When did you start shooting?

jar said:

While Ike was President.

Click to expand...

Ike was President when I started shooting, I was so small that my dad had to help me by holding up the gun barrel while I aimed and squeezed the trigger. I must of been about 4 or 5 years old.

Mango88 said:

Ike was President when I started shooting, I was so small that my dad had to help me by holding up the gun barrel while I aimed and squeezed the trigger. I must of been about 4 or 5 years old.

Click to expand...

I was considerably older I fear. Of course there had been cap pistols and BB guns before then but for cartridge firearms it was during Ikes second term.

jar said:

Man, that was almost twice your height. At 1 year old how did you ever handle that thing?

Click to expand...

I left a 1 out of that number. I was 11 when I got to know may dad.
My dad always had guns, but was never really into them. He saw them as tools. I went to live with him when I was 16 and went shooting every chance I got. My dad had no problem with me shooting any of his guns.

Not quite sure, must have been 4 or 5, remember it like it was yesterday. We were on grandpa's farm in the Upper Peninsula, my pop had a Winchester .22 semi auto and I was sitting on his knee with the rifle resting on top of the dog house. There was a rock wall and they setup a bunch of tin cans on top. I remember pulling the trigger and laughing with glee when a can got hit. Been shooting ever since.
Hunting and fishing is a part of life up there and I learned at a very young age that you never harvest anything you don't plan to eat or make use of. Even when grandpa would shoot an occasional egg stealing skunk he would boil off the stink, skin it and sell the pelt to the Mepps tackle company. Nothing ever went to waste. Killing something for no purpose is a sin. A lesson that seems to have been forgotten nowadays.

PegTheLeg said:

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?

Click to expand...

I started later in life as well. Was always interested in getting into shooting, but it wasn't something my family was into growing up so the opportunity wasn't really there (no complaints - had a wonderful childhood and was exposed to many other activities that I still enjoy). I got married straight out of college and my wife isn't anti-gun, but was very against having guns in the house with kids around (more a lack of experience/knowledge of them than anything else I think). Took me 10 years or so to wear her down, and I was busy with kids and other hobbies for those years anyway. I finally started off skeet shooting at a local club in my early 30's, and it took off from there. That "massive" "14-gun" safe isn't looking so massive anymore as it starts to fill up... Who rates these things anyway???

Anyway, it's contagious... I just turned 39, and took my 2 oldest kids out to the range with .22's for their first time this summer. They both had a blast. My brothers both enjoy shooting with me when we can manage to get together too (one lives on the opposite coast, but a trip to the range is always on his "to-do" list when he comes to visit). I have to catch her in the right mood, but even my wife loves shooting the .22's when I can convince her to come. My father can't shoot anymore due to a pacemaker "installation" a few years ago, but I did bring him skeet shooting once or twice before that, and he still enjoys coming along when my brothers and I go - he brings the binoculars and calls our shots for us when shooting paper My FIL also thoroughly enjoys shooting. He sticks mainly to handguns due to a broken collarbone years ago from a motorcycle accident. That makes it difficult for us to shoot together (we live in NY and NJ, and the various crazy laws make it difficult to say the least given that we're residents of different crazy states). But we enjoy talking shop and fondling each other's new acquisitions at least.

Never been hunting (seriously at least... my cousin and I used to stalk the woods with sling shots as kids, but of course we were so loud we never even came across anything to shoot at), but I'd love to do a pheasant hunt one of these years... Maybe turkey some day. I can't justify deer hunting, as I don't think I've got enough family members that will actually consume venison in large enough quantities... Couldn't bear to see it go to waste.

Spring 1956, at age 9, in Boy Scouts. That Summer Dad bought a Remington 531P (which I still have), and squirrels and rabbits became a staple at meals. The next year he started me on his .410 (which he bought at age 13 in 1929). Pheasant had alawys been on the table, thanks to him, but I shot some over the years. In 1962 I went down to Sears, and ordered a 12ga pump (Ted Williams model with Poly-choke) and still have it.

