Old Dog
Member
Has THR (or any other internet gun forum) at all influenced or changed your firearms interests since you started participating in the internet gun world?
For me, when I started back in the day of the internet BBS (yeah, I'm that old) and eventually the discussion forums on the WWW, I was strictly into military and law enforcement firearms. I'd come up a 1911 guy, transitioned to the M9, and had little interest in revolvers, even though I'd been issued one for my first job as a rookie deputy in 1979. If it wasn't a 1911, Beretta or SIG, I wasn't interested.
As far as long guns, I'd experienced the Winchester 94 and the Marlin 39 (now 336) as a youth, growing into a Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 and briefly a Ruger 77 in .270. I disdained the M-16 I used in the military, but maintained a life-long affection for the M-14, which was the first rifle I ever qualified on.
Early in the 2000s, as I became more active on this forum and a couple others, I got turned on to old S&W revolvers. Then the K-frame fans became enablers. Boy, did that open a can of worms.
Being issued an M-4 on my very last military deployment, I started to warm to the AR-15 platform. Then the AR-15 fanatics got me thinking... and I got more involved in building, buying and shooting these critters.
Then I hooked up with some civilian shooting buddies with esoteric tastes in rifles and really, really good optics -- boy, did that impact the savings (and get the wife concerned). I was back in the bolt-action game, even while I slowed down in the hunting arena. Also, I became a die-hard proponent of only buy quality glass.
Then came the lever-action love: this forum is an enabler for that, for sure. Suddenly, I had to have a lever-gun in every caliber.
As an adult, I'd poo-pooed the lowly .22 -- that's what kids shoot. But then I was exposed to folks all over the world posting pics and stories about their favorite .22s, both long guns and handguns (my first real gun experience was shooting my dad's Stevens single-shot and the first real gun of my own was an Ithaca-made Montgomery Wards Model 94 imitation in .22 LR). Now, I got back into the .22 world, just in time to work with my daughters, who were now old enough to shoot.
So does anyone else admit that this whole internet thing actually changed or influenced what they liked or got into as far as their gun interests go? Any other stories?
For me, when I started back in the day of the internet BBS (yeah, I'm that old) and eventually the discussion forums on the WWW, I was strictly into military and law enforcement firearms. I'd come up a 1911 guy, transitioned to the M9, and had little interest in revolvers, even though I'd been issued one for my first job as a rookie deputy in 1979. If it wasn't a 1911, Beretta or SIG, I wasn't interested.
As far as long guns, I'd experienced the Winchester 94 and the Marlin 39 (now 336) as a youth, growing into a Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 and briefly a Ruger 77 in .270. I disdained the M-16 I used in the military, but maintained a life-long affection for the M-14, which was the first rifle I ever qualified on.
Early in the 2000s, as I became more active on this forum and a couple others, I got turned on to old S&W revolvers. Then the K-frame fans became enablers. Boy, did that open a can of worms.
Being issued an M-4 on my very last military deployment, I started to warm to the AR-15 platform. Then the AR-15 fanatics got me thinking... and I got more involved in building, buying and shooting these critters.
Then I hooked up with some civilian shooting buddies with esoteric tastes in rifles and really, really good optics -- boy, did that impact the savings (and get the wife concerned). I was back in the bolt-action game, even while I slowed down in the hunting arena. Also, I became a die-hard proponent of only buy quality glass.
Then came the lever-action love: this forum is an enabler for that, for sure. Suddenly, I had to have a lever-gun in every caliber.
As an adult, I'd poo-pooed the lowly .22 -- that's what kids shoot. But then I was exposed to folks all over the world posting pics and stories about their favorite .22s, both long guns and handguns (my first real gun experience was shooting my dad's Stevens single-shot and the first real gun of my own was an Ithaca-made Montgomery Wards Model 94 imitation in .22 LR). Now, I got back into the .22 world, just in time to work with my daughters, who were now old enough to shoot.
So does anyone else admit that this whole internet thing actually changed or influenced what they liked or got into as far as their gun interests go? Any other stories?