The Original CZ Forum
ARCHIVES => CZF ARCHIVES II => Lady's Lounge => Topic started by: ainokea on July 07, 2009, 04:05:23 AM
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I'm trying to teach my daughter to shoot properly, got some videos of her shooting, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Maybe there's something that i've missed that someone can see to help her improve.
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D3FCFC58688EFD85 (http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=D3FCFC58688EFD85)
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Your daughter has done very well. Tell her to always relax.. and enjoy the shooting. Make sure the caliber of weapon she has is not too large for her ......... Glock seemed to have way to much recoil ! We don't want her to shy away from shooting (flinching) ! Good training session ! :D
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Misfire on the last round with the P07? ???
Your daughter has good stance, good hand placement, doesn't show any serious flinching, you should be proud! If she likes shooting, judging from what I saw, the SP01 would be a good house gun for her, and the P07 a good carry sidearm. The Glocks seemed to have much more recoil to her, as recoil can be very subjective. Nice work! I hope she likes shooting, and will keep it up as a serious hobby.
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Howdy,
First, you have every reason to be very proud of your daughter's performances in my view. You have done an excellent job of teaching her the importance of muzzle discipline. I never once saw her allowing the muzzle to stray, which frequently does happen, even with very experienced shooters.
When I could see it from the angle of the video taping, she also did an excellent job of keeping her finger out of the trigger guard until ready to fire the round. That is something else many people become sloppy with.
Your daughter does not appear to be recoil sensitive in my view, which is rather amazing (clapping). The only weapon where it was obvious the rounds were close to painful was the Ruger shooting .357 magnums. Magnum loads will affect many shooters that way too.
As far as suggestions, it was not always easy to tell due to the loose sleeves on her top. But only in one video did I notice your daughter making a conscious effort to keep both of her elbows locked fully while shooting. That was a suggestion I was going to offer for you to point out to her, to work on.
Uncle Sugar spent an obscene amount of money to send me to two weeks of an excellent gun school. One of the few basics they stressed constantly was to always keep both elbows locked while shooting. A second was to place your off thumb, in her case, her left thumb, up on the side of the slide while firing. I noticed she did that with the first series in video number one. Due to the angles involved with other pistols, I could not see if she was continuing to do so with other handguns or not. Using your thumb like that will really help to reduce the apparent muzzle climb/rise between shots, and allow you to get back on target with your sights much more quickly.
Those are the only two points I saw from the videos that I would offer. Having her keep her elbows locked fully shot to shot, and keeping her left thumb up on the slide, pushing against the slide while doing so.
Another suggestion I will offer as well. She appears to be comfortable with most of the handguns she fired. But she also appeared to be more comfortable with some than with others. That is simply probably because of their size, weight, and the way the grips fit or did not fit her hands. While it is good to expose her to a variety of weapons, it can also be confusing to a shooter working to perfect their skills.
So another suggestion I will offer is to allow her to pick "her" handgun, and spend most of her time shooting that one for now. I am not a fan of polymer pistols honestly, as I have always preferred the weight of a steel framed pistol to help me in reducing recoil and getting back on target quicker. But I am an old dinosaur in that respect too, as many folks seem to feel light pistols are good things.
But my suggestion is to let her handle all of your pistols, and then pick the one that seems to fit her hands the best. The one the grips feel the best with, and she can reach the various controls with. By shooting one pistol, I think her groups will begin to shrink even more, as her confidence continues to build with her ability to shoot "her" handgun.
To me caliber is not nearly as important as where the round is placed on the bad guy. Given the advancements I have seen in recent years with JHP ammunition, I believe any round made by established companies is likely to do its part, as long as I do mine. So in that respect a dead center hit with a 9mm is much superior in my view than an off center hit from a 10mm or .45acp.
I have no idea what your and her goals are for her handgun wise. If this is simply for her to learn self-defense principles or enter into competitive shooting, etc. But let her get used to "her" pistol. Then if either of you decide a larger caliber is more appropriate, after she has her confidence level and tight groups established, she can begin to try to work with her "newer" pistol - if that makes any sense.
I commend both of you for the amount of hard work that has obviously been done to this point. Tell her a 37 year police firearms instructor wanted to share a secret with her, most male instructors never enjoy saying (I am an exception ;D ). From a physical body build standpoint, females are built to be better shots than men. It is simply that very few females work to develop their shooting skills to that level. So tell her down the road, only she will be able to decide if she wants to let her boyfriend outshoot her or not.
twoguns
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Thanks for the great replies, that's why i love this board.
armoredman:i usually mix up snap caps when loading her magazines to check her flinching. That's what happened on the last round of the p07.
twoguns:I'm actually going to print your post and show it to her. Lots of good info. Aside from the revolver she does use a thumbs foward grip, which does help on the recoil for all the semi autos. With the revolver it's thumb over thumb.
Short term goal for her is to make sure she handles a firearm safely, and handles them competently. I do want to send her to formal classes, but most of the classes around here require students to be over 18.
Right now her favorite guns are the CZs, glock 19, and the lever action.
Please keep the advice coming.
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Really nice to see she leans into recoil, not away from it. She's gonna be world class someday!
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You are to be commended for doing a fine job teaching your daughter to shoot. It would be nice if more parents followed your lead. As you noted, twoguns gave excellent advice. I can only recommend that she shoots often and she will continue to improve.
