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As a former instructor in the USMC, I would love to teach her if I weren't so far away. However, distance is a factor, so all I can do is offer a couple of tips for you to get her up to speed.


Shooting starts with your head and ends with your hands. At home with a clear head, focus on the mental element, then the physical element.

First off, knowledge. She should know the weapon safety rules by heart, have a basic understanding of how firearms work, and have some knowledge about the mechanics of shooting (stance, grip, sight alignment, sight picture, focus on the front sight, trigger control, etc). Make absolutely sure she understands proper sight alignment, or everything you're about to do is for naught; draw pictures, use examples, grab a stick and lay it from one sight to another to show her expected line of sight, whatever - as long as she understands exactly what she should see when she raises the weapon.

Second, muscle memory. With an unloaded weapon and NO TARGET, get her in the habit of looking down the sights, breathing, and pulling the trigger without making the gun move. Do it again. And again. And again. And again. Do it until it becomes muscle memory and she doesn't have to think about it anymore. Then put a target in front of her and make her do it again, this time incorporating sight picture with the target. Ensure she is focusing on the front sight. One good training tool is a dime drill, where you place a dime on the slide near the front sight (doesn't work well on rounded slides like 1911's); she aims and squeezes the trigger, making sure to keep the weapon steady enough that the dime doesn't fall off.

Once you are on the range, the same process. Get her to dry fire a couple times to get over the jitters and jerks. Suddenly being around the sound of other people blasting holes in paper with a .357 can do a number on your nerves and make you tense up, immediately turning you into an anticipatory, jerking mess. Dry fire through it to get comfortable with the sound of other people's guns.

When it's time to fire, put the target up, but put it backwards, so she sees only white. Let her fire a couple dozen rounds like that. It will get her comfortable with the mechanics of shooting and help her overcome her subconscious desire to force the sights to stay on target throughout the shot. It will also remove the pride element, since she now has no one to impress - she's not trying to hit anything, so how could she fail? All she should do it hit the paper. You will be surprised what this drill can do, even for an experienced shooter.

Once she's hitting the paper consistently like this, flip it over (or put on a new one facing normally) and let her fire like that. Remind her to focus on the sights and trigger - the two biggest elements of pistol shooting. When I am firing competition I am saying over and over in my head "sights, trigger, sights, trigger, sights, trigger." While this is not necessarily something she needs to do, it should tell you the importance of these two elements.

If she's having trouble with anticipating, try putting a snap-cap or two in the magazine so when she pulls the trigger nothing happens and she sees how badly she lurches. Never be afraid to take a break in between shots/magazines/boxes to dry fire a couple shots. Check out this target to give you an idea of how she needs to correct certain error patterns (one thing that isn't on the target: if she is hitting all around the center, but never a bullesye, she is likely focusing on the target, not the front sight).


Using tools like these, I was able to overcome the husband/wife obstacle and get my wife from missing paper more than half the time to passing her LTC test in a single range trip (and it wasn't her first range trip). I wish you the best! Be safe.