Younger Shooters

[Henry Foxall]

This past weekend was a great time for one and all. By the same token, we had one younger shooter that had a lot of difficulty adapting to the Ruger 10/22 he was using. It was almost as large as he was . He was a trooper, though and stayed with it to the end. 

Seeing the difficulty he was having trying to work with a rifle whose length of pull was so long he had to tuck the stock under his arm, I was reminded that, when I closed my shop, I had three brand-new Crickett rifles, 2 - .22LRs and one .22 Magnum, that had not been sold so were in the back of my gun safe. 

I am modifying two of these rifles for slings; one will have a small scope, the other iron sights, for use with our younger shooters if we see them struggling with a rifle that does not "fit" them. It will be a cheap "fix" and, granted, these are single-shot and could not keep up with the AQTs, would still get the kids "down and in the dirt" and offer them up valuable instruction, on a platform THEIR size. 

Will bring them to the next Ramseur shoot in July, just in case, and will make them a part of our shoot box.

[The Wolfhound]

Two solutions we have used: a Ruger 10/22 on a collapsible stock and the CZ Scout.  Small arms on small people can become a challenge.  The single shot nature of the Cricket is one ding I have against it.

[Henry Foxall]

Agreed on the single shot, Wolfhound. But budgetary constraints considered, it is the best I can do at this time - I have most of what I need here at the house and in my CONEX box.

Even with a single shot, we can still instill in the kids the salient points of instruction and, even if they can't "keep up" with the AQT's, we can post balloons and pie-tins downrange for them to have a good time with "reactive" targets (the wife mentioned a little bit of corn starch [biodegradible] in the balloons to make a "cloud" when hit) while keeping them within the time constraints of the AQT COF, as well as beginning to ingrain safe rifle handling skills.

Will look into the 10/22 collapsible stocks to retrofit two of my loaners in the VERY near future. TY for that suggestion!

[Google]

We have managed to find regular Ruger wood stocks inexpensively, i.e. $20, through eBay or as blemished sale items then cut a few inches off the butt stock and put some non-skid material on the end.  It's easy to change them out on the line as needed.  (Shout out to Maximum Ordinate for making the mods  )

We did this with two stocks for a recent youth shoot where I knew I had two very young shooters and it made a big difference in their experience for the weekend.  We even managed to measure the pull length of these two youth prior to the shoot and cut to size.  Now those stocks are available as a resource for the instructors in our area.

[stoneknives]

After a bit of research I chose the Blackhawk KnoxxAxiom 10/22 stock for my loaners. It has a small diameter pistol grip that allows diminutive users to get a good trigger position. The LOP goes from 9.5 to 13.75 inches and if you slip on a M4 Butt you can go out to 14.5. Which should fit just about all humanoids. Very light weight, free floats the barrel and it available in tan making a lot cooler temp wise to shoot off of in the summertime.

[Henry Foxall]

TY Google and Stoneknives - looking into both options today 

[stoneknives]

TY Google and Stoneknives - looking into both options today 

Here's a link to the write-up on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/notes/friends-of-florida-appleseeds/liberty-teaching-rifle/10155521880914912/

You can also find it on the Appleseed newsletter, the link is eluding me at the moment.

Henry

[Henry Foxall]

TY Sir! Made a copy of the document as a guide!

[NJrefugee]

We have a bunch of loaner rifles that we keep at the range at Waco. (We have our own safe.) Most are Marlin 795s, some with scopes and some with tech sights. I cut down the stock on one with very little difficulty. The butt cap unscrews and the hollow stock can be cut down to size. Drill some new pilot holes for the butt cap and screw it back on. It will be a little too big, but some sand paper and elbow grease will fix that.
For my own kids, I bought a bolt-action Marlin xt22 youth.  The stock is sized for kids. It is mag-fed, so it is a lot easier to deal with than a single shot rifle. My kids haven't shot a 210 yet, but can run the bolt fast enough to get 10 decent shots out on stages 2 and 3. I bought an adult-sized stock from Marlin for $50 so I could play, too. Super fun rifle and a great deal for the price. Shoots great with a cheap 4x scope on it.

[Leadlined]

Ruger makes a compact 10/22 that shortens both the barrel and the stock, keeping a nice balance. 
https://ruger.com/products/1022Compact/models.html
I have one I use with my 9-yr-old daughter, and it seems to basically fit.

Something we also do on the line when we have a shooter a bit young and small for the rifles available, is bungee the barrel to a sandbag to help keep them safe, keep the shooting prone, and have the focus on operating the rifle and doing the 6 steps.