Three years ago, I took this photo of 15 year old Rachel. She had fun with the bolt action but had to shoot it from a support due to the stock length and considerable overall heft. Yesterday, I took photos at a group birthday party — her 18th.
She took just a little time from shooting trap with a 12ga Winchester 12 to plink with the 8-shot .22 Hi Standard and to try out Rhino 50DS with .38s. The .38 had barely more kick than the .22 revolver. Then I was able to pry the pre-teen boys from the suppressed Savage MK.2 FV-SR and she got her turn. Since I have not yet received the Boyd stock, I raised the comb height with a leather wrap salvaged from an old M1A stock. It worked well enough to make aiming with the illuminated 4-16x comfortable. At ranges of 25 to 70 yards, that made scope set to lower magnification breaking propped-up clays too easy.
Not all clays were visible from the ground, so it went up on the truck hood. For the 5’4″ shooter, the stock was a much better fit than the heavy Mossberg. Being able to chat comfortably during the shoot just made it better. Alpine suppressor with subsonic ammo made it quieter than a Red Ryder BB gun. The feat of busting 11cm targets with a rested scoped rifle within point blank range isn’t great, but good equipment and patient instruction help with getting even the novice 8 year old shooter do that comfortably.
In the pic @ 15, she looks like she’s actually having fun. In the 18 yo pic, she looks pissed. What have you done with that sweet little girl?
Senior-in-high-school cool?
Yeah, I also want to know what you did to that girl.
I get more of a “check this s*** out” from the 18year old version as opposed to anger.