[jimmythegeek]

He's been curious about what goes on when Daddy goes to the range to shoot guns. He's a young 9, but very mature and conscientious about anything safety related. In fact, yesterday I saw him exhibit instinctive muzzle discipline when a clerk at the gun counter walked in front of him! And he was already all over Cooper's #4 "Be sure of your target and what's behind it" before he'd ever fired a gun. Just figured out by himself that these things need a good backstop.

We talked about the other rules and he had the concepts down fine. So I set him up with a CZ-455, scoped, which was too big for him but worked out ok anyway. All shots off a rest, various expedients to get him in a good position. Next time his baby sister's booster seat is going with us. We started with a blank sheet of butcher paper. He dug it. After 4-5 rounds, moved him over to a typical target with black rings and a red center. He was kissing the 10 ring with his first two shots, and scoring some in the X by the end of the 90 minutes we had. Good groups, so NPOA probably explained the shot placement as much as anything else. It was 25', not 1000 yards, but I'm still proud of my boy.

We tried my Marlin 795 and CZ-75b kadet, too. Loading one at a time in the Marlin kind of hid its light under a basket, but I might let him go 2 in a mag next time. Even off a rest he found the Kadet heavy. I will demonstrate .45acp, maybe next time. We had the range to ourselves, so the Kadet sounded loud.

Only thing I find I have to keep on him about is trigger discipline. Thinking hard about a Savage Cub for x-mas. Or a CZ 452 Scout. The Scout would be another CZ, which I seem to be drawn to, nice quality and I could go from 1-shot adapter to 10 round mags shared with the CZ-455. The Cub is single shot only, but at least it doesn't have a separate yank to cock and good luck unloading like a lot of youth rifles.

We got home with the same # of holes in us as we started, so that's a win, too.

I am looking forward to the day when he and his sisters start outshooting me. I'll make 'em earn it, but it'll rock my world.

Thanks for reading, if anybody did! :P