Age to start kids shooting.

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Tinybear

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Hey all. Just questioning when you all started bringing your kids out to shoot? Wife’s not enthusiastic at all about this and she herself has yet to come outshooting. Guess just looking here to see when others have gotten kids out and at how old so I can show the wife.

I have two kids both with bdays next month, turning 6 (daughter) turning 3 (son). Thinking the daughter is not quite ready but getting close. Sons obviusly a ways off.

I have Been trying to in-still gun safety with my daughter and just starting with my son shooting targets in basement with a nerf gun (we treat the nerf rifle just like a real one) and it gets locked just like real one when we done practicing. Going to progress to getting a Cheap pellet gun for in basment for her 6th bday in a couple weeks. And thinking next year for my daughters 7th Bday. I may consider picking up a savage Rascal (she really likes pink plastic stock or the blue Minimalist option kinda pricey for what is but it be good for both kids at least). Think this sounds like a decent plan?
 
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I think it depends on the kid. 6 or 7 is about right though to get started with rimfire I think. Some get the concept of aiming right away, some it's a struggle. I've been through this recently with my kids and friend's kids all around this age and the one thing I've noticed with all of them is how hard it is for them to keep their fingers off the trigger. Even the ones who have had lots of safety practice still seem to do it. The older kids (8 or 9) seem to do much better with this. The more gun safety practice the better really.

A rascal is a great option. I got one of those rimfire duelling trees too and the kids seem to have more fun with that than shooting paper.
 
I suspect reactive targets will be far more enjoyable than just punching paper, whether it's with an airsoft, pellet gun, BB gun, or a rimfire. Colourful balloons and empty pop cans will all elicit positive reactions.

I started shooting rimfire at Scouts when I was 8 - this was in a different era, but still. The boys all still took it seriously under supervision and guidance.

It is good that you have taught good safety practices even with the nerf gun. I did that with one of my kids - it seemed silly but it instilled good habits and places a premium of safe handling practices.

To perhaps put the wife at ease there are some airsoft, BB and pellet guns that do not look intimidating and are coloured so as to be geared towards a younger audience. Obviously accuracy is not going to be in the cards, but maybe that will have ease the concerns of your wife.
 
I started my boys on a pellet gun last year, age 11, but that is because I also started shooting late.
I think it's also important though to get your wife comfortable with it.

Mine was uncomfortable when I bought my first rifle, which was a surprise to me because she grew up in the far north and her family hunts. But she was uncomfortable all the same.
I took her out shooting one day, I made a big romantic deal about it. Seriously! I told her days in advance to be ready for an outside date. I had it all planned and prepared. I bought her a set of snowshoes and we started by going for a nice walk in the woods. We held hands, noticed the winter birds, and so on. Very picturesque. Then I made a small fire, and I had brought all the stuff to make coffee over the fire and had some choclates and treats. We sat by the fire, drank coffee, listened to her favourite country music. Had a great time. Then we got snowshoeing again and got to where I had previosuly set up a steel target. I loaded my 22 with 20grain agila super colibri, which is so quiet you barely know you shot the gun! It is the most unintimidating shooting you can do. I shot first and showed her how easy it was, and then gave her a turn, and she really got into it. The first time she hit the target, she was pretty excited! I thought I had packed enough ammo, but once she got into it, she quickly shot all the rounds I had brought!
Anyway, it was a great "date night" , but in the afternoon, and it made for her a very good and positive impression for guns and shooting. When a lot of moms think of guns, they will instinctively think of a scary thing that could hurt their children, but now my wife will also think of a fun thing and a good enjoyable experience she had one afternoon. With that kind of positive association made in her mind, she will be much more supportive of the kids getting involved, and sure enough, when my 13 year old said he wanted to take the PAL course, she gave him no trouble.

So anyway, my advice is to first work to get your wife on board.
 
6-9 for shooting independently depending on the kid. Both of mine shot off my lap at 3-4.
Youngest ran a muzzleloader at 12 but he's a really careful kid. Oldest took until 15.

Both can handle themselves on an ORPS stage at 12 and 14 respectively.
 
My niece and nephew both started with a red ryder at age 6ish. I cocked it, they shot it. They liked it but didn't care if they did it again either, which in the grand scheme things is fine. My youngest niece is 4, she'll give it a whirl in a couple years too and we'll see what happens.
 
Having run shoots where youth are involved and being at the range when a youth is being started, I will make my case.

During competitive shoots, when they are old enough or big enough to carry the rifle, load the rifle and function everything through to the shot being fired and reloading.

