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What gun started it for you?

Not that I don't enjoy a long, heated, political debate or the finer points of a Ford vs Chevy type discussion, but it seems like a lot of people on this site are long-term and committed shooters regardless of the discipline we have chosen or that maybe chose us. Be it rifle, pistol, shotgun competition or just recreation. So just wondering how others got started?

I came from a family that did not own firearms, but for some reason I really, really wanted and needed one. Maybe too much exposure to the ample gunplay on The Rifleman, Bonanza, Have Gun - Will Travel, Combat! and others in the 1950s and 60s.Who knows? But, anyway around my 12th birthday I convinced my widowed grandmother and she reluctantly agreed. This was 1967 and she lived in downtown Birmingham, AL. So believe it or not we walked down to the S&H Green Stamp showroom (although not 100% certain, it might have been a Top Value or some other stamp place) and she redeemed enough books of stamps to get me a .22 rifle.

It was a Marlin Model 99 M1 Carbine. I would buy ammo from the nearby Sears & Roebuck store and then ride a bus with rifle in hand out to Ketona Lake near Tarrant City. It's hard to imagine anything like that happening now without numerous law enforcement agencies, SWAT Teams, and Child Protective Services getting involved.
Winchester 67A. I could buy a box of shorts for 25 cents at Graves's grocery in Lone Grove, OK. For some reason, they sold the shorts cheaper than the LR or longs. Maybe they were an old lot # and needed to be gone. They all fired and many cans, bottles, some snakes, and a few squirrels and rabbits perished. Rat shot got used in the hen houses. I hunted all over my grandparents neighbors' land; it was something everyone allowed.
 
Like so many, a Daisy lever-gun. Later came a Remington 510 single-shot .22 (still have it) and a J.C. Higgins 20-gauge bolt gun with adjustable choke. That old 20-gauge saved me from hating shotguns. Dad had started me, like most of that era, with an old .410 single-shot. Hated that gun. Never could hit anything with it. Fit me poorly and that full choke required pinpoint accuracy with too little payload. With that J.C. Higgins it seemed like the world opened up. I couldn't seem to miss. Went through quite a few various .22s, including a Ruger Single Six, before I bought my first centerfire...a Ruger M77 .22-250. New world opened for me and I was hooked for life. Still shoot my various .22s quite a bit, but centerfire is more interesting to me.
 
A Remington 541P .22. It belonged to my mother's cousin who was a farmer. When I was about 7 I would get to shoot it off the rear porch bannister at tin cans when we visited them. About 15 years ago I found one in pristine condition. It lives at my house now.
 
A Remington 541P .22. It belonged to my mother's cousin who was a farmer. When I was about 7 I would get to shoot it off the rear porch bannister at tin cans when we visited them. About 15 years ago I found one in pristine condition. It lives at my house now.
Years later, I found out the gallery rifle I had was the 1922 but unclear
if it had the U.S. stamping on it. All the kids in the family used it growing
up. It just vanished to someone. Not long ago I found an article about
the 1922 U.S. Apparently very rare and selling for a couple of grand.
 
J.C Higgins 101.16 "gill gun" with a plastic stock. It I was my grandparents and if I behaved sometimes they would take me out in their field and let me burn up a box of .22's. I love that gun, still have it.
 
My first rifle was a Mossberg 144LS that I competed with in high school.
My first handgun is a Ruger .44 mag Blackhawk flat top. I still have it but it's now a safe queen after 16,000 roinds of cast bullets.
 
When I was growing up there was a western or 5 on the TV nearly every night of the week. Then there was Combat, The Gallant Men, 12 O'clock High, Rat Patrol, etc. And when I was about 5 or 6 dad first showed me his bring back Luger.
Coupled with all that & soon finding out I was interested in all things mechanical, I knew I would be a gun owner. I didn't let me down.
 
We were forbidden to have guns when I was a kid.
But my little brother and I would save our ice cream money and lawn mowing money and buy BB guns.
I remember going to Grants with a pocket of money and buying a daisy 1894 lever action rifle.
We had a pond close by and we would sneak up on it and try to kill a duck but never did.
We couldn’t let my parents know that we had it so we would bury it under the leaves when we went in for the evening.
My mom decided that at the age of 15 I should have my own gun.
A brand new western field (mossberg 500) 12ga modified choke that she bought on credit because she had just got a job as a mail carrier.
Had a huge creek bottom that belonged to my aunt and I killed a truck load of squirrels there.
Shotgun was to easy to kill with so traded it for a marlin model 60 .22, more funner.
It’s went down hill from there, bought sold traded at least a hundred firearms over the years.
Got my class 7 FFL seven years ago and that definitely didn’t help matters.
I remember going into a little hole in the wall gun store years ago and the man only had a few guns on display.
One of them was a well used marlin 39A I asked him what the sticker price on it was and he himmed and hawwed and finally said he WOULD like to get 75.00 for it, I had no problem breaking that 100 dollar bill.
That’s the only gun that’s stayed with me.
 
My 10th Birthday I was given a Daisy 880 pump BB/pellet gun back when they were made with real walnut and steel. I carried that thing everywhere I went. Dad had probably close to 50 fruit trees, 2 acres of alfalfa hay and a sizable garden on our homestead growing up. I was tasked with keeping the birds out of the fruit trees and other vermin out of the garden. I bet I killed literally thousands of birds and hundreds of squirrels, gophers and rabbits growing up. Oh the memories.
 
My Dad was into cars and not weapons. When I was 12 he gave me a 1946 model 165 H&R Leather neck 22LR. I traded it for hotrod parts for my 302 Jimmy engine that I had in my 1950 Chevy coupe. Wish I had the rifle back.
Things were different then. Me and my Buds would take our 22s on the end of the runway at Sheppard Air Force Base-Wichita Falls, Tx. We hunted jackrabbits and the Air Police never bothered us.
 
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Growing up there were no guns in the house except an old 22 short revolver mom had stashed in her dresser. My 2 uncles were both hunters and had numerous firearms but they showed no interest in taking me or my brother shooting or anything hunting related.
I got a red rider for Christmas when I was 12, saved money from cutting lawns and bought a Crossman pump with a scope when I was 14. I had to mow a neighbor's lawn that summer because I shot his sliding door glass out picking off plastic army men in a friends back yard.
First real rifle was a Sears model 1 22lr I bought from a friend in high school for $10 when I was 16 and I was heaven. Good times followed as well a growing firearms addiction.
 
When I was a child growing up in the late 50's and early 60's I remember seeing all them 30/30 Win in the Western movies. My cousin use to work at a lighthouse on the east coast. He came home one summer and he had 2 Win 94's chambered in 30/30. When he let me hold one I remember my knees getting weak. Just couldn't believe I was at last holding one in my hands. This done it for me. Been in love with rifles ever since. By the way I own 2 Winchester Md 94's. 30/30.
 
My family were hunters and I grew up with guns, mostly shotguns. My family was also, not particularly "well-off", so the guns were a mix of Savage, Westernfield and JC Higgins, all "hand-me-downs". So the first gun I ever shot was a JC Higgins, 22 bolt action. I loved it from the start! The first new gun I purchased was a Glenfield 22lr bolt-action, after that a Marlin 336 in 30-30, then a Remington 700 Varmint in 243 Win. I've gone down the rabbit hole from there and have loved ever step of the journey.
 

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