Do you think .22s really gives you much practice that will relate to shooting service caliber guns? I mean, maybe. I have not shot a .22 in a long time. I do have an Olympic-style pellet gun and it is excellent for training you to hold a steady sight picture, but with a 1 to 1-1/2 pound trigger it does not relate well for trigger control.

I have a cheap pellet gun (CO2) that is a knock off of a Beretta, and it has a long, long, trigger pull and it is very, very heavy. If you can control that trigger you can control the trigger on any gun ever made. So for very cheap ammo you can conquer two aspects of accurate shooting: trigger control, and sight picture.

But this ignores recoil. And that is my issue with .22s. They make noise, but the recoil is almost non-existent.

Need to strike a balance. .22's are great, but you must get used to the recoil of whatever you carry. Fact is that shooting is not a cheap passtime. I could drink Bud or Coors and save money too, but my palate craves more expensive(and tastier) brews. So grin and bear it !

I was shooting .45 and .44 Mag when I was a little kid 9-10, my older cousins thought it was funny to watch me handle large pistols at that age. To there surprise I shot them very well. I also was shooting a lot of .38 my pops pistol. What I'm getting at is a women is not limited to small calibers just because. By the way I still shoot a lot of .22 to this day up to 500 rounds a month.

My wife loves shooting the Ruger .44 mag blackhawk. I agree that women can handle it.