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Howdy sir,
I am glad you found some of my comments useful.
I do have one more suggestion to offer, as I simply could not see it in the videos for obvious reasons. I was very lucky the first time a police instructor took me out to qualify me the day I started work. I was going to shoot a police target the first time, firing my first real course of fire, and after drawing my revolver for the first stage, I closed my weak eye and began to take aim.
He immediately stopped me and used some rather colorful language for several minutes. All of his words were geared to - why is the most dangerous thing you will ever do as a cop, getting in to a gunfight, do you want to start off by immediately giving up 50% of your vision. He forced me several times that day to leave both eyes open and learn to shoot that way.
That is a technique I suggest to all new shooters, and even to older, more experienced ones, whenever possible. But ingrained habits like that can be hard to break for experienced shooters. I have found it much easier when working with newer shooters.
But that is my suggestion for your daughter - encourage her to shoot with both eyes open, if she is not using that technique already. It may be a bit odd for her at first, but with both her elbows locked fully, that places the handgun directly off her nose, which makes aiming with both eyes a very natural concept.
Whether she is goint to pursue competitive shooting one day, or simply continue to work towards enjoying developing her personal shooting skills, that is a valuable technique to practice in my view. There is a great deal of logic to not wanting to lose half of your vision, especially if you find yourself in a self-defense situation one day.
twoguns
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I have to interject the both elbows locked position is Isosceles, the perfect triangle stance. Some of us prefer Weaver, with gun arm locked, body bladed 45 degrees away from the target, supporting arm bent. Let her try both stances, as I have seen that wortk with the outfits I instructed for.
All in all, you have nothing to worry about, and everything to be proud of!
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I have shown her both the weaver/modified weaver and isosceles. She likes the isosceles with her shoulders squared to target. I also showed her both thumb over thumb and thumbs foward grip styles. She prefers the thumb foward grip because to her it feels like there is less muzzle flip. I do see the grip adjustments while she's shooting in the video. I think it's because of the difference in grip sizes between the guns she was shooting especially going from a full size glock 20 to 1911.
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I know some outstanding shooters that like the Iso style, nothing wrong with that. She does very well.
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She did great. How old is she?
Is there a reason you have her pull back the slide manually on autos instead of pushing the slide release button? I would think that having both hands firmly on the gun during this operation and just pushing the button with a thumb would be safer than having her hold the gun with only one hand and operating the slide with the other. It looks like she is only putting her finger on the trigger before she fires, good girl. :)
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After reading all the post here ....... I still have one conclusion. She did better than a lot of others I see at the range ! ;)
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Actually, Karen, that's the way my Dept teaches, grasp the slide instead of the slide release, as fine motor controls can go right out the window under extreme stress, so using gross motor skills, can assist. After all of that, I've done slide release so long I can't change, which drives the range instructors nuts every year. ;D
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Mr. Armoredman,
I too share your pain and shortcomings where the slide release lever is concerned sir. The only difference was none of my fellow firearms instructors were going to yell at me, since I was the lead one ;D
But my reloading techique essentially gave me back my firing grip and I was taught at that high dollar gun school to keep my grip and use my left thumb to hit the slide release lever. That is so ingrained in me now, there is no way I can unlearn it.
twoguns
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Great job to the both of you! She is doing just great! Keep up the great work the both of you!
Jimbo
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When i was taught to shoot i was also told to never use the slide stop to engage the slide foward. I was also told that the slide stop lever can actually wear more if you use it to slam the slide foward, kind of makes sense though i haven't seen it. Don't know if what i was told is true but the slide stop was suppose to be to lock the slide back.
The other reason i told her to use the slingshot method is for clearing jams or misfires. I wanted to have it become natural for her so she can get used to it so it's just muscle memory for her. In one of the videos with the glock 34 there was a misfire or a stovepipe. I was going to stop the video and help her clear it but she just cleared it herself. Kind of surprised me.
Again thank you for all the great advice or comments. Please keep them coming. She actually does come on with my account and reads the thread.
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Howdy sir,
Again, I think both you and your daughter can be very proud of her progress and how well she handles the various weapons.
I wanted to repeat one suggestion, as it may have been lost in responses before.
I would encourage your daughter to learn to shoot with both of her eyes open, rather than closing one to shoot. Since she uses both elbows locked (which is also my style), doing so puts the sights directly off of her nose. With both eyes open she will find her sights quickly and easily.
If she used both eyes to shoot, then should she ever find herself in a self-defense situation one day, she will not have trained herself to lose half of her vision in dealing with what may well be the most dangerous thing she will ever encounter.
Beyond that she simply needs to practice, practice, practice until these shooting techniques become automatic for her.
twoguns
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Is there a reason you have her pull back the slide manually on autos instead of pushing the slide release button?
An instructor told my wife to do the same thing, the reason was to make a habit that is compatible with all semiautos, since in various modlels the slide release is in different places or works differently or requires less or more pressure. However, I have read that on certain pistols (e.g., Khar CW40), the mfr actually says to *only* use the slide release, and not pull it back, or the round may not chamber properly.
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Actually her grip is very good. It looks like she is using the more modern 'Thumbs Forward' grip which tends to be preferred now. Finger is off the trigger very well. My only 'catch' is loading the gun at arms length. She should have it tucked in close to her body then extend out into firing position. Saves strain, easier to manipulate in a stress situation. She's dropping the slide as she should. Looks really good overall.