First rifle I shot was a Marlin levermatic 22lr, I was probably 8 years old at the time.
My dad bought me a Mossberg bolt action .410 for my 10th birthday, I still have both of these as well as his Ruger Mark 1.

My first experience was a Colt Peacemaker 7 1/2" bbl in .22 l.r. He still has the gun and it looks almost new. The .22 mag cylinder came with it also.

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Go big or stay home

None, my father hate's guns. However my grandfather let me shoot his CVA .45 Kentucky Rifle when I was 11.

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Vaya con Dios

Belgium Browning .22. We went together to pick it out in 1964. I lost my Dad in 2007 but I still have that little rifle. It is the only gun that really means something to me and I still shoot it.

First gun was a Daisy Red Ryder

First firearm, this one;

1903 Winchester

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Regards,
Guy-Harold Smith II

Just curious ... what "beasties" were you hunting?? What animals can you hunt in France?

Don

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Laus Deo! <><

First gun I fired was a Hartford Arms & Equipment .22 auto, pistol; forerunner of Hi-Standard. Standard velocity ONLY for that baby!

Remington model 521T when i was five. M-1 carbine and S&W 36 at six.

Springfield Arms/Savage/Stevens/Page-Lewis* Model 50 Springfield Jr. .22LR single shot hand cock rifle. But it was my grandfather that let me shoot it, not my father. I was probably 6 at the time and now, 56 years later, I still have that rifle.

Page-Lewis came out with the gun in 1928 about the time they were bought out by Stevens who was being bought out by Savage. Or was it the other way around? Anyway, the gun was labeled as being made by Springfield Arms Co., Chicopee, MA, a company that never existed. In 1933 this rifle sold for $5.87 in the Sears catalog.

CW

.22 over, .410 under. I got to shoot the " over ". Never the Under.

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Firearms and Saltwater Fishing

Marlin model 60.

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All Rights Reserved

A Model #3 Smith in 44 Russian, he got it from his father, who got it from his father, and will go to my oldest.

I got a good hammer bite. He kept telling me to stick my arms out, after a while he got tired of telling me and I learned the hard way.

Stevens "Favorite" .22. Belonged ot a great uncle. He paid $2.50 for it new.
I started hunting alone at 10. Spent most Sunday afternoons hunting and walked miles and miles doing so.
I killed hundreds of jack rabbits with it. Paid for my gas in highschool.

Still have it.

The first firearm I ever shot was a worn out M-16(not A1) in basic training for the Air Force. I got the bug though, and gave it back to my dad. The bad part is, he now has more Smiths than me! 586, 648, 29-2, and M&P9C. Dang it, twice as many as me! That's what I get for sneaking back to the store and grabbing my 617 before he could.

When I was about 10 my dad let me shoot cans off a fence post at our camp with his Winchester Model 69 .22 bolt-action. Been hooked on shooting ever since. His uncle bought it new for dad in 1937 and now I have it. Kept handy as my go to medicine for various 4-legged marauding miscreants plundering around the home front. It is still an accurate little bugger too.

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S&W Armorer
Lost in the 50s

Pigeons, pheasants, rabbits, hares, foxes, wild boar, and in some cases deer. There are some wild boar in the area, but I have never seen one. Deer have to be tagged as soon as they are shot and as an individual I can't get tags. Shooting them without tags is illegal. I'm going on a deer hunt next Saturday. The local hunt that I belong to is allocated 11 or 12 for the season.

The season for hare is very short and ended yesterday. It's a conservation thing. That's why I was out, hoping to get one on the last day. Didn't see any. Saw a couple of pheasants but they got away. I was too slow.

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Kill it, cook it, eat it.

The only gun my Dad ever had was a WWII Japanese type 99 rifle . My Mother made him get rid of it when I started showing intrest in it in the late 50's {I now have 5 t99's & 2 t38's }. The first gun I shot was a Remington 12 ga.model 870 wingmaster that I bought from a guy I worked with for $75.00 back in 1973 I was 18 years old. It was a down hill slide since then. My Mother never could understand my love of firearms to this day. The only time I ever shot with my Dad was when I was 19 years old we went to Canada to deer hunt .He borrowed a 30-30 to use I had bought a new Remington 742 30-06.

One evening when I was seven, or eight years old { 1950s} my Father said, "Get in the car & come with me." We ended up at a Gun Shop in the next town over, and he bought me a used single shot Stevens .22 bolt action with a cut-down stock. He paid $7.00.
When he got off work in the afternoons he would put me behind the wheel of his 55 Chevy, I sat on a box, and he worked the clutch, and we would drive out of town to the city dump. I remember driving right past the City Cop. You could do those things in a small town back then. At the City Dump we would shoot glass bottles, and jars until dusk then the rats came out. There were so many that the whole hill seemed to be moving. There were no lasers, or tactical lights back then. I learned to shoot the rats without sights, since it was relatively dark when they came out.
I would tote that rifle "up-town" to the local Hardware Store where I could buy 10 .22 longs for ten cents, I didn't have the money very often for a full box, and take her to the woods.
Today, an eight year old driving a car, a kid walking down the street with a rifle, and city dumps full of rats are things of the past. The Stevens single-shot is now in my son's gun safe, as the first gun that he ever shot. Also, now that my eyes aren't as good, learning how to point shoot is coming in handier than ever.

