What firearm was it that you first shot?

What was the first firearm you shot?

  • .22 Rimfire Rifle

    Votes: 77 61.6%
  • .22 Rimfire Pistol

    Votes: 12 9.6%
  • .410 Shotgun

    Votes: 7 5.6%
  • .30 Caliber Deer Rifle (30-30, 30-06, etc.)

    Votes: 2 1.6%
  • Other Handgun

    Votes: 12 9.6%
  • Other Rifle

    Votes: 5 4.0%
  • Other Shotgun

    Votes: 10 8.0%

  • Total voters
    125
  • Poll closed .
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I remember helping load the ammo on a press, then the owner took me out back and we shot it. It was some sort of target pistol akin to a International Free Pistol type. way to many years have passed for me to remember the details. Soon after my mom got me a Model 60.
 
Mine was a Winchester M190 rifle in .22LR I posted about it a couple of months ago when I came across another one and bought it.

Here's the story behind it, and my stepfather's help in getting me started:

Though neither of my mother's first two husbands had been kept around long enough to have much of an impact on my life, her third lasted the longest. They began seeing each other probably when I was around thirteen years old, and finally married when I was seventeen. Frank had two rifles kept stashed away, and my mom, very gun-shy, made sure we never saw them.

I was eighteen early in 1985, and was making every effort to land a career in law enforcement (in fact, I'd already signed up for the US Army, but was disqualified when I reported to MEPS on my active-duty date because of the discovery of inner ear damage from an injury sustained in a criminal attack earlier.)

Frank decided to sell the rifles due to non-use, and convinced my mother to let me buy one of them, a Winchester Model 190 in .22LR. The other was only known as "a .30-30", and I never knew what make it was, having never clapped eyes on it. She agreed, provided he go with me to teach me to shoot it, which he did. Back then, we just drove out of town, found a safe backstop, and shot away.

Once I had the gun, he taught me about safe handling, safe storage, and cleaning, even asking to "inspect" it once in a while. This was the first firearm I had ever handled, and I kept it with pride.

Frank died in 1986 and, shortly after the funeral, his son, whom I had never met, came around and asked about the gun. Perhaps it had been one he had been taught with, too. I let him take the Winchester with him, and my mother had no qualms by then with me replacing it with another rifle, which I did (Ruger 10/22, which I still own.)

I don't think I ever saw another Model 190 after that in the flesh. Until yesterday (EDIT: actually June 14th.) The LGS I frequent had one when I stopped in. In fact, they actually had two of them. I was already attracted to a pistol I found in there, and decided to leave with the lower-priced of the two Winchesters along with it. There is some bluing loss about the barrel, but not severe, and the rest of the gun looks firm and tight. Now, the gun sits on my kitchen table, ready to be cleaned and "inspected" much like that first one was so many years ago..
 
First gun I ever shot was a 22lr revolver. No clue of the model because the gun was long gone before I ever cared about guns.
 
A friend's bolt action .22 rifle at his parents' farm when I was 10 or 11. I have no idea what it was.
 
Remington Model 41 "A" grade Targetmaster. I was about 8 years old with adult supervision. I shot it down into a drainage ditch resting on a hog wire fence to support the rifle. My deceased uncle bought the gun as a teenager in the late 1930s . according to internet sources it sold for $5.25 in 1937!! I still have it in my safe. It was the cricket or rascal of the day.
Bull
 
My first firearm was a genuine M16A2 my Uncle Sam told me to shoot. I was quite the late bloomer.
 
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58. Caliber Zouave percussion cap. My dad was a black powder guy. I was six years old and the rifle was longer than I was. The target was a rock at the end of the range. I hit the rock, in a great cloud of smoke and noise, but the recoil caused the back of my thumb to hit my nose and bloody both nostrils.
 
Just kidding. Most of those other rounds are wimpy.:evil:
At 8, my dad took me out and had me shoot his service .357 (model 27?). Put one round in the cylinder had me aim at a tree, I do believe I hit a tree somewhere or the backstop; not sure. Also believe it was the first day my dad heard me say that F word.
In another thread I posted about shooting my Dad's service .38. To slightly expand on that story, we were on our way home from buying my first cap pistol. We went to the police range and my Dad had me shoot his .22 Mauser bolt action a few shots. Then it was time for me to blast away at the target with my cap gun. When I popped off all 5 caps from my Mattel Fanner 50 (Truth be told, I wanted the Have Gun Will Travel set with the chess knight on the holster) and Dad handed me his .38. I didn't know the F word then, but I'm sure if I did, I'd have said it.
A graphic lesson that has stayed with me all my life. A firearm, or, really, anything that shoots a projectile isn't a toy.
 
In another thread I posted about shooting my Dad's service .38. To slightly expand on that story, we were on our way home from buying my first cap pistol. We went to the police range and my Dad had me shoot his .22 Mauser bolt action a few shots. Then it was time for me to blast away at the target with my cap gun. When I popped off all 5 caps from my Mattel Fanner 50 (Truth be told, I wanted the Have Gun Will Travel set with the chess knight on the holster) and Dad handed me his .38. I didn't know the F word then, but I'm sure if I did, I'd have said it.
A graphic lesson that has stayed with me all my life. A firearm, or, really, anything that shoots a projectile isn't a toy.

Yup. One saying I can't stand is " It's only a .22". Tell that to any animal of person thats been killed with one.
 
I started with 2 different .22LR rifles around 12. A single shot Remington and a Marlin 60, both older than me.
 
Remember sitting on my Dads knee with his Winchester 22 semi auto rifle rested on top of grandpa's dog house shooting tin cans as fast as I could pull the trigger and laughing with glee. Think I was all of about 5. Remember it like it was yesterday.
Sure do miss him.
 
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the picture, probably taken by my grandpa, says I was two, but I didn't look a day under three. I was shooting an ithica model 49 (22 rf). I still have that rifle. the year was either 1959, or 1960. no eye pro, or ear pro, in those days.

murf
 
First shot was with a 22 rifle when I was about 8. More memorable was shooting an H&R 22 revolver the next year. That revolver was the first shooting experience for most of my 12 brothers and sisters, my kids and many of my nieces and nephews. It's still in the family although it hasn't been shot for a couple of years. 2 years ago I used it in a pin shoot then had a presentation holster made with our family name on it.
 
A bolt-action .22 that I found in a house that we had just moved into down in Southern Oregon. I believe that it was a J. C. Higgens, but I'm not sure. I was five years old.
I got to fire the rounds that were in the magazine and then carried the bolt in my pocket to keep Dad from selling the gun... for a few weeks. Then my middle sister was born, Mom and the girls moved in with her parents, almost everything that I owned went away, and Dad and I hitch-hiked to Los Angeles to "visit" his parents.
 
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