Saw a father trying to teach a three years old to shoot. He could not properly see through the scope, was crawling over the stock and was not capable of proceeding with all the functions to actually say he was shooting.

When a parent, even the non-shooting parent, is comfortable with their child performing all the necessary steps to a confidence level that no one at the range would be uncomfortable.

There is such a thing as starting them too soon.
 
It depends on the the kid. Some are better listeners than others. I was 5 or 6 when my Dad brought home a pellet gun. My older brothers lost interest I kept going.



Single shot break opens and bolt rifles are best in my opinion, safer and never let them think there is always another shot. I recycled a huge box of bright red fire bells taken from a school during an system upgrade. As long as they can hear it ring when they hit it, they will shoot again and again and again.
 
Started mine at 3 with a group of friends 2.5-5 at the time. Single shot 22 aimed at balloons in a rest. As far as handing my daughter and her friends the rifle to aim themselves, that comes later but maturity and respect for the rules and process are way better indicators than age.
 
It really depends on the kid, and the environment they are growing up in. I know a few kids, around the age of 5, not a single one would I hand even a pellet gun too. They lack the maturity to take it serious enough to learn. Personally I'd say depending on how mature and responsible the child could be, 8-10 to start them off with a pellet gun supervised. If they can master that then by 11-13 they can use the pellet gun themselves without supervision and shoot rimfire supervised.

I don't have any of my own kids. So I'm just going off of what I've seen as the behavior of children around me from friends and family. But ya it honestly depends on the kid, and their environment growing up. Hell there are adults I wouldn't trust with a pellet gun. So in the end it's up to you to decide how far along your kids are maturity and respect wise.

My family didn't own guns, or hunt. I was handed a pellet gun for a 12th birthday I think. Got plenty of use out of that old girl. In all honesty I could of used someone who knew what they were doing with firearms, to better teach me back then. I may have not broken a RV windshield and a window had I been shown proper gun etiquette and safety.
 
I took my grandkids out at 3 & 4. They were quite keen but after a couple of shots each they found catching grasshoppers more entertaining.
 

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It'll probably be fairly important to win your wife over, and how early to start with them varies. My daughter wasn't really interested until last at 11, my son has been shooting since he was about 7. I bought my kids a single shot rifle to share when the oldest was almost two. They obviously weren't big enough to shoot it any time soon, but the idea was it was their rifle, and at about 2 I started showing them how to open the bolt to check the chamber and make sure it wasn't loaded. It was in the safe with all the other guns, and I took it out so they could look at it if they asked. That way if they were curious, there was something to show them and satisfy that curiousity. They probably started asking to shoot it around 5 or so, but they were small enough they still needed a bit of help holding and aiming. By about 7 or 8 my son was able to shoot halfway decent on his own, my daughter wasn't all that interested though. She started wanting to shoot the little kids rifle after I bought my son a bigger 22 for his 10th birthday though, and was doing pretty good picking off steel targets at the range out to about 100-150m with it. Then she shot his rifle with a little Simmons 2-7 and a magazine and started asking me to take her to the range so she could shoot it more. She got one for her 12th birthday this year, and just like her brother, she painted the stock how she wanted it to look. They both used her rifle to shoot a PRS match yesterday, and want to do the next one coming up in May. My son has shot a couple 22 handguns, my 9mm 1911, and a 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser full wood military rifle with steel buttplate, and now wants to try deer hunting. He'll be 11 in a couple weeks. They're both to the point that I'd feel comfortable doing my own thing at the next bench and leaving them with a rifle each and a brick of ammo, and they'll come get me if they have any issues.
Kristian
 
vmax204 said:
I took my grandkids out at 3 & 4. They were quite keen but after a couple of shots each they found catching grasshoppers more entertaining.
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The worst thing we we teachers can do is try and “force” fun on them. Once they have had their fun it is time to let them move on to other activities. This will inevitably lead to spending an hour setting up, 5 minutes shooting, and then cleaning up alone. But this is how it goes with young children.
 
All of my kids started shooting a BB gun, air pistol, mini crossbow, compound bow and .22 Rascal at 3-4. Its cool how quickly they learn and by the time they're 7 you should prepare to start losing shooting games to the little buggers.

Part of living in the sticks is we often incorporate shooting games into normal play sessions in the backyard so its super convenient to have short shooting sessions to keep the youngsters interested.
 
I’m probably still a kid to most of you but I started at 6 with my first BB gun and 16 with my first shotgun but I remember shooting 22lr at around 11-13 years old, I guess it’s up to the parents when they want to teach em
 
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