and the student becomes the teacher....

[aiformula]

I learned how to shoot long guns from my dad a long time ago. First time I pulled the trigger on any gun was on a 410 shotgun that he held the forestock on while I sighted on a clay pigeon out about 30 yds. Over the years we've gone hunting a few times, and at Boy Scout Camp, I qualified into the NRA Sharpshooter ranks w/ the old Remington 22's the council had. I qualified to shoot the Grand American trapshoot competition one year but couldn't get the time off work to go. All of these things seemed to make him proud.

Yesterday after work we decided it was time to work on teaching him to draw from a holster. I broke it down into 5 steps.

1. est. grip and move support hand to front of torso
2. clear the holster
3. bring gun to ready rest and establish 2 hand grip.
4. extend to sight on target and lock support wrist
5. finger on trigger and squeeze it through.

I now have the utmost respect for those who ever took the time to teach me anything. I am usually a quick study and will frequently take the initiative and move myself along sometimes before the instructor may think I am ready. I had to keep him in check all evening. He kept getting ahead of the count and every time he did he was doing something wrong. Usually it was his grip but a few times it was safety issues, with the worst when he swept me w/ tthe muzzle (even though it was during dry fire away from the range). I wanted to scream at him a few times but I know that is not the way to get someone to listen.

At the range, I borrowed a timer and after we ran through 3 mags of him drawing my err.... his tactical from the holster and shooting one round, I asked him if he wanted to try it on the timer. He started out at 3.5 sec. I then had him time me and I think I finally hit my goal of a consistent 1.5 sec draw time. In fact I was getting consistent 1.6 sec draw/double taps, and actually hitting the target to boot.

We worked on his draw for about an hour and a half at the range and by the end of the time, he was down to a fairly consistent 2.1 sec draw and was hitting COM. On his last round, he got a 1.99 and you should have seen his face light up. What was even cooler was that round landed sqarely at the cross of the X in the 10 ring. I looked at him and said "if they were all like that you could retire and shoot for a living"

Another quick data point, not sure where people are at, but I did a Bill Drill like Steve Anderson demonstrates on his website. One target, ~20 ft, 6 rounds. I did 3 consecutive 2.25 sec runs 2 w/ all A and one with a single B flyaway that I have no idea where it came from. I felt good, and I was proud of dad's improvement. We are going to work on reloads next week so that hopefully he will be ready to shoot USPSA w/ me in league shoots when the next league starts up.

[Don]

Never too late for a Father-Son moment. I have even had these with my daughter!

Good job with the Dad!