My grandad had a Crossman .22 air rifle that was too heavy for me to shoot unsupported, but from that first shot, age about 7 or 8 I was hooked! UK gun laws and family took me away from shooting for a while but really got into things when I inherited some rifles from my father in law about 10 years ago and haven't looked back since!

patmccoy said:

Spring 1956, at age 9, in Boy Scouts. That Summer Dad bought a Remington 531P (which I still have), and squirrels and rabbits became a staple at meals. The next year he started me on his .410 (which he bought at age 13 in 1929). Pheasant had alawys been on the table, thanks to him, but I shot some over the years. In 1962 I went down to Sears, and ordered a 12ga pump (Ted Williams model with Poly-choke) and still have it.

Click to expand...

Is the 531P the one with the peep sight and tube magazine?

Mango88 said:

Ike was President when I started shooting, I was so small that my dad had to help me by holding up the gun barrel while I aimed and squeezed the trigger. I must of been about 4 or 5 years old.

Click to expand...

I was born the day that Ike was re-elected. Mother was annoyed - she was a fervent Democrat and didn't get to vote against him.
A little over five years later our family moved into an almost complete ranch-style house outside Murphy, Oregon. The previous resident obviously left in a hurry and owned a number of guns.
There was a pile of furniture on the curb in front of the house. The couch contained a loaded .25 Baby Browning clone of some sort. I tucked that away and never got to fire it. A chest of drawers yielded a hard-rubber 1911 with Navy markings. Of course I couldn't shoot that.
Finally, while investigating the interior of the house, I found a loaded .22 bolt-action rifle between the studs of an unfinished closet. THAT I got to shoot until I emptied the magazine.
Shortly thereafter my little sister was born, I turned six and Dad and I hitch-hiked to Los Angeles. All of my guns (and almost everything else that I owned) disappeared just before the move.
It was over a year before I shot another gun.

Is the 531P the one with the peep sight and tube magazine?

Click to expand...

Yes, and a slightly heavier barrel. It was supposed to be an intro to target rifles. Mine had (and has) a Weaver 333 scope (1 /3/4 power?) as well as the peeps. Still shoots very well.

When I was 13. My best friend lived and worked on his family's dairy farm and his dad bought him a Remington 1100 and a reloading set up. They rented a couple acres to the local trap club and we'd pick up all the clay pigeons that were still good. We'd shoot a couple boxes of shells, then reload them for the next day. My folks didn't even want me shooting a BB gun, if they'd only known.

13--dad was in WW1 & 2--he did not like guns, I typed a letter & took a streetcar 9 miles & purchased a Savage # 22410----He found it after 6 months & let me keep it.
I started my kid at 7 years old.

I started shooting earlier this year. I am 39. Part of the reason is that my parents are really Anti-gun. I've wanted a gun for the last 6 years, since a mugging incident but only got about doing it now. Waiting for my Gun licence before I can take possession of my gun. My son shot his first shots with a .22 earlier this year. He is 11.

PegTheLeg said:

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?

Click to expand...

I grew up in rural MT and have always been fascinated with firearms. In my family, rifles were stored loaded in little tepees leaning in the corners. It seemed like every corner of my grandpa's house had at least two or three rifles stacked in it. If I wanted to handle one, all I had to do was ask. My obvious interest in them finally compelled my mom to allow my grandpa to teach me to shoot when I was four. He took me out to the makeshift range he had on his property. I will always remember the feeling of the dew soaking through my sneakers as I followed him out, beaming with excitement. He placed one of my grandma's empty Diet Pepsi cans on the ground, then walked back about 20 or 30 feet and took a knee. I could barely contain myself and was focused intently on the rifle, so he set it on the ground and pulled me into him. "Now son," he said in a stern voice that commanded respect,"never forget you can never take a bullet back." When he was sure I had heard him and it had sunk in, he picked the old Win M63, the same rifle he had taught my dad and his brothers to shoot with, off the ground and explained the sights to me. He had me hold the rifle and had to help. But when he felt I had the gist of it, he loaded a single round at first, through the tubular magazine in the buttstock, charged it, and placed it in my shoulder. He had to help me hold it so I could aim, so he had his face right down next to mine so he could aim with me over my shoulder. My mom was nervous and couldn't watch as I squeezed the trigger. I was hooked. Life-long passion from the first shot. He loaded a few rounds in and let me shoot them, then loaded the rest of the box into the magazine and let me go to town. I kept the bullet riddled can for years. My mom threw it away on accident cleaning my room when I was about ten. But I never forgot my passion, the feeling of his face against mine and his arms around me, or the words he said to me. Dementia claimed him a couple years ago, and I miss him. Big influence in my life and a good man. Korean War vet, father, husband, grandpa, and shooting instructor. It helps when I miss him most to think of my earliest and fondest memories of him, back when he was strong, larger than life, and knew who I was.

