Homeschool Notes: Reloading

Homeschooling is great in that it affords kids plenty of time to focus on learning the more important lessons in life.

Like how to reload shotgun shells.



Because every girl ought to know how to load her own shotgun shells for when she's hunting game birds. Right?

I asked if she understood what she was doing. She looked at me as though I might be retarded. (Which admittedly, when it comes to anything regarding guns, I kind of am.)

"First the old primer pops out. See right there? You can see that the firing pin has hit it already. So the old one comes out, and we put in a new one."



"What's the primer do?"

"When you pull the trigger, the firing pin hits the primer and it makes the powder explode, and then the wad comes flying out."

"Mmm. Um, what's a wad?"

"That's what holds the bb's. See, you put the wad on like this... and then you drop the bb's into it like this. And then the whole thing comes out when the powder explodes, and they go into the bird you're shooting at."


Ah yes. I see. My eight year old daughter has learned more in one night of reloading with her dad than I learned in my week-long Hunter's Safety course.

*reloading: putting the gun powder, primer, and bb's into a used shotgun shell. It's like making something from scratch and recycling at the same time!