My gun experience started kinda like one of you. When I was 9 Grandpa took the shot out of a few shells, filled it with old material and let me shoot it (20 ga single shot, external hammer that took my both hands, ok thumbs, to [censored]) so I could get used to the weight and noise. We then progressed to lo-brass shells and finally when I was 10 he let me go out by myself, just around his house out in the woods. For the first few months never got more than probably 600 feet away. After the first year, I had the run of the entire area, as far as I wanted to walk. Grandma even made me a shell holder belt out of old denium. it would hold 16 20 ga shells. Ah, the good times.