It’s been a couple of years since I went through the NRA training to become a Rifle and Shotgun Merit Badges instructor for the BSA. Since then I haven’t taught as many rifle shooting merit badge classes as I’d like but I have done enough to learn a few things. Each time I taught a class, I learned almost as much about teaching as I taught others about rifle shooting. They always say if you truly want to learn something teach it.
Rifle Shooting PowerPoint
The first time I taught Rifle shooting merit badge I made my own PowerPoint to teach things. To me, it helped organize things and keep me on track.
My first version of my Rifle Shooting PowerPoint was a simple, to the point, explanation for each requirement of the merit badge. It went in order with the requirement order and the boys could listen and follow along, then they just had to copy the PowerPoint stuff to the worksheet.
This, of course, lead to some boring classes and some major off-topic discussions. Mainly because the order of the requirements was oddly listed.
So I’ve had to update and change my rifle shooting merit badge PowerPoint a few times. With the last time adding a 3 Rules review between each subject change. Not to mention moving things around, to prevent me from having explain something before I was going to teach it in the PowerPoint.
Safety Rules, Before, After, and During
My first time helping with the rifle shooting merit badge was at a summer camp. They had the boys repeat the 3 NRA safety rules every day. I watched as the boys got tired of saying them. They knew them and most could repeat them from memory. It got old quickly.
So the first time I taught the class myself, I went over the rules a few times with a good 15-20 minute explanation and called it good. It worked and I didn’t have any safety issues when we got to the range.
However, this last time I taught the class I quickly learned that not all youth learn the same way or even as quickly as others. So I’ve since changed my ideas. The rules need to be repeatedly gone over.
It should get to the point where all I have to do is ask the youth what are the rules and they can tell you them verbatim without any help. Only then have I done my job of making sure these youth will be safe.
You can make a game of saying the rules, get them to sing them, put actions to the rules, it doesn’t matter. As long as they know without thinking about it what the 3 NRA rules of gun safety are.
Honestly, I’d like to see the requirements for the merit badge change from “Identify and demonstrate the three fundamental rules for safe gun handling”, to repeat the 3 gun safety rules from memory and demonstrate what they mean. However, it’s not mine to change the requirements only to teach the youth to the best of my ability, and theirs to learn.
Have Visual Aids
The first time I taught rifle and shotgun merit badges together. I did this in one of the leader’s garages in multiple nights. Doing it in a personal dwelling allowed me to have multiple rifles and shotguns to use as visual aids. Unfortunately, a garage does not make for a good classroom. So I had to move the next class back to the church we normally meet at.
When teaching at a church it’s normally frowned upon to have rifles, and what not in the church. So I had to get creative with my visual aids. The powerpoint got way more pictures. Plus since I had a 3D printer I started printing dummy rounds in different calibers. The STL’s files can easily be found on Thingiverse. Making it really easy to print most common caliber dummy rounds.
I also reload ammo and thus made a few inert dummy rounds to pass around. Plus having individual bullets and cases separated to make it easy to see the different parts of a cartridge. These physical aids go a long way towards helping the youth learn the difference in calibers of rifles.
The last thing I did was bring a cheap scope and red dot I had laying around for the youth to look at. It gave them an idea of how scopes and red dots work without having them attached to a rifle and worrying about muzzle control.
Dummy Rifles
Like I said earlier teaching rifle shooting merit badge in a church made it really hard to teach how to handle a rifle without a rifle. So I got creative. I made myself a dummy rifle. There are all sorts of ways to build a dummy rifle. I’ve seen rough wood cut-outs, PVC pipes taped to old rifle stocks and even store-bought blue guns. One could even use a Nerf gun, although this may be counterproductive as it may be seen as a toy instead of a learning device.
Being that I also teach Appleseed, I went ahead and 3D printed a Ruger 10/22 receiver added a copper tube for a barrel and integrated a cheap laser into the action. This allows for the feeling of a real rifle when teaching proper shooting positions without having a functional rifle present.
Lasers and Bore Sighters
The laser in my dummy rifle really helped explain aiming, sight alignment, and scope/sight adjustments. When they can see a laser coming out of the barrel then look at the sights and see how the two don’t match or even change where they meet just by moving the “target” a few feet. It really shows the visual learners in your group how things work.
If you can have a rifle while teaching it would be really easy to use a laser bore sighter to do the same thing. Any laser coming from the end of the barrel will give the idea of how sights need to be aligned and even how moving the rifle greatly affects the bullet path.
Avoid Boring Kids with Your Passions
As a firearms enthusiast, it’s really hard not to go down a lot of rabbit holes when teaching rifle shooting merit badge. Between discussing different shooting sports, your favorite rifle, and even talking about gun laws and debates, it’s really easy to go too long into subjects you are passionate about.
