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RP -- thanks for the offer. I'll pass it on to her.

About a month ago, my wife finally decided that she wanted to learn to shoot. She has shot a couple of my pistols before, but never really got into it. Now, it's not that she wants to become a competitive shooter, she just wants to get more familiar and comfortable with guns. Also, she decided that she's ready to take the CHL class, and she wanted some more familiarity before the class.

My pistol collection is nothing compared to most of the people in this forum, and she wanted to stick with only pisols that we already have for now. We got them out one evening, both verified unloaded status, and she held each one to see what she liked. On the first run through, she liked the Kel-Tec P32 for its small size and the Springfield XD9SC for its overall feel. So, off we go to the range to shoot them. As most of you probably know, the little Kel-Tec has marginal sights on it (it is a pocket gun after all), so she didn't much like shooting it. She didn't care much for the Springfield, either.

After that unsuccessful range trip, she decided that perhaps my new Taurus 1911 would be the right one for her to shoot. I had been going on and on about how it was the best shooting gun I ever picked up. Off to the range again. She liked it better than the others, but she flinched quite a bit after just a few rounds -- the recoil was a problem for her. Back at home, I loaded up some light loads for the 1911, tried them myself, and proclaimed them very mild. Back to the range we go with the reduced loads..........and she still doesn't like it any better. This time, the main complaint was the weight of the gun (it is a heavy one). I should mention that there had been several impromptu instructional sessions at the range from various people. I'm not a coach, but several people at the range had attempted to help her. She welcomed the help, but did not seem to make any progress.

After we got back home, I finally said, "Well, there is one more pistol in the safe. It's the cheapest one, the one I've had the longest, and it's by far the ugliest gun, but you're welcome to try it if you like." This ugly, cheap gun is none other than a Hi-Point .380. She liked the way it felt at home, so we went back to the range yesterday. We normally shoot at the Haltom City RPC, which is an outdoor range. I had a conference call I had to be on for work, so I got her set up at the pistol lane and went indoors to call in for my conference call. After about 20 minutes, she came in with the gun all packed up in the range bag and a huge smile on her face. She also had the two paper plates (we use the expensive targets ) that she had shot at. She shot 25 rounds at each plate. The first plate had 19 holes in it and the second one had 24 holes in it! And she had a good time shooting!

Later on, we talked about what made the difference. Unfortunately for our analysis, there were several variables on this trip. She used a different gun -- and she said that this one felt the best overall. Also, no one tried to coach her -- she just did her own thing. She also changed her mentality towards the target -- instead of trying to hit the little circle in the middle of the plate, she said that she visualized a big ugly guy trying to break into our house and she just tried to stop him.

Whatever the reason, I'm just glad that she had a good time! I know the Hi-Point is not a gun for her to carry -- now that she has somewhat of a feel for what she likes, she can start to look around for her own gun. But, at least she has something that she likes to shoot now.

Women -- there's no way to predict what they're gonna like!