When did you start your kids shooting?
My oldest kid is 3, I am planning on waiting another year before introducing her to shooting. I picked up a chipmunk rifle for $80 with this in mind, but after shooting it a bit I decided I didn't like it for a training gun. Trigger pull way too heavy, manual cocking bolt, no safety. After trying a friends Savage Rascal I think I'll be picking up one of these for the kids. I was handed a BB gun at around 5 years old and then graduated to pellet gun by 8. I didn't get my own .22 till I was 14, however I had access to my dads old Remington single shot for quite a while before then. When did you start shooting? When did you introduce your children to the activity? Any suggestions for making sure no bad habits (beyond the obvious) are acquired? Any good guns for starting youngsters that you have experience with? Obviously I'm talking about very closely supervised target shooting, I'm not turning my 4 year old loose with a gun...
When did you start your kids shooting?
The Chipmunk rifle is very similar to the Cricket. The Cricket seems to be well made but I don't care for the manual bolt cock, it's rather stiff. I cringe at the thought of my little girl putting the gun between her knees to get enough leverage to cock it. Also, I really want a manual safety, I honestly can't remember, but I don't think the Cricket had one, just like the chipmunk. I'm 6' myself but I actually kind of enjoy shooting the little gun, it's pretty darned accurate. You have to kind of "absorb" the gun to shoot it well, but it can be done.