My son's first rifle

[bcd]

My son\'s first rifle

For Christmas I got my (six year old)son a chipmunk 22lr, after much careful consideration, so far he is showing great responsablity. I know it is not a long-range rifle but he has to start sometime and somewhere, and it is really the frist time that I really had his attention other than last year when he got his B.B. rifle in which the length of pull was way to long and he lost interest after eight or ten months because he was not very accurate with it. I feel that with this he is more likely to enjoy esp. with the shoot-n-see targets and the sqirrels once I mount his scope.

 

[Ian M]

Re: My son\'s first rifle

Congratulations Bryan, and to your future rifleman! I recall taking large sheets of cardboard to the range and a big felt pen. My boy drew fantastic targets on the cardboards, then attempted to hit them from extremely long distance - almost 15 yards at first. Was not long till he was hitting at 25 yards. Always let them shoot from a rest, lots of hits is what it is all about.

Make the targets big and easy to hit, and interactive if possible. Party balloons are great, maybe some pieces of wood freestanding that fall over when hit, another good target is a pyramid of tin cans - although you can guess who will get stuck repiling them each time they get hit. As he gets some accuracy suggest you shoot soda or Ritz crackers, they break up nicely when hit and disappear very quickly.
Birchwood Casey has a great spinning target that we used for countless hours - anything that moves, breaks, falls over or clangs is good.

A great firearm for introducing kids to something that makes a bit more noise and bigger holes in the target is a muzzleloader loaded with fifteen or twenty grains of powder and a light sabotted bullet. No kick, lots of noise and smoke, big hole in the paper.

Good luck, it don't get any better than shootin' and huntin' with your kid - simple as that.

 

[Shawn Carlock]

Re: My son\'s first rifle

Bryan,

Here is a photo of my little girls chipmunk.

She started shooting it when she was 3 and will be 5 in March. I learned a few things about very young shooters and guns for very young shooters. The first thing I found out was no one makes a gun small enough for these young starters. The chipper you see in the photo has almost 3" of the rear of the stock cut off. That was as far as I could go and still keep it legal for aol. The next issue was teaching a 3 year old how to use a peep rear and post front, not happening. First I got the scope mount and a small tube scope. This absolutely sucked. The scope was way to high and now my LG could not get the shells loaded into the chamber, scrap that idea. I noticed when she played the hunting game on the computer that she did well when the game made use of the red dot sight. I buzzed out a mount that I could scout mount the red dot sight far enough forward that she could still load the rifle. Everything looked fine until I realized that my face is just a little taller than hers and I built a cheekpiece for it. Up until this point she had shot the rifle only twice with low interest because what I was saying, I am sure made no sense to her, she could not hit anything or hold the rifle correctly etc. Once the chipper was fit and setup the results were simply amazing. We started with a shoot & see 8" target at 15 yards from the sitting position so I could sit around her. I was praying for just a hit in the circle when she landed the first shot in the 10 ring at 3:00. She loaded 4 more rounds and fired all of them into the 8" circle with 2 more 10's an 8 and the last cutting the edge of the circle at 9:00. We set the rifle down for a break and filled some pop cans with water and set them out. I got her into a prone position and she liked that much better, easier on the arms I think. She went 4 for 5 at 15 yards on the pop cans blowing water into the air and giggling all the time. I was so excited I scrambled around and got 3 more cans and filled them with water and moved her back to 25 yards. She took her prone position and with 5 shots hit the 3 cans. I was lucky enough to have captured this on video. My story was sort of windy but what I learned in short was, make the gun fit and be simple at any cost for the youngsters, make the targets reactive when ever possible. She has already voiced interest in shooting further after going to the range and watching me shoot at 1000 +. I plan the teach with some visual aids how to hold the dot over the can at distance to hit it, by using the hold of 1/2 a can, 1 1/2 cans over, etc. Hope you get to enjoy the time with your young one as well as the future benefits of engrained gun safety and handling. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[4ked Horn]

Re: My son\'s first rifle

Hey Shawn. I'm making a stock from a chunk of black walnut for my 6 year old for the same reason that the stock that comes with the marlin lil buckaroo is too long. The bbl and action are unaltered so they are legal but what I'm wondering is what the OAL minimum is.

I'll try to get a picture up of the progress I've made so far.

 

[Shawn Carlock]

Re: My son\'s first rifle

26" is the minimum OAL for a rifle. I'd like to see it when your done.

 

[4ked Horn]

Re: My son\'s first rifle

Thats what I thought.

I will try to get some pictures up and running if my wife can figure out what is going on with the digital camera.

If I ever get up that way to visit my folks I'll bring it in and show it to you. It will be pretty sweet if I dont goober it up somehow.

 

[BountyHunter]

Re: My son\'s first rifle

Quick easy tip on youth guns and shortening the stocks.

Take off the butt pad/plate and drill two 1/4" holes about 3" deep in the butt. Then masking tape the stock off where you want to cut it, mark you line, carefully cut with bandsaw.

Save the piece cutoff. When the child gets older and needs the extra length, simply take the cutoff piece and use two 1/4' dowels to glue it back in place in the holes you previously drilled before cutting the piece off.

It will be perfectly aligned and quick refinish is all that is needed.

Started mine on T/C contender in 22LR and 7-30 waters with light loads and reddot also. Easily worked up to full loads for hunting deer later.

BH

 

[4ked Horn]

Re: My son\'s first rifle

Here are the pictures of the stock in progress.

The first is a bitmap of the concept stock that I am modeling it after but it won't have the extending stock. This concept stock might not look like much but I have spent many hours tweaking the ideas and the picture. I will eventually build this gun in .280 AI. The actual gun won't look exactly like this one either but I have a very long list of every subtle feature on this stock. The bitmap is just there to help me visualize it better.

These next two pictures are the side view of what I have so far. Nothing amazing but you get the idea.

The last picts are of the barrel channel. I wanted to have more than the abillity to slip a dollar bill between the barrel and the stock. I wanted airspace!

BTW thats not rust. It's sawdust.

I'm hoping to start shaping the contours starting this week. With any luck I will be done in a couple months. Rifle OAL will be just over 32 inches.