ATDM wrote:I went ahead and got him a Pac-Lite 22 LR - a fairly large .22 caliber, the size of a handgun and the weight he is used from shooting my Colt pellet guns. I agree, for his fist time the recoil from my XDm and XDs would be too much even with his 3 year experience with the large pellet handguns that are heavy, but have no recoil. Will see how it goes. I wanted to let him shoot a couple of rounds from my 9 mm at the end of the first time. What do you think? Should wait longer? He is a very sturdy kid, who works out daily and can do 18-20 pull-ups, 70 push-ups and 300 sit-ups - he has a build to manage it physically, but I don't know if the experience would be hard psychologically. Just wanted to know your opinion.
Thanks
That Pac-Lite is essentially a Ruger Mk III, and that's a good choice for a beginning handgun shooter. You've got nice taste.
When my son finally got around to shooting my handguns, he was probably about that age. He started off with a Colt Government .380, but he was used to shooting generally by then, and he had watched me shoot enough times to understand the drill and he was safety conscious and had good range etiquette. I would have started him on a .22 if I'd owned one at the time. Whenever I teach the NRA Basic Handgun class to somebody, I always start them with the 22/45 because it is a good choice for someone who is completely unfamiliar and perhaps a little bit afraid at first of shooting a pistol, and being a semiautomatic, it recoils more softly than my .22 revolver. With your son, it's not so much that he's afraid maybe, but that he needs to be learning good technique, and that is harder to do if you're being distracted by recoil.
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) so that I could pay cash for one (we try to limit purchases to whatever we have cash for - almost never use credit cards). 
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