Tom

The first gun my father ever let me shoot was a small .32 S&W chambered top-break revolver made by H&R. It was blued. I remember it was heavy. And I remember it was fun. We were maybe 8-9 yrs. old. My twin brother and I were given .22 LR Winchester 190's for Christmas. Wonder! I still have that rifle. I "customized" it while a student in seminary by staining the stock w/ brown shoe polish followed with several applications of Birchwood Casey True Oil. I then ordered Demibart checkering tools (!!!), practiced on some wood scrap and then proceeded to checker the rifle using a simple wrap around panel design. It actually turned out very nice. I went slowly and after about a week it was finished. I used it last year in a club match for .22 LR rifles. I was at a disadvantage with the factory iron sights, but I enjoyed simply having it at the range. It was at that exact same range where my father first allowed me to shoot the above mentioned pistol. Sweet memories.

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<><

Winchester 1903. Loved that rifle. My younger son has it now.

High Standard 22 with a 4" barrel.

Remington Sportsman 48 12ga shotgun.
It was his very first 'new' gun ever.
..and an Anschutz .22 rifle he brought back from WW2.
I was 4y/o.
He had to help hold them of course.
Targets were glass Xmas tree ornaments hung on hillside grape vines in an old vineyard.

I still have the Anschutz 22 and my brother has the Sportsman 48. Both still see the range and the 48 goes duck hunting (and shows it).

1903A3. It was the only gun in the house. He bought it around 1960 through NRA at Red River Arsenal, where he worked. I was 11.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

A Winchester 67 my maternal Great Grandfather bought new in 1935. The rifle is now my daughters. For most of his post military life the Winchester 67 and a Winchester 97 were the only firearms my dad owned. In the early 1980's he mentioned wanting a 22 pistol so for Christmas I bought him a 6" Ruger MkI, which mom gave back to me after he died.

It was either the Sears/Stevens .410 side by side or the Winchester 67 bolt action .22 rifle, I can't remember. But I still have both.

Colt 1903 .32ACP. It's still in the family.

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Term limits!

My dad never let me shoot a gun, he's extremely bleeding heart liberal and very anti-gun. My parents even confiscated a toy Colt SAA set that I was given for Christmas when I was 5 y.o.

My uncle was the first person to let me shoot a gun. It was a WWII P-38 and a Ruger 22 auto when I was around 8-10 y.o.

My dad didn't "let me shoot" anything. At age fourteen, I marched into the Montgomery Ward store, bought a new, on sale, Mossberg 146B for $25.00.

Rode home with it on my Cushman motor scooter.....took it down to the river.....and commenced shooting.

Yes folks, it was a different time and place.

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G.P. Charlie

My first experience shooting was with my dad, It was 1951 & I was 8 and I went along with "PA" out to a farm where he hunted ducks. After he was done hunting and we were headed back to the car I asked him if I could shoot his gun, he said yup. See that big tree with that grey moss spot on it, hit it. I did and he laughed. I still have the memory and the gun is in my gun cabnet, a Browning A5 Sweet-Sixteen 16ga. ahhh great memories. Thanks for starting this thread.

Regards,
Rich King

Ruger 10/22 rifle
Colt .380 pistol
at about six years old.

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2nd Admen.-Right to bear AR 's

High Standard Duramatic 22... I was seven. When Dad passed two years ago, I inherited it. Though you can buy a Duramatic for a few hundred bucks, you can't buy THIS one at any price.

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Proud anachronism

Rem 16 ga. auto I was 8 or so years old. It was bought in 1935 by my grandpa. I stil have it.

My parents HATE guns, even though I'm 40 years old. My mother called me last Friday when my youngest daughter and I were at Knob Creek, and she hung up on me when she heard the line go "hot".

That said, my father and I killed many, many pigeons and starlings when I was a boy. He killed a squirrel once, and had the both of us go into the eaves to kill her babies in the nest, "So they won't starve".

I hated the experience, but my father taught me an important lesson about life and death, though I didn't know it at the time.





My first firearm after I moved out was an Australian Lithgow 1921 SMLE, and I took great care of it until it was stolen in 1995.

