Teaching kids to shoot. Red dots or irons?

[ccleroy]

Hand them a BB gun and a handful of cans.

[led0321]

And cherish these moments

[Glenn]

Hand them a BB gun and a handful of cans.

Yessir.

Red dot. Smed dot.

[nitro5x6's]

We always used Necco wafers. Smaller target and bio degradeable. Yall young bucks don't know about those. My Grandpa started us on Winchester model 63s and 1906s. We got pretty good with those little rifles.

[britton40]

I started my 6 yo on a heavy barrel ruger 10-22 with a collapsible AR style stock and a bipod. I put a Burris FF3 on it. “Put the dot where the bullet needs to go”. Used the same FF3 on a 410 for turkey hunting and bought a Leupold VXR for an AR15 in 6.8 SPC for deer. He is now shooting a VXR on a 7mm-08.

The dot was consistent on all guns. It worked well.

[britton40]

Learning to shoot at 10 and learning to shoot at 5 are different. Everyone should learn to shoot irons eventually. A kid at 5-6 will find it easier to shoot a red dot and will enjoy it more. As they get old enough to understand the few extra steps involved with irons switch them over. Each kid is different too.

The biggest thing is keep it fun. It doesn't matter if you are fishing, hunting, shooting, hitting a baseball, etc... If it is fun they will want to keep doing it.

Shooting is like a simple algebra equation, you have to follow specific steps, at specific times to "find the X". Red dots allow a kid to find the X with a few less steps at a younger age.

This