GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN

It’s not all about dads and lads in the world of airgun shooting

Following on from our Home Range articles the last couple of months, and the fact that a lot of us are on lockdown and finding it hard to keep entertained away from the sofa and TV, I asked my daughter if she would like to learn how to shoot a pistol, which she jumped at and stood eagerly at the gun cupboard.

Now, I taught my daughter Kaylana to shoot a rifle at the grand old age of seven at Maidenhead Target Shooting Club, which unfortunately is closed as that the moment, as they are looking for new grounds. Anyway she was a natural! Starting with a HW25L with open sights she learned the basics, as did my son Jared a couple of years later when he was the same age.

USERS KEEPERS

It was not long before she wanted to shoot a rifle with a scope, like Daddy’s. At the time my go-to rifle was an Air Arms S400. I managed to pick up a nice Air Arms S200 from a friend with a custom one-off stock made by his brother. She loved this rifle and though not old enough to own it, as far as she was concerned it was hers, and now she’s 19 I don’t really think it’s mine anymore! We went to the club and I taught her how to zero the scope. After a while of fine tuning her zero, on a windy range she shot an amazing group. She loved her shooting and came with me whenever she had the chance. The club had a nice 10m pistol range, that I really enjoyed spending time at, so I thought Kaylana would too. Despite my best efforts to teach her how to shoot pistols, every pistol I owned was a little too big or too heavy for her, so we decided to leave it until she was a little bigger.

PISTOL TIME