I finally got a chance to take my wife and our youngest son out shooting last weekend. The warm weather got Amy thinking about the spring chores we need to get done around the house, so for a while, it was looking like we wouldn’t have time to do any shooting.
But I got all my honey-dos done early. I admit, I cut a few corners, but the important thing is, we had plenty of time left to go do some shooting. I thought about taking Logan’s .22 along, but we’re running pretty low on .22 shells. I made a last-minute decision to introduce the 9-year-old to the world of high-powered rifles.
I wouldn’t have let him shoot just any rifle, though. Too many guys think enduring recoil is a rite of passage. But in reality, a heavy-kicking rifle will do more to turn a kid away from shooting than get the youngster interested in it.
That’s the beauty of an AR-15 rifle. The recoil used by the rifle to cycle the next shell into the chamber cuts out nearly all of the kick. To be even more sure the gun wouldn’t whomp the littlest Stockton too hard, I set him up on my Lead Sled. The stock of the rifle fits into a cradle on the Lead Sled, and that takes even more of the recoil away.
The other benefit to using the Lead Sled was that I could set up the rifle and get Logan dialed in on the target. He still had to do some fine tuning, but he worked the rifle and the rest around for a minute, then he told me he was ready. I showed him how to take the safety off, and he squeezed the trigger. The next instant, the empty pop can fifty yards away disappeared.
Better yet, Logan didn’t feel any kick at all. He and his mom took turns shooting at targets for the next half hour or so, and both of them had a great time.
Maybe next weekend, we can do more shooting and fewer spring chores.
