What was your first centerfire handgun?

Kimber 45 ACP was my first center fire handgun. At the same time, I also began reloading. It’s been a great ride!

P226 in 9mm. Used. Still have it, its been flawless for 25 years.

S&W Mdl. 10 service gun, .38Spl, in 1969.

1988, I think. My FiL felt that I should have a centerfire handgun. My coworker's brother was getting divorced and needed money.

I got his nearly new Taurus Model 66 4" blued for $200 cash. (A medium-framed 357 with adjustable sights.)

It had an excellent trigger. I would still have it if it hadn't been stolen in a burglary in 2001.

Funny, that's the third Taurus Model 66 mentioned in the thread. And my first centerfire rifle was also an SKS, as others have mentioned. (I still have the SKS.)

I had just turned 21 and applied for a pistol purchasing permit while living in NJ. 6 months later I got the permit and purchased a Ruger Blackhawk convertible in .357 magnum/ 9mm.

Ruger P89

4" model 19, bought for $180 used in 1986 at the age of 19. Still have it.

A Beretta 92. I bought it because I liked the way it looked.

I had grown up around guns as a kid but we didn’t do much shooting through my teen years so I didn’t end up getting my first handguns until I was almost 30. I was gifted a 6.5” Blackhawk in 41 mag and a 4” xd9. Both great guns I would never part with. The Blackhawk set me off though, now I’m a revolver junky.

My first handgun was a Star chambered for 9mm Largo I bought at a gun show in the early 90's. I wound up trading it off for a Mossberg 20 gauge in the mid-90's. Neat little pistol.

Still have it.

Too many intervening years but I think my first centerfire handgun was a Webley Mk.IV complete with it's "Wartime Finish". Got it at a big outdoor flea market, a couple of counties over from where we use to live.

Joshua M. Smith said:

Stallard Arms JS-9.

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I traded my Super Single Six for it, knowing nothing about gun values at the time. This stands as the single absolute worse deal I ever made. The second worse was trading a pinned and recessed 4" S&W 19-3 for a Rossi .38 snubby, because I needed something more compact.

I'm thankful I've since become educated, but those two guns are the ones I want back the most.

Josh

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Gave me a chuckle, but I’m not judging. We were all young and dumb (ignorant) at one time and had to learn somehow; some harder than others.

Springfield XD9sc. It’s gone now.

Mine was a ruger NM Blackhawk 357 magnum. I was about 19. I did a stupid and swapped it for a mossberg 20 gauge pump with a rattle can camp finish. I've learned to trade better since then.

S&W model 15. It's not going anywhere.

Ruger P89. Decently accurate, reliable as a brick. Still have it, don't plan to part with it.

A Taurus .357 Magnum, at the age of 15. My father, who accompanied me to the shop, thought I was nuts, but I had fallen under Skeeter's spell.

I actually wore the gun out twice, partly through lots of use, but mostly through teenaged handloading. On its final trip back from the factory it was accompanied by a note which read, essentially, "We don't know what you've been doing to this thing, but it's not our problem anymore. Lose our number."

It eventually was stolen, and I kind of hope that it finally blew up in the hands of some scumbag.

A 6” blued Colt Trooper III came to me in about 1983 and is still with me. Shoots like a dream, and that action is smooth as silk.

Spats

Mine was a mid-1980s Colt Peacekeeper, like the one shown here.

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My first .357 was a Colt Trooper Mk.III from the late '70s. Much like your Peacemaker, it most definitely was one "built like a tank" revolver!

Ruger Redhawk .44 mag. I bought it in the middle 80's with some help from my dad. I still have it and now my son shoots it.

borrowedtime69 said:

What were your first centerfire?

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FIE (Excam?) .38 Derringer. Found it stashed in the washing machine in a place we moved into. Awful piece of hardware. Now long gone.

First one I bought for myself was a Taurus Model 66. It took me years to save up the $200 to buy it, back in the '80s. OK gun for a decade or so, but developed a problem that wouldn't stay fixed. Also long gone.

1973, Taurus copy of 4"-S&W Model 10, 38 Special. Had a DA trigger that felt like I was dragging a 300 lb. refrigerator over a gravel road. I think a little gunsmithing would have made a great improvement but I sold it pretty quickly.

A Sig 229 that was a police trade in. It came in 40S&W and had a 357 Sig barrel with it. I immediately bought a Barsto 9mm drop in conversion barrel for it and had a true 3 caliber handgun. The 40/357 mags that came with it also reliably feed 9mm. Thousands of rounds later with all three calibers and not one hiccup yet. Love that gun.