I think the first rifle I shot above a bb gun, was when I was around 8, my brother's Rossi 62SAC Gallery gun. What a terrific little pump 22. The first handgun I ever shot was my father's S&W 686 w/ 6" barrel and loaded wth .357 magnums--also when I was around 8 or 9. One shot from that was enough to tide me over for several more years, until I was brave enough to try again.

A 16 gauge Winchester Model 12 with the short 2 9/16 inch chamber. My grandfather had taken it in as a legal fee in the '30s and it was my Dad's only shotgun when I was 7 years old (1974). The target was a big sheet of insulation from a tornado we had June 8th of that year. Left a big bruise when I fired it (and a big impression). Dad still has it but has a number of more appropriate shotguns now.

When I was 5 my best friend's dad let me shoot his model 17. My dad only had one gun, and it was a decade later (and after I owned several of my own) that my dad and I shot his little .32 S&W.

Winchester M62A, pump .22. Still have it.

Ruger Security Six, he loaded five .38 spl ans the last bullet was .357 mag, I still remeber the surprise in recoil. Fun Times.

My Dad never took me when I was a kid, only when I was 23yrs old did the two of us got together for a shooting trip, his only gun was a mod 64. I had a 1911, hipower and 586 by then. Was cool though as we really didnt connect until then

That would have been a Winchester semi auto in 22 short at the Michigan State Fair grounds when I was 9 or 10 back around 1962.
Can you imagine a shooting gallery with real guns in todays world?

Check out my avatar..that's me at the age of about 4. Somewhere in west Texas early 1941. Little rifle Dad put togeather.

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NRA Life Benefactor

My Dad wasn't much of a hunter, only archery which he shared with me.

The first gun I ever shot was a .22 single shot bolt action at summer camp.
The second was my Dad's old Savage single shot 12 gauge Model 220 which I still have. I must have been 14 when he first started letting me use it for bird hunting. No hunter safety classes in those days and no real instruction other than what I read in the gun mags. Still we were smart enough to know how to be safe and my buddy who lost his Dad at an early age and I did just fine teaching ourselves.
I would not recommend that today but it worked out fine for us back then.

The first long gun Dad let me shoot was a Winchester 88 O/U 20ga. He and his Father bought it together when my Dad was in high school. It's the first long gun I let my daughter shoot (see attached photo).

The first hand gun Dad let me shoot was a Colt Woodsman Target .22LR. It was his Grandfather's and was the first hand gun he shot. Dad just gave it to me this year for my birthday. I've since cleaned it up and plan for it to be the first hand gun my daughter shoots.

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Winchester Model 61. Sometimes on Saturday morning Dad would load up my brother and me, pick up two boxes of .22 shorts at the hardware store, and we'd head for the hills.

When I was growing up in Virginia in the 50's and 60's the county fair had the same thing. Dad belonged to the Lions Club and they put on the fair, so on Sunday after the carnival had packed up and left town he would go help clean up the fairgrounds. The shooting gallery would always toss out the plywood target backstop, and I'd find it and see how many bullets I could dig out with my pocket knife.

I've enjoyed reading everybody's posts. Unfortunately my dad never allowed me to fire a gun growing up. He used to hunt and had many guns. I "found" the gun cabinet key when I was only 2 yrs old, got in it and managed to lock it back. My finger prints were all over the barrels. It freaked him out cause the key was gone never to be found - he sold all his guns.

I pestered him to death to go hunting when I was 16 with a friend. He wouldn't let me. But the first gun I shot was my friend's 50 cal Hawken when I was 16. For my 18th birthday I bought my own Mossberg 500 and took a hunter ed course. Got my license and haven't looked back.

Dad bought me a Marlin 30-30 when I turned 21. A memory I'll always cherish was the only time he went with me to a local range and it was just me and him plinking with a .22. I'm 45 now and he's been gone now for 7 years. I wish we could have some more trips to the range.

Model 52 Winchester, bolt action. Still have it today.

My Fathers MD 14 duty weapon in the early 60's. Presented this gun to a family friend upon my Dads death. He was of great help to my mother as his health declined. I have days that I regret giving away this part of my family history. Given his service to my parents, it was the right thing to do.

:/ my mom taught me to shoot.

With an old Remington 410/22 single shot.

As I recall, I shot the 22 first.

When it got to what the male parental let me shoot, I don't recall shooting with him. He'd be there, we all would be shooting, but I stayed away from him and his business.

As we got older, my sister and I took this same gun for rabbits and squirrels.

I wish I still had it or could track down the paternal relatives my mom sent this gun after he died. My oldest would like to have it a lot.

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Soli Deo Gloria

It wasn't my father but my uncle, When I was a kid I used to spend weekends at their hunting cabin.We used to go down to the mountain side dump and shoot dump rats,,, first handgun ever fired a .32 H&R revolver.
We used to have a lot of fun shooting those dump rats!
Thus started my gun infactuation!