I don't have any pictures - forgot my phone - but my 11 y/o got out for a session with her 20 gauge 11-87. We've been working on slug loads for her to kill a deer this fall. She's not a fan of recoil - any of the factory offerings are a bit too much for her right now. So we're loading the Lyman "pellet" slug into AA hulls and wads with 11 gr. Unique behind it. She likes that and was drilling 2 liter bottles at 50 yds with it today. Then we swapped to the bird barrel. She's never tried hitting moving targets, so we did some talking, dry runs, dry fires on targets, then started pulling the trigger. She hit the first one out of the shoot - pretty excited - then started pulling her head to see the target. We took a break and ran over to the church for a while, then came back and tried again. She missed about a dozen, then hit her last three in a row, "hanging" the last two. When she got done she said, "Um, dad?" "Yes dear" "Those last three? I was moving the barrel and went past them a little bit before I remembered to pull the trigger. I should have missed them." "No dear, that's called leading the target and following through. Do it every time." "But my barrel wasn't pointed at the target when I pulled the trigger." So we proceeded to move into some geometry and physics lessons...we were out of ammo, so we couldn't put them to use, but she's the type of kid who will think it over and apply the lessons. She's top in her class academically and a TKD black belt. She'll get this figured out. Her goal this fall is to kill a deer and to kill a pheasant that "her" dog (my weimaraner!) Lucy points for her. I can't wait for that moment...proud dad today!!!

Selmer,


I loaded up 20 slug loads using the Hornady 250 gr. XTP with
22.0 grains of Bluedot. We didn't crono'd the load but I estimate the velocity at 1100 -1200 FPS. The 9 year old using this load killed a big bodied 9 pt at 110 yards. The deer stumbled for 20 yards and just fell over. Who knew.

Found the bullet in the off shoulder with the perfect Hornady mushroom.

Really soft recoil out of an T/C Encore.

Doc

Great days ahead for both of you. Take your time and enjoy every minute. It will go by all to fast. I would give anything to do it all over again with my son. Good luck to both of you this season. I hope your daughter reaches her goals and more.

Hi selmer, that's good to hear! We say, "But you have to point to where the bird will be when the shot gets there." Not a full understanding by any means but it seems to work.

Three biggest problems with beginners: 1) Lifting head to see the shot (yep ) 2) Swinging gun with head still and loosing eye alignment. 3) Focus on pulling the trigger at just the right time which causes the swing to stop and encourages flinching. You'll typically see the swing stop, a slight pause, then BOOM. ("Focus on the target, the gun will go off almost by itself at the right time." - Relegates that to the subconscious which is much better at it than the conscious mind.)

Oh yeah, lack of follow through. Not in our top three because we instruct to follow a missed bird all the way to the ground from the beginning.

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Should say that we don't worry about #3 until a little later down the line. I like to focus on mechanics first. Stance for instance, a lot of kids want to stand like they're hitting a baseball which limits swing and puts the butt on the arm instead of the shoulder.