Hunter Education Training

I grew up country and it was something of a shock to me upon moving to Fort Worth to discover you have to pay to shoot around here! City dwellers even pay to hunt and they think it’s normal! I don’t mind paying every now and then, but living here and shooting on my own place wasn’t an option until I discovered air guns were more than toys.

Hunting was such a part of my early life, when I grew older and wasn’t hunting regularly I figured it was time to give back. One of the best ways is as a volunteer Texas Hunter Education Instructor. I’ve had opportunities to teach Hunter Education classes at a range where shotguns or rifles were available for basic gun handling exposure, but other times I’ve taught in a facility with no gun range. Since the curriculum allows for using air guns, I tried a couple of AR airsoft guns, but wasn’t satisfied with the experience they provided for students.

What does work well are simple-to-operate air rifles such as the Gamo Shadow Whisper. It’s a spring-action gun shooting a single .177 pellet with each shot and because it doesn’t use CO2, performance doesn’t deteriorate after firing 25 or 30 shots. The Shadow Whisper and its cousins in the Whisper family have excellent sights and at distances up to 20 to 25 feet are extremely accurate. For the Hunter Education classes, I set up an indoor range with a couple of Champion 22 bullet traps using Birchwood Casey Shoot-N-C targets to give students a chance to learn the basics of sight alignment, sight picture and trigger press. Each student gets to take home their own target to show their friends and family.