At age 9 at my grandfathers farm in Sussex, New Jersey and my uncle's farm in Middletown, New York. . .
A Wincester .22LR was the first rifle. Groundhogs and other pests were my game.

It was a long time ago in the 1950's.

I started shooting at 8 or so, was given my first BB gun at 10 and my first firearm (An Ithaca 66 single shot lever .410) also at 10.

I gave my son his first .22 (Henry youth lever gun) at 12.

Stay safe.

I was 8 when I asked Grandpa to teach me to shoot. He put my back to a tree and put both barrels to the back trigger of that 10g SXS shotgun. Left a bruise the size of a football. That night when it was bath time Grandma told me to take a bath and I couldn't get my shirt off. She yanked it off and said "good lord did a horse kick you?" I told her no, I asked grandpa to teach me to shoot. She chased him out of the house with a frying pan. The next time I visited she let me try a brand new Henry .22 that was hidden under her bed and she gave me a whole brick of shells, just to make grandpa mad.

First shot was taken in 1955 from a 12 gauge. Age 7

About 1966-68

I started hunting as a kid in grade school, probably around eight or nine years old. Almost exclusively used a shotgun, didn't even have a .22 of my own until I was an adult.

Then I joined the military and learned to use a rifle and a handgun.

Now shotgun is my weak point, I hunt small game with a ,22 rifle and deer with a slug gun, shotgun is reserved for birds only.

Hunting, target shooting and CCW are regular activities for me and now my son is becoming interested in learning to shoot well, instead of just plinking.

Shooting didn't become a hobby for me until my early 30s.

My dad wasn't an outdoorsman and there were no guns in the household. No objection to firearms, just not an interest. I remember shooting a friend's bolt action .22 when visiting his parents' farm in PA when I was eleven or so, but that was it.

Fast forward to college years. I shot small bore rifle competitively. It was fun, but I still didn't own any firearms and on graduation life took over.

In my late 20s, my wife bought me my first firearm: a Mossberg 500 combo. Her dad was an outdoorsman--hunting, fishing, hiking, boating, camping ... He got me hunting, and that got me shooting. We hunted together for many years. He died three years ago, and I miss him; I am in his debt in many ways.

I always loved toy guns, and couldn't possibly count how many of those I had when I was a kid. My BIL, a Marine, took me shooting real guns when I was 9, and ensured my love for real guns then. At 12, my parents got me my own .22, a Stevens Model 34 bolt, for my birthday. At that time I joined a shooting club, that took place in an underground range at our High School. At 13, I bought myself my first BB gun, a Crosman M1 Carbine, as it was back-yard friendly, where the .22 most certainly wasn't. At 14, I got my first pellet gun, a Sheridan Blue Streak 5mm. Still have all of those-still use the Sheridan quite a bit. At 15, I shot my first pistol, a Ruger RST-4, again with my BIL, this time up north in the UP, where we could walk the National Forest seeking targets of opportunity, he with his RST-4, me with a Marlin 60. Turned into a frog hunt. I never told my wife, whom I would meet a year later, about that ever, as she would have been greatly disappointed in me, with her love of frogs. I must admit, it wasn't anything I'm proud of today, other than our accuracy. We both missed only once. Poor frogs. The next few years were pretty much devoid of all things firearms, until 1979 when I got my first pistol, a Ruger RST-6, and then range time started re-appearing. It was my only handgun until 1984, when I visited the opposite end of the spectrum and bought a Ruger Redhawk in .44 magnum. Soon after that I discovered the 1911 and IPSC, and that, along with shooting on Wednesdays after work, at one of our state ranges, would rule my free hours for the next decade. I also had bought a Dillon SDB, and was reloading my own .45ACP and 10mm, for my beloved 1911s. It was in 1994 when I changed careers, and long hours and college would again erase shooting from my life for several years. After graduation, the long work hours were still there, and it became spotty until I retired 11 years ago, with only shall issue appearing, and new CC guns and practice in-between. I've bought several new guns since retirement, and am interested in getting myself a new reloading press this Christmas, likely another Dillon.

My father bought my first 22 rifle at age 7. That was 1963.