Daughter Can't Hit the broad side of a barn

lesterg3

OK, so here's the deal my daughter who is about 36 says she wants to start hunting, I says great let's buy a gun and get you to the range.

Got her a Savage .270 with a Redfield scope and took her to the range.

I sighted in the rifle to get it within an inch of dead center and turned it over to her to gain experience and fine tune.

Now the problem, I am not a good teacher, in fact some might say I am a really bad teacher. I can use her rifle and get consistently good groupings but she is consistently shooting low and to the right, and worse there is no group. I told her to stop flinching in expectation of the recoil and to squeezed the trigger.

Of course there is only one person more pig headed than me and that is her, " I am squeezing and I am not flinching" add an explicative or two and that is her response.

Now how can I help her become a better rifleman (person). Suggestions other than taking the rifle away from her will be appreciated.

Ominivision1

When I started out my kids, they were young at 6 or 7 years old and started them off with a bb gun. They worked their way up to 22LR then to a 410 shotgun progressing to the 243 win on up to the 300 magnums they own now.

Did she ever shoot before? If not, this is where starting anyone off with to big a rifle or shotgun is not good. If she has shot before, and you reload your own, try using a lighter load, Hodgdon's web site has a pdf file on using very light loads using IMR Trail-Boss powder.

The trail-boss powder can be used up to the 458 mag, also you can try a limbsaver or slip-on recoil pad to help reduce recoil.

Suzanne

Maybe she's not holding it level, you know at a 90 degree angle. A lot of people don't put the cross hairs level on the target. So set up your target with some drawn on cross hairs and get her to match the cross hairs when she shoots. Really good hearing protection and a nice support for the rifle to rest on.

The flinch might me easier to cure if you start her out with a .22, put some time in with that, like 30 minutes or so and then go directly to the .270 and make her go slow.

cure-all
Suz

Pumpkinslinger

Omini and Suz both make good suggestions.

My first suggestion is to double up on hearing protection, use both ear plugs and muffs. Flinching is a psychological thing and reducing the noise as mush as possible can help. When my daughter shot air rifle competitions she used ear plugs to help her concentrate as they eliminated the sound of other competitors' shots.

If your daughter isn't an experienced shooter I'd stop with the .270 and go back to a .22 until she's comfortable and not flinching. Then start introducing the .270. A few shots with the .22 then a shot with the .270 and build from there.

If she's an experienced shooter then I'd still go back to the .22 for a bit to help eliminate any flinching. Then again start alternating the .22 and .270.

As hard as it is for us Dad's to admit, we might not be the best ones to teach our kids (or wives) to shoot. Too much emotion involved. My wife gets pissed at me if I try to teach her anything and my daughters can have their stubborn streaks too. See if you can find another experienced shooter to help you out. Keep your distance and let your helper work with her. If we can figure out when/how I'd volunteer but my schedule is getting kinda full.

TRBLSHTR

One other thing-maybe mechanical/physical.Are both of your eyesights the same?Corrective lenses vs normal eyesight?That can make the difference with the lower right side of the target,as for the grouping that does sound like a trigger pull situation.Maybe her breathing?Be patient,most women turn out to be very good shooters once they get hooked on it! Very Happy

Aloysius

It's good to start without recoil + a BIG TARGET ! Take an airgun or a .22 and big targets that can move when hit.
Don't go for good groupings with a starter. Let them consistently HIT a target first. Then take their minds away from the trigger and make them focus at the target. Let them predict where they have hit the target before you going to check it. It helps a lot when you tell them to squeeze the trigger without paying attention to it and make them put all their attention to where the cross is at the moment when the rifle goes boom.
Very soon a big target will no longer satisfy them and they feel confortable enough to try a small target. And while they are doing this, it just doesn't cost any extra efford anymore, so they can move on and pay attention to respiration and even heartbeat...
Such a slow start keeps things funny and before you know it they are reading books or checking the internet to learn about the practical tricks used by these freaking benchresters.
And don't forget: they still have excellent eye-sight, so with a little exercising after a while you find yourself lucky that you still have more experience about game and hunting (and let them go to the range on their own because it's harder to proof you're better...)

gelandangan

Use snap caps to help spotting the flinching.
Sometime the anticipation of recoil would make the shooter flinch badly.

close down the distance to the target, and practice that way first before go for longer distances.

flyinlizard · Rookie Member Joined: Nov 04, 2006 Posts: 19

I have 3 savage rifles and they are great shooters BUT the factory recoil pads stink, get a good after market pad are decellerator or kick-ezz, also she could wear a recoil shield. If you reload make up a dummy round and load it in the mag. without her knowing it and see if she flinches and SHE will see it too.

Elvis

when I first got my .270 it had that awefull thin hard winchester recoil pad on it. the trigger was so hard you found your deer , dug a post hole, tied the rifle to the post, hooked up the winch rope from the D7 and started to pull, just before engine stalled the rifle went off. ( teah I know thats a SLIGHT eggzageration) and I was using Norma 150grn factory loads. I started the flinching thing. first up the trigger got lightened to 3lb, 2nd the recoil pad was changed to a biesley shotgun pad and left as big as possible, 3rd I went to 130grn loads. flinch dissapeared. the only time Ive flinched sinch was 60 or 70 rounds of .270 on the range trying to sight in 3 rifles and my mate had a hard trigger.... have you got a say .223 for her to use??? bigish noise but no kick. the .410 shot gun is the same.

Pumpkinslinger

TRBLSHTR makes a good point about zeros. My shooting buddy and I always trade rifles around at the range and we never shoot to the same point. Whether it is build or vision or technique I don't know but a gun zeroed for him won't shoot to the same point of impact for me, and vice versa.

Elvis

Ive had that to Pumpkin, my buddy would shoot 2" low and 1"right from my poi and vice versa. Im a plump build and hes a beanpole.another point is the stock too long for her???

Vince

I can't add anything to what all of the others have said Lester...although I will re-emphasise the point about using a .22 to learn the basics, and download the .270 a bit. Another thing I will say is to not worry about where the shots are on the target...so long as they group. The final zeroing can take place after your daughter has learned to put all her shots into a group.

Cheers, Vince

SingleShotLover

Everyone has very good suggestions that need to be checked out. I would add one more that haunted a friend of mine until we accidentally figured it out: Which eye is her master eye? My friend's son is right-handed but his left eye is his master eye. He had to learn to shoot left-handed to compensate.

To check this out, have your daughter point at a distant object with her forefinger with both eyes open. Now close one eye and then the other. The eye that keeps the finger pointed at the object when open is her master eye. The non-master eye will make her finger look to be pointed elsewhere. When the non-master eye is used through a scope (if it can even focus properly) it can cause all kinds of alignment problems.

camel

When you sighted the rifle in, did you have the scope focused for your eyesight? If so did you change it for her eyesight. Another thought, have you checked the paralex error if any is there. This is a favorite of mine, caused me no end of suffering years ago when using a scope adjusted for centrefire, usually 100 yards, on a rimfire at 50 yards. I believe this is different for all people, some it doesnt effect and others it does. Also take into consideration the physical differences between you and your daughter. Most have different "Lumps" on their chests than us blokes. This might be making her hold the firarm different to you. The length of her neck might even have an effect.

chambered221

Can't argue with anything that has been said !!!

My advise is to do an evaluation with a .22RF and work from there........ and a word of caution...... you might think the .270 is the perfect choice but she may not !!!