope and using the iron sights instead. My early instructors were not patient men.


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