First Handgun, What was yours? Mine was...

[Chuhhuniban]

A S&W .38 Special revolver of a long-forgotten model. Handed to me by my father as I prepared to take a train 1,200 miles to my grandparents' house to pick up a '54 Chevy that my grandfather was giving me for my sixteenth birthday (which had been two days before — it took two days to get the drivers license I had to have to drive the car back home). It took three days to drive home (alone). At the first night's stop, the man who trained me to handle firearms safely (ex-cavalry officer) saw the pistol in the car, inspected it, and made me clean it. He told me to tell my father that the pistol was dirty — I wasn't that dumb, even at sixteen. When I got home, I took the pistol to my father, but he just told me to keep it. Sadly, I traded it for a reissue Colt Single Action Army the following year (when Colt began making them again in the 1950s).

 

[schmidtundveßon]

Mine was S&W 5904, and I still have it.

 

[FLORIDA KEVIN]

My first was a Ruger Stainless Speed Six ! .357 mag

 

[SoonerSP101]

First was a gen. 1 Glock 19

 

[YZR]

Springfield Armory XD9SC and I still love it.

 

[BobMcG]

A 6" barrel .357mag S&W model 28 Highway Patrol back in '79.

 

[Ed Ames]

First handgun? A crossman CO2-powered revolver when I was about 7. I'd go into the backyard with a box of pellets (BBs were verboten in the house) and shoot at about 25 feet, usually at targets like pennies. or the raised pullers on soda cans (not the can itself). It's also the only gun I've ever "hunted" with... shooting rats we scared out of a wood pile. It killed them quite dead.

First cartridge handgun? That's a harder question. My parents had guns but they weren't really mine even when I had unrestricted access to them. I'd say the first that was inarguably mine was probably my .455 Webley MkII (antique). I bought it as a sort of silent protest to California's dumb laws... they make people jump through hoops and wait and suffer to get a .22 but I can place a phone call and have a webley shipped to me UPS ground.


I think the stories in this thread are great though... it's interesting to see the spectrum from people who went out as adults to buy their first handgun all the way to people who had guns almost literally from the cradle. It pays to remember that spectrum too. The range of backgrounds surely affects what we each consider normal or reasonable.

 

[Library Guy]

The first handgun I ever fired was my father's Ruger Single Six- old style- no transfer bar.

My first handgun was a Ruger MkII my dad gave me sometime around my 16th birthday.

The first handgun I purchased was a Walther P5. Lord knows why...

 

[woad_yurt]

35 or so years ago, my first was a .41 Deringer black powder repro I mail ordered when I was 12 or 13. I still have it and it still works. Now, it looks like a dug-up original, it's so used.

 

[stownsend]

My first was a Beretta model 96 I bought in college. Still have it and love shooting it. Shortly after that I bought a Browning Buckmark as it was a lot cheaper to shoot.

 

[Lupinus]

My truely first handguns came to me at the same time, an OLD S&W .30 special revolver, I believe the madle was refered to as an MP style one but I might be slightly off.

The other was a modle 1934 Mauser pocket pistol in 7.65 browning (.32 ACP).

Both weren't really shooters. The revolver was a bit more of a piece to look at and the mauser was a bad jammer.

My "first" handgun was a Sig 239 .40 S&W and is the only one of the three I still have.

 

[GSPKurt]

My first was a Colt Combat Commander (Series 70) in brushed nickel. I paid $250 for it. God, I miss that gun.

 

[Intrepid Dad]

My first gun was a S&W 629 .44 Mountain gun. Nothing like starting off small.

 

[Hunter0924]

The first pistol I owned was a Colt Combat Elite chambered in .45 Automatic and I still have her.

 

[Koblenz]

S&W Model 15 .38 Special. It was considered one of the top police/home defense guns back when revolvers were more popular than automatics.

 

[m1009]

My first handgun....hmmm

Well, I'm embarrassed to admit it, but what the hey......wanted the "James Bond" Walther PPKS in 380 cause it looked cool.....(I was young, what can I say!) Quickly learned that, while accurate, it beat the hell out of the tang of my hand. Blowback, you know, and my small hands didn't help. Quickly graduated to a 45 acp Colt, and loved it. No problems shooting it. Pretty much stuck with the 45, started with Officer's, full size for competition, and Commander size for carry. Got tired of always messing with the Colts parts and tweaking them, switched to Sig Sauers. VERY accurate, and no tweaking!
Of course, now I carry a Sig GSR, so I'm back to the 1911 style, lol! My favorite.....

 

[okienate]

My first piece was given to me from my father upon successfully completing a degree in Engineering. After the ceremony, my father walked up to me, shook my right hand and placed a NIB Beretta 92FS into my left hand.

He looked me right in the eye and said, "Here, you'll need this......"

Still have that pistol today and it shoots like a champ. It wasn't the sexiest, trendiest, or even best pistol on the market. The one thing it was (reliable and effective), and the message from my father stick with me to this day (if you're gonna be on your own, you're going to need some tools).

Glad I never let go of the pistol or the simple message.

 

[BlindJustice]

I'd say this is most surprizing in that it's a thread I started
but didn't expect to be commenting in the page #5 of it. As
Ed Ames noted it's interesting to hear of the different generations
and economic as well as personal preferences that influenced
what this membership has in terms of experience with a first
Handgun. Hey didn't Ed Ames play the Indian sidekick to Davey
Crockett in the old 50s series ? Guess they just had flintlockes

Humerous aside

Oh wait the classic Ed Ames on Johnny Carson Ed Ames had played
the indian and his sidearm was a tomahawk so when Ed was a guest
on The Tonight SHow Johnny had him throw the old
tomahawk at a man sized full silouhette - Ed threw the
tomahawk and planted the hammer blade right in the
crotch of the target - Johnny looked at it as the
handle was pointing up as ahem a man's personal might
be called at the ready if yah know what I mean Johnny
had the killer punch line... Gee I didnn't know he was
jewish...

Back to first Guns

 

[SergeantC]

My first handgun was a Glock 22 I bought four years ago, when I was 39. I still have it, and I plan to keep it.

 

[jad0110]

Springfield XD 9 Service. No longer own it.

Great gun, not great for me. I never did fit me quite right, and I never could get used to the trigger pull, not to mention the trigger safety that always dug into my finger. Plus, while firing it I could feel the polymer frame flexing in an odd sort of way that I found to be distracting. Consequently, I never could shoot it consistently well.

I see why people like them; just not my cup of tea.

 

[SageMonkey]

CZ70 in 32acp. Nice little gun, though it would ftf after a couple boxes of WWB. Always run properly if it was clean though.

 

[makarovnik]

Makarov. About 11 years ago. I still have it.

 

[gcrookston]

My first handgun was a mixed up, reblued Luger I bought, having always wanted one. My 2nd was a very nice S/42 1938 Luger (I'd read a little and talked to some people that got me in the right direction). I spent the next 10 years collecting and shooting guns much older than me. The first pistol I purchased that was actually "new" was in Christmas time 1989, a Sig 226.

 

[Fishman777]

Beretta 92fs not sexy??

Wow!!

I think that the Beretta 92FS is about as sexy of a pistol as I've ever seen. Definitely in my top five pistols of all time.

 

[enfield]

A Colt Peacemaker in .22LR/.22 Magnum. Still have it.