im sure almost all of you have a defining memory or 3 built around a special someone well I was blessed to have nearly 23 years with my grandfather. A hard working God fearing man filled with knowledge, he was a noted horse whisperer, heavy equipment operator, rancher, and something of a local legend as a shooter. So at 6 years old I was given my first BB gun an old daisy pump and I fancied myself pretty darn good with it. I was staying for a week or so at his house and with BB gun in tow started attempting to shoot acorns out of an old red oak. With horses and chickens and pigs and geese and out building he didn't want me shooting into the air randomly and developing bad habits.
He gave me a package of nra small bore targets and wrote 10,15,20,30,50 and 100 feet on them in order and pinned them to a safe back stop. He told me when I bought one of each to him with 5 shots in the bullseye he'd buy my more bbs and show me a thing of two. Then he went back inside and left me alone. Later he told me that young shooters can be smoothed by to much info and coaching once safety is covered and the basics of marksmanship were installed which my father had done a good job of than a boy needs to shoot about 5000 bbs at various ranges to learn trigger control and wind age and sight line (what we call sight picture/sight alignment)
It took me a long time to complete this task and two more cartons of copperhead bbs.
These shooting assignments went on all summer, and I was also becoming a fair ranch hand spending so much time their with him and grandma almost as he entire summer. Also one hard rule at their house was on Sunday if you were at thief house you went to church, didn't have to be their small Bell Oak Bible Church but you had to attend service. By the end of that summer I could lite a stick match at 30 feet offhand with that old daisy. The next summer I moved up to a Benjamin Sherdin 22 caliber pellet rifle and got paid to shoot rats crows coons woodchucks pigeons opposoms skunks and weasel. Started learning a lot about animals and work, sat in on lots of adult Bible studies. As I grew older I was slowly given access to any firearm in his house to take to the old dump and shoot.
Some where around the age of 10 a shirttail relative came over with her boyfriend to borrow money, her boyfriend asked if I'd like to shoot his new 22 as he'd heard I was as good a shot as Grandpa. We went to a small wood lot across the street and he started shooting at a sign on the door of this old barn, I thought it was wrong but he was an adult so when my turn came I shot the sign as well. Grandpa came out of the trees behind us snatched that Marlin 22 and broke it against a tree, he punched that fellow in the face and gave me the whopping of my life, the barn was old and empty but it was still a building and most importantly it didn't belong to us it belongs to a neighbor!!!!! I spent the rest of that summer working off my debt to that neighbor and earning Grandpas trust back.
|
   
   
|
|
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by nagantguy
