What gun started it for you?

[Albany Mountain]

The Daisy 102 Cub was my first gun in the early 1960's. Had a couple of them as well as the 1894 Winchester Spittin image rifles. that advanced me into 22 cal and 22 cal competitions. My first centerfire experience was the 94 Winchester 30-30 (pre64) which aligned well with the Spittin image bb gun.
I shot mega thousands of BB's even through high school (which taught me point and shoot).

 

[Rem06]

30-40 Krag for deer

S&W 916T shotgun

till i saved up my paper route $$$ for a rem 700BDL 30-06 then many many many many many......more and still going...

 

[RX2tee]

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.

I still have my 67A that my Dad bought for me 65+ years ago. I think I was 3 years old. I was in my teens the first time I shot it without my Dad there coaching me.

 

[Ray123]

Winchester Model 67 27" barrel $5.50 new, 22 short, long, long Rifle. Mostly shot 22 short, but when I was older bought 22 LR at the local hardware store & sometimes bought hollow points, and used a pocket knife to segment the HP into 4 sections for more devastation on varmints.

 

[Dkk37058]

Red Rider BB Gun

 

[wboggs]

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.

Remington model 12 pump in .22 cal. That was 80 years ago and I still have it.

 

[coldboreshot]

Remimgton 514 22lr at 5 yoa. Competing in junior matches at 8. 55 years later, still have rifle.

 

[KMart]

A Winchester model 67 hand me down, that my dad got in 1935 for his 9th birthday. He grew up in the river bottoms and used it to hunt squirrels and rabbits to supplement the family's grocery list. It was the depression, so hunting and fishing was necessary. That way of life never left him and he and I hunted and fished together right up to the time he passed. Fall and winter we hunted and spring and summer we fished. It was our weekend entertainment.
I started shooting that rifle sometimes around the age of 5. It is pretty ragged now with wore out springs, a chamber that has the "ring" in it from shooting shorts, and a shortened barrel because he shot it with a plug of mud in the muzzle and swelled the end. Cleaning and lubrication was a foreign concept to him, so it was wore out, loose as a goose, but not a rusted up piece of junk.
Dad passed in 2003 and I miss him every day. So many great memories.

 

[FNSafari]

Actually a slingshot I made from a Y cut from a neighbors large woody shrub. Bought wide book bands, cut them took a piece of leather with cuts on either end and tied the bookbands to the leather and to the Y arms. That had to do until I took a NRA hunter safety course and got to use my uncles Winchester M77 .22 RF. I guess that was it.

 

[jelenko]

S&W Model 10 - that my wife bought.

 

[dannyjbiggs]

Red Rider BB Gun

Me too! Back in NW AR coming up on Christmas 1949, an old Scottish gentleman that lived about 1/2 mile up the hollow from my family approached my Dad with a question. He had learned that my playmate, an equal distance away, was getting a Daisy Red Rider BB gun for Christmas. Was my Dad buying one for me? Well, he was not. So, come Christmas morning, Santa had left a new Red Ryder for me under the tree...courtesy of the old Scotsman. Dad made up for it though. Two years away, Santa left a .22 cal Remington Model 512, Sportmaster...still have it.

 

[David Milisock]

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.

Old Steven's shotguns, Marlin 22's and Savage rifles over 60 years ago.

 

[D-4297]

Winchester 52D - International Match , with all the toys and goodies . Olympic Redfield Sights , Foam Palm Glove , Leather Sling . It ; and the Anshutz were the TOP GUNS in small-bore way back when I didn't know anything , but thought I knew everything . Now I know I don't know everything and almost to old to appreciate the wisdom of it all .

