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Sorry that I'm a bit late on this. I'm bored and looking up older threads. 
One word of advice for learning to shoot rifles. I believe it is very important to start with rimfire and work your way up the power range of centerfire rifles. If you start with a heavily kicking rifle early on you are going to develop bad habits that will be difficult to undo later. Trust me, I know... a particular very lightweight .300 Win Mag that I shot early on really messed me up and it took a long while finally get the bad habits gone.
I would stay start with a .22, .22 mag, or .17 rifle.
Then go to a 9mm carbine or something similar.You could jump right to .222, .223, etc.
Then .243s, .257, 6mm, 6.5 mm, or .30 caliber intermediate cartridges like 7.62x39.
Then go for high power 30 calibers and larger.
Now some would say this is excessive, and it may be. Just my opinion and how I wish I would have done it, and how I would teach people nowadays. You can feel free to skip a step or so. But the biggest thing to do is get to the point where you have zero flinch, have controlled your breathing and kept your heart from pounding, are sort of surprised when the trigger releases (part of this is having a great trigger on the rifle), don't rush the shots, and have absolutely no flinch or fear of the scope hitting you in the face. I have found that if you are keeping your eyes open as the shot goes off you are probably doing fine.
One word of advice for learning to shoot rifles. I believe it is very important to start with rimfire and work your way up the power range of centerfire rifles. If you start with a heavily kicking rifle early on you are going to develop bad habits that will be difficult to undo later. Trust me, I know... a particular very lightweight .300 Win Mag that I shot early on really messed me up and it took a long while finally get the bad habits gone.
I would stay start with a .22, .22 mag, or .17 rifle.
Then go to a 9mm carbine or something similar.You could jump right to .222, .223, etc.
Then .243s, .257, 6mm, 6.5 mm, or .30 caliber intermediate cartridges like 7.62x39.
Then go for high power 30 calibers and larger.
Now some would say this is excessive, and it may be. Just my opinion and how I wish I would have done it, and how I would teach people nowadays. You can feel free to skip a step or so. But the biggest thing to do is get to the point where you have zero flinch, have controlled your breathing and kept your heart from pounding, are sort of surprised when the trigger releases (part of this is having a great trigger on the rifle), don't rush the shots, and have absolutely no flinch or fear of the scope hitting you in the face. I have found that if you are keeping your eyes open as the shot goes off you are probably doing fine.
