This week at Daddy Camp

Some of you may have guessed by now that I was off from work this week, goofing off while shooting woodchucks and taking care of my kids.

I took the opportunity to teach my kids how to shoot. I decided, however, that the Marlin would have been too difficult for the kids to attempt to learn on. So I went over to Dick's, which just happened to have some of its youth guns on sale. I settled on a Rossi two-barrel combo of a single shot hammer .22 and 20 gauge. A brick of Remington Thunderbolts followed me home.
First up was Sophie. I can't tell you how much she enjoys making one-liter soda bottles filled with water explode! and for what it's worth, she does a good job of making them explode.

Her older sister Julia was a bit more tentative about the whole thing, waiting an entire day before she'd come out in the yard to try it.

And although she enjoyed making soda bottles explode as well, Julia really surprised me with how intense she got with target shooting at paper. Her powers of concentration really impressed me, and her steadiness at squeezing the trigger improved with each target. Here's her fifth target from the bench rest after shooting four ten-shot groups.

We weren't shooting quite at 25 yards, more like 20 yards . . . but I'm pretty damn proud of her shooting on the first time out. Aside from the flyer in the 8 ring (the first shot of the target), that's about an inch and a half group with open iron sights. Not too shabby!