 

[farmerjohn]

Model 37, Red Letter, Winchester, full choke .410. I was 5, still have it. Darn thing was about like shooting a rifle, pattern about the size of my cap at 30 yds but with number 6s it was a squirrel killing machine ... John

 

[BULLET 05]

Red rider bb gun around 7. Then a Crossman pump rifle. Then another more powerful Crossman. Then onto the 22's. Marlins then a purchased my first real accurate rifle. Remington 541T heavy barrel. Took a 20 year break. Fishing and Mens Travel softball. Then the gun that took it to another level and it also started the reloading disease. Savage 22 Hornet model 25T heavy barrel. Then .223, 6BR, 20 Tac, and looking for another project.

 

[swimster]

My dad bought me a Sheridan 5mm Blue streak in grade school. He was a master electrician and I would help him change Xmas builds on people's house and the loal banks. He built a bulb holder in a homemade pellet trap. And we would set at the office desk and shoot Xmas bulds in our shop at about 15yds. I put new seals in it send it shoots as good as new 8 pumps gives about 600 fps. We would just use 3 pumps shooting starlings an sparrow in my uncles barn so it would damage the tin roof.

 

[BuffaloBill]

6 1/2” 41 Magnum Ruger Blackhawk. Bought it on sale for $174 in 1982 at the Coop Shopping Center in EauClaire, WI. Not my first firearm, but the one that kick started the reloading hobby.

 

[6xcshooter]

First gun to go BANG.
Winchester 62a

 

[JBT47]

1st a .410 For Christmas…6 yo at the time. Couple years later a H&R 20 ga. At 10 years old Dad gave me an older Browning BLR .308…hunted with it for 20 years until it got destroyed. Then went through a myriad of Winchester Mod 70’s and Browning A Bolt rifles. I was just a hunter…ammo was for creatures I hunted, not for shooting targets.

But in January of 2007 I had a very large buck tease me on multiple evenings. I’d been hunting this deer since bow season in October…he’d come out in a clearing approx 450-500 yds from my stand. I’d never shot deer over 320 yds.
So in February of that year I started trying to figure out what I needed to do in order to become proficient and confident in myself and my equipment so that I could place my 1st shot into the vitals of a whitetail at such distances…way past the MPBR of hunting calibers.

From all my research I discovered I needed much different equipment, I must learn to handload, and above all…I had to learn to shoot properly because it turned out that I was nowhere near as accurate of a shooter as I thought I was. Targets don’t lie.

My first non hunting rifle I ever bought was in March of 07…a hardly used Steyr SSG 69 PIIK .308…found a Nightforce NXS 5.5-22x50. While acquiring handloading equipment and tools, I found that the little Steyr actually shot below 1/2 moa with Fed Gold MM 175 SMK. Then I bought a R700 .223 9”twist Varmint weight barrel.

I shot 3-4 times per week with those two rifles and began shooting ammo I loaded. Acquired some AR 500 plates and practiced on my make shift shooting range at our hunting area (pipeline) out to 985 yds. Practiced for about 1.5 years…maybe 2 years with those two rifles. Got better at shooting and learning to read wind.

Next thing I know I’m having custom rifles built, shooting in competitions, and would rather target shoot than deer hunt. My long(er) range shooting interest began with a quest to be able to harvest deer at extended ranges. It took on a whole new life when I bought the little Steyr 69 PIIK and the R700 .223.

Quickly I discovered that shooting to become a better marksman was more rewarding to me than hunting animals ever was. Should’ve started years earlier as I would have been a more successful hunter (or at least a much better shot) had I began in my early years with priority on the fundamentals of marksmanship.

Some on here are blessed that they began the shooting sports at an early age with a .22 LR shooting thousands of rounds of rimfire at targets and small game. Instead, when I began shooting to become more accurate/skilled for longer shots...I had a horrible flinch/jerk and other bad habits that had to be unlearned. So the Steyr .308 and the R700 .223 are what I started really learning to shoot with as a young adult.

 

[6MMsteve]

In my early 20's a friend got me into groundhog hunting and I bought my first high power rifle a Savage 112R varmit 22-250 with Posa mounts then I bought a 15x Unertl ultra varmint then started reloading...but I had BB guns 22 rifle and a 410 bolt action in my 8 to 12 yrs old