Range report: Phobia-conquering edition

Wednesday night I took Lucifer’s mommy (LM) to the range to conquer her fears 🙂

Remember how I told you she only once tried a pistol? Turns out she only took one SHOT out of the damn thing (she thinks it was a .45) and was so frightened at the recoil that she never tried again.

(There is no such thing as the Right Gun for a woman. Some like big grips. Some like small grips. Some like 9 mm, while others drool over a Certain Gold Cup ACP. I would posit, however, that there IS a Right Gun for a frightened beginner, and that gun is NOT a .45!!!)

Since LM mentioned that the bangs made her nervous, I had her double up on ear protection. Tis left me yelling almost at the top of my lungs during instruction,but whatever, I’m loud; she could hear me 🙂

We started out with empty guns, of course. I went over the safety rules again, explained how semi autos worked (magazine, sights, slide movement etc.) and adjusted her grip. I then had her dry-fire Siguette until she was comfortable. (She asked me to fix her stance, too, but I limited that to taking the arch out of her back and making her stand up straight.)

And then – on to Live Fire! I rolled out a silhouette target with a big green splatter sticker on it to 3 yards. I started out by running ten rounds through Siguito the Mosquito, and I admit I showed off. It was for a good purpose, though — I did the second half of the magazine one-handed … using my left hand 🙂 I told her I wanted to show her that the recoil was soft enough that I could shoot it left-handed and it wouldn’t slam me around. I put one round into the second magazine and had her shoot it. Hooray!!

She worked Siguito through maybe 50 rounds and seemed quite happy doing it. Her aim was very decent — almost all center-mass, and many of them in the 9-ring or closer. We then switched to Siguette (my favorite girl). LM didn’t like this one as much, as it was heavier and had a lot more recoil, but she was still fairly accurate with it. After about 30 rounds, we took Kevin out for a spin and it was FAIL!! LM has rather large hands and she could neither finagle a good grip on it nor pull hard enough to fire a round. In four tries she managed to fire one round. Needless to say, we decided to move on back to Siguito!!

All in all, it was a wonderfully successful range outing. It’s always fun to go to the range, but this was extra … She thanked me wholeheartedly at the end, told me she had a lot of fun, and was so happy and grateful to overcome what she said was truly a phobia.

And then we all loved happily ever after 🙂

This post is dedicated to all the people who have held my hand and helped me overcome nervousness and fear. Pay it forward, and all that!