When did you start shooting?

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Shot my 1st west Texas jackrabbit at the age of 5 with a Winchester 290 .22 under the close supervision of my father and grandfather----some 52 years ago.

Still remember it very clearly.
 
I was about 7 or 8 when my mom let me and my older brother get a BB gun. I was hooked. A couple of years later I got a pellet rifle and started hunting squirrels with my friends.
My mom and dad got divorced before I was one. They didn’t get along so, it wasn’t till I was about 1 before I got to know my dad. Dad picked up my older brother and me one weekend and when he brought us home we bought had our first real guns. My brother had a Remington 552 Speedmaster and I had a Winchester 9422 XTR.
Boy was mom pissed, but my dad drove off with a smile that I remember to this day.:D:evil::D
Man, that was almost twice your height. At 1 year old how did you ever handle that thing?
 
Pulled my first trigger before I was big enough to hold a rifle, got my first pellet rifle at 9, had to lean it up against a tree to pump it up. My first .22 at 11 and my first 357 magnum at 13. That said, I was also driving tractors and trucks around as well and child safety seats didn’t even exist.
 
12 years old when my uncle gave me a rifle and made my mom mad. My dad had to convince her, he already had a rifle. They both were military and took me shooting out in the desert and it was all downhill from there.
 
Anyone else start a little later in life?
Like a lot of other older(-ish) guys on THR I started shooting fairly young. But I would say the majority of people I have taken hunting or shooting for the first time were either later-teen friends of my son or guys in their 40s/50s from work. My son' said his average first-time customer is late 20s to early 30s (upper/middle class suburbs gun shop). The great thing for the OP is the resources available today for new shooters are a whole lot better than when I was starting out. Sure we have plenty of Fudd Lore and anecdotal non-sense, but at least the majority of guns today function well and are accurate. You have lots of material to read online (assume most of it is biased and go with the average consensus to find so truth). There are very good indoor pistol ranges and plenty of trap ranges near most big cities.
 
I'm sure like a lot of you here, I grew up in a rural area, so it was very different from how most kids live these days. I was shooting my BB gun at about 4 or 5 (couldn't even cock it by myself). The first "real" gun was a .22 rimfire, my Dad's Remington 121 pump (that I still have) very soon after that. My 4-year-older brother and I did all kinds of outdoor stuff together, so I started earlier than most would have. I started trading guns at the local trading post (by myself, no parent or brother involved) by the time I was 11 or 12. Would that work today??? ;)
 
I was very fortunate to have a father who like me loves guns. He would bring me and my siblings to the range as far back as I can remember. He would teach us gun safety and the proper way to handle guns. When we became of age to get a junior hunting license my father signed my brother and I to a hunter safety course. I still enjoy getting range time and think of my father when I am shooting. He doesn't shoot anymore due to multiple surgery's. I myself have brought friends into the fold of hunting. Any age is a good time to start.
This pretty much mirrors my intro to shooting and hunting.
My first memory of going hunting was my grandfather quail hunting when I was four.
 
My dad lived on a small tx lake which was considered "country". At age 7 he got me a Crossman Co2 rifle in 177 cal. He would regularly stop on the way home from work to pick up pellets and power cartridges. I was trained to insure my target was safe and enjoyed that rifle for several years. When girls became more interesting I went on to other things. Didn't pick up the sport till about 15 when dad and I would dove hunt together. I used his Remington 28 g. Semi. Went into the service at 19 with a short Vietnam tour and lost interest in Firearms after that.

Got back into shooting when a friend at work invited me to join him at a local indoor range. I was 46 at the time and was hooked again. Been shooting, competing and having fun ever since.
 
BB gun, probably 6 or so. Grew up on a farm so the only real guns were a really beat up .22 and a bolt .410.

Shot both of those by maybe 10 or so

Had a Remington.22-250 by the time I was 15 for groundhogs. I was a terror
 
This is sort of just me being curious. I'm 26, and I really just got into shooting this year. I'd always been kind of intimidated by guns before. I didn't have a problem with them exactly, I was perfectly fine with people owning them as long as they were good with them. But it was when I started getting interested in hunting and the hunting culture here in Wyoming.
Now I'm going on my first hunt this year, but I know a lot of people start pretty dang young! Before they can even drive sometimes.
Anyone else start a little later in life?
Depends on what you call starting shooting.
Fired my first shot at about 7 or 8, the day I got my first toy gun. Dad let me pop some caps at the police gun range with my new toy. Then gave me his.38 to demonstrate the difference. I've mentioned this on THR before.
Shot some .22's in Boy Scouts at summer camp.
What I'd call getting into shooting happened after I was 21 and bought my first handgun.
Glad you got into shooting, welcome to THR.
 
Early grade school but I can’t give an exact year.
Unaccompanied trips to the woods, squirrel hunting with dad’s first shotgun (which I still have, a Bridge Gun Company single barrel .410) started around 12 or 13.
 
One of my older brothers let me shoot a single shot 16ga in 1963, I was four years old so he helped me hold it. I did the same for my son when he was four only it was a 16ga Remington Wingmaster I bought the year he turned four.
I was already hooked on shooting and hunting because I saw my dad take some of my older brothers hunting for small game and later in the year for deer.
 
I had a Daisy BB gun before I started grammar school. Was shooting a .22 rifle with my (much older) teen cousins when I was 8 or 9, and got a Monkey Ward's branded 12-gauge shotgun for my 10th birthday that knocked my scrawny bod into the dirt. Of course, this was in the early '60s, and in the deep South...
 
Hi...
I think I might have been born with a gun in my hand.
I can remember shooting my father's .22 H&R revolver and bolt action rifle when I was about 5 years old.
I was helping hunt pheasants and rabbits without a gun (playing hunting dog) when I was about 8 years old. I was helping clean small game before that.
Shot my first 16ga shotgun at about 8... my idiot older brother(he was 16) told me to hold it about an inch from my shoulder and pull the trigger. Hurt like hell.

I bought my first gun at 15...a pump action .22 rifle that I still have, but haven't shot in decades.
I am currently 64 and have been into the shooting sports my whole life. Probably own 50-60 firearms...always looking for the next one.
 
I could have been the author of post 4. My grandfather had me shooting his Inland 30 carbine with help at age 4 in 1963. Within the next year a .22 with minimal supervision and I was off to the races. Things surely have changed---not for the better either. I will argue that my generation was the golden firearms generation in the USA.
 
My dad gave me a Remington 514 for my 7th birthday in 1961.

I started competitively shooting 50’ indoor match .22LR with a Junior Rifle Club in 1963 when I was 9.
 
Somewhere around 8 or 10 years old. I started with a BB gun and graduated to a 20 ga shortly thereafter. Then I got a .22 around age 12. That was around 40 years ago.
 
I shot my first rifle at age 5 while out riding mini motorcycles with the family. We met some folks while riding. One gentlemans name was david. He happened to be out target shooting and let me try it out.

I was hooked and worked to earn enough money to buy my first 22 rifle, a Springfield savage similar to a mod 60 Marlin, at age 12. I no longer have that rifle because I sold it to a young boy to shoot 50 ft indoor rifle competition with.

I've had as many as 30 guns but an injury depleted my collection. I was out of shooting for a few years and now am acquiring firearms again for both target shooting and hunting.

Welcome to the forum.
 
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