I learned fairly quickly that even though I love Project Appleseed when I started talking about it as a shooting sport the youth’s eyes started rolling back into their heads really quickly. I also learned that even though I love the M1 Garand rifle and AR-15 doesn’t mean that everyone gets as excited about them.
When teaching the rifle shooting merit badge, stick to the PowerPoint and the requirements. Make sure you ask lots of questions from the boys to make sure they are learning. Plus get them to ask questions and answer those as simple as possible without leaving out important information. Otherwise, you will start to see the youth with glazed over eyes and realize they stopped listening a long time ago.
Concentrate on the Rifles They will Shoot, but Teach all Rifles
Something interesting I’ve seen on the range helping finish up the shooting requirements that didn’t get done at summer camp. The boys that only learned to shot a bolt action rifle, will try to run a semi-auto like a bolt action.
While it’s funny to figure out how a kid has 2 rounds on the shooting table and only three holes in their target. After they opened the action after every shot. It’s not very effective for shooting groups.
It’s definitely best to talk the most about the rifles the youth will be shooting so they can be very familiar with it when they first start shooting. However, these youth may end up shooting other rifles in their life. Thus they need to understand how other rifle actions work.
Teach Scopes and Iron Sights
You also have to teach both scopes and iron sights. You never know what the rifle they will shoot has.
There are those summer camps and people who swear by iron sights. It’s great to teach iron sights and have the youth understand them perfectly. Right up until you hand them a scoped rifle and they can figure out why it’s fuzzy and hard to see out of.
What’s worse is only teaching how to use a scope so when handed an iron-sighted rifle they can’t hit paper at all. Because they don’t know to line the back and front sights up and how to do it. So even though you need to spend the most time on teaching the rifle set up the youth will use, make sure you cover other possibilities also.
Range Briefing
Sometimes out of necessity you’ll have to use a local public range, instead of a BSA owned range. When you do this make sure they either give a range safety briefing to all the youth shooting. Otherwise, make sure you include the range’s rules with your safety briefing.
A lot of how you run the firing line is going to depend on the range, be adaptable while keeping safe. The preferred method would be to have a closed range where you can give commands on when to prepare, load, and fire. Then making sure all guns are unloaded and safe before anyone goes down range to check or change targets. I honestly like the Appleseed method of making a rifle safe.
Safe Rifle
- Magazine Out (if you have a magazine)
- Bolt Back (or locked open)
- Safety On
- Chamber Flag In
- Rifle Grounded (on shooting bench)
- No One Touching the Rifle ( or close to the bench)
However, as a BSA instructor, we don’t always have enough chamber flags. Not to mention not all ranges allow you to go downrange at all. Thus becoming a moot point.
For the times you are on a public range with Boy Scouts make sure you have as close to a one on one instructor/RSO to scout ratio as possible. This will help prevent issues and help the boys learn better with all the distractions of others shooting.
Something to consider when on public ranges with no target carriers, is to bring a spotting scope. This can greatly speed up the process of shooting the required targets. As you don’t want to make the range cold every 5 rounds. You can put up multiple targets per boy and see how they are shooting between targets without the need to run downrange every 3 to 5 rounds. This also gives you the opportunity to help them before they’ve shot 20 rounds without hitting the target.
Make It Safe and Fun
Make sure you keep things fun. I’ve seen a few RSO’s and instructors that forget that the BSA is not the military. They do an amazing job of keeping a safe range, every step is laid out, everything is run by the book. There is no chance of being unsafe. Heck, there is no chance to even think. They make the range feel like everyone is mad and looking to yell at you. This is not fun.
I realize that it’s just as bad to be all fun and games because the chances of deadly accidents go up exponentially. This is not something anyone wants. There is a compromise between the serious and grumpy drill sergeant and the fun-loving friend. The best way to think of it is like Roadhouse…. you need to be nice until it’s time to not be.
You need to think of fun and education until there’s even a hint of a safety violation. Usually, all it takes is one reminder of the rules for everyone to realize they can have fun but forgetting a rule is serious.
Find that compromise. Each class you teach will be slightly different. I’ve found that if you have a smile, act happy, the youth will have a better time. Make sure you always put safety as number one but remember it does have to be fun. Without fun, there really is no point in shooting sports.
Conclusion
While you can read through the whole BSA shooting sports manual, and memorize the NRA basic Rifle course, you’ll find there’s still more to teaching rifle shooting merit badge. Having a good powerpoint is a start. Making sure you have plenty of visual aids is almost a must. Once on the range make sure that safety is your #1 priority with having fun being a very close 2nd.