Lots of fun this afternoon

[selmerfan]

Both of my older daughters (13&11 y/o with a 3 y/o sister) enjoy shooting and hunting with me. The oldest asked last time we were rabbit hunting if she could use a scoped .22 LR "just like my deer gun", a scoped Remington 20 gauge 11-87 rifled barrel setup. So I mounted a Vortex 4x32 scope on the Remington 580 that I grew up shooting bunnies and squirrels with open sights. So today after the annual congregational meeting I needed to burn some stress so I decided to go sight in her bunny rifle and sight in my Ruger M77 MKII .260 Remington with 130 gr. cast boolits and 11 gr. of Unique behind it for thumping bunnies in a unique way. :) The 11 y/o daughter heard of my plans and wanted to go plink with her little Crickett .22 that she has been shooting for 7 years now. I got the Rem 580 and Ruger M77 dialed in at 50 yds while she wailed away at the steel 6" target with the factory peep sites on the Crickett. I told her she should try out the Remington 580, just for kicks. She tried it out on targets and steel. She's sold. I think I just lost my 580 to her and her older sister will use my Marlin 881 with 4x Weaver for bunnies. I also offered for her to shoot the Ruger .260 Rem with cast loads. She was a little trepidatious at first because "Anything that makes that much noise has to kick a lot." She has a 20 gauge slug/bird combo Mossberg 500 pump that kicks like a mule, unfortunately. I load birdshot down for her, but she can't handle the recoil of slugs for deer. I told her that it doesn't kick at all. So we backed off to 100 yds and got her arranged at the bench. She touched one off, rang up the steel, and looked back at me and grinned. "This is fun! It doesn't kick at all and I hit it right in the middle. This scope is so clear!" (Leupold VX3 3-9x40) She burned up the remaining 35 rounds in the box from the bench, grinning the whole time. Lots of fun this afternoon and stress came down. A lot.

[RoadBike]

Well done, pop!

[725]

Good Dad. Keep 'em at it!

[shoot-n-lead]

Good job!

[Jack Stanley]

I'll agree , children's smiles are quite a stress reducer .

Jack

[Wayne Smith]

I'll bet your stress came down! Sounds like a lot of fun.

[Texas by God]

You made me smile. Thank you.

[Skunk1]

Love the smile my daughter gets also. Worth more than my enjoyment of shooting.

[Scharfschuetze]

Glad you had a great day!

Even a bad day at the range is better than a good day at work.

[dverna]

Perfect

Don Verna

[Calamity Jake]

I've lost more guns to my daughter/granddaughters than I care to count!!!
That's OK I know where they are and will be taken care of.

[Wolfer]

Ain't it grand!

[northmn]

I can sympathize with Calamity Jake. I lost a 30-30 Marlin Cowboy to my daughter. I gave it to her to use for here first deer and wanted it back and gave her her own rifle. After being villianized by the wife and her comments on how I take things back I gave it to her so she could have it free of estate (I am retired now). She shot her first deer with that rifle and I also mentioned a couple of times to her that it is a Marlin Cowboy and has a bit of value as compared to the plain Jane Marlins. I gave her "sporterized" Chilean Mauser that I gt at an auction for $150. It had been rebarreled to 300 Savage. I had to drill and tap the receiver, put on a different bolt so it could be scoped, and work over the bolt spring as it was hard to close and redo the military butt stock by fitting a recoil pad. She has shot a few deer with that rifle and uses it instead of the 30-30, even after she got the 30-30 back. Still, if I mention getting the 30-30 back she kind of gets a bit chilly.
She enjoys deer hunting and will shoot an occasional bird with a shotgun I gave her. She is now married and working as a RN in the local hospital. Her and her husband make more than my wife and I ever did, still dad has this compulsion to buy her stuff. I hand load her ammo for the 300 Savage.
My other daughter is now looking at going deer hunting. She was a bit of a fashion plate and not into gross sports like hunting. I tried to make her take firearms safety training but she got out of it. Now that she has three children and a husband that hunts she is taking FS classes so she can get a license to hunt. Gave her a 243 bolt for Christmas. If she doesn't use it her son likely will.
My son lives in Florida and never really got into hunting even though he shot 3 deer with the old 303 British that was bought for me by my father. He gave it back to me. Funny how the daughters enjoy hunting and he is indifferent about it. He does like to snorkel and spear fish and loves the out doors.
Selmerfan, between hunting and the fishing I see by the Avatar, you have some special daughters. My oldest daughter used to complain that I scared off her boy friends with my wild hair, showing them my guns and seeing my 3D bow targets in the yard. Never felt to bad about that as I now have two son in laws that like the outdoors and treat them well. I even showed a couple suiters the set of elastrators my father used for castrating cattle when he farmed. Not that I was a bit protective.

DP

[TCLouis]

Time shared that both of you will recall with a smile in the future I'm betting!

[robg]

You're so lucky.that's the way things should be.