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
). 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
