First shot - How old were you and what was it

Some type of 22 rifle when I was 5 or 6 at some empty cans.

 

About 12yrs old. Ruger single-six .22

 

Age 5 at a jackrabbit---I shot its ear off---.22 Savage bolt action single shot-----I still have it even though it hasn't been shot in over 30 years

I can still see the shot in my mind's eye

 

Probably the family .410 single-shot at 9. Shot .22 at Webelo's Camp at 10 and the Scoutmaster's 629 on a Teton backpacking trip at 11 (I bet he probably had specials or mid-range loads in it for us to shoot).

 

About 14 years, it was a Savage O/U (.22WM / .410).

I decided I wanted to catch a bullet. I knew that labs caught bullets in water, so I constructed a water barrel of joined 5# coffee cans. It was 3' long, filled with scummy pond water, with a plastic lid duct-taped on each end, resting on a log in the gravel pit. With my dad watching, I stand about 10' back, line up on the length of the water barrel, and send .22 40gr bullet straight into the barrel.

The first thing I hear post-BANG is my dad laughing his head off. I am soaked in several gallons of pond water, the barrel's nearly empty, having evacuated so fast the top can collapsed inward as the water headed towards me, and what water's left is leaking out the bullet hole in the bottom of the barrel.

We never found my bullet.

 

About 4 or 5 with my fathers single shot 22 bolt rifle. I was so small I rested the stock on my shoulder bazooka style. First handgun I was about 12-13 and it was a Colt SAA in 45. It was memorable. This was in the 50s so hearing protection? WHAT'S THAT?

 

It was the early 90's and I was in my early 20's. I went to a CMP associated club and first shot a 22lr trainer bolt action rifle. I can't remember exactly which model it was though.

Later I shot an M1 Carbine And a Garand

 

Hmm, I don’t remember mine. Would have been a .22 lr or pellet gun though.

This was my Daughter’s 1st shot, just under 2.5 years old back then. Quickly became bored and went back to playing in dirt. From my first gun, Benjamin .22.

 

Bolt-action .22.
I was four, totally unsupervised. firing a rifle that I had found in the unfinished tract house that we had just moved in to.
I emptied the magazine into a tree in the woods behind the house, then removed the bolt and carried it with me for a couple of weeks, reasoning that Dad couldn't sell the gun without a bolt.
That worked for a little while... .

 

Goshen Scout Reservation, probably at age 12; I spent all of my money buying 22LR ammo and shooting prone 25yd targets. I wouldn't fire another gun until my rich uncle gave me a fancy green outfit and let me play with an M16A1 for a bit.

 

Age 6, .22 rifle (probably a Marlin model 80) in my grandma and grandpa's back yard.
They've both passed on long ago, but the property is still in the family and is almost exclusively used for shooting nowadays, minus the occasional cookout.
I sure miss the water from that old well they had too.

 

Bolt action. 22 at Boy Scout camp

 

Unknown brand single shot .410 when I was 8. I was with a friend and his dad at the deer camp and we turned some coke cans inside out the last day we were there.

The next time was several years later at Boy scout summer camp. It was an ANCIENT Remington bolt action .22 that was stupid accurate as long as the trigger puller did his job right.

 

Age 5 in my parents back yard, gun was a Winchester model 67. It is sitting in my cabinet right now.

 

JC Higgins Model 103.181 single-shot Bolt .22rf (it is in the north gunsafe downstairs) with a kid-size LOP that Dad bought on the late '50s. I was probably 7 or 8 when we visited this farm where Mom grew up and he gave me my first firearms shooting lessons.

 

About 12 (too long ago for any memory to hold up that long). It was a 12 gauge shotgun. It took about 15 minutes to get the stones to pull the trigger. I pulverized a ceramic dinner plate and wanted more from that point on. The opportunity didn't arise until years later and now I have a decent supply of em' all. Nothing like some of you, but enough not to be completely embarrassed.

The avatar is from one of my air gun collection at 30 yards splattering bugs. I let the one at the arrow live to go back and tell his buddies not to trespass my target.

 

My first shot was from an old single action six shooter that my grandpa had. I was seven, snuck it out to the woods while my grandparents were watching tv. After the third shot, my grandpa came running through the woods and snatched it away from me. Man, he really whipped me that day, lol. That gun is on my mantle right now.

 

I was 12 or 13. We had recently moved into a farm with a barn infested with pigeons. My pellet gun would punch holes through the roof if I shot them in their, and after they were scared out they'd perch on top of the silo where my Crossman couldn't accurately reach. So Dad got out his Marlin 39 Mountie and taught me how to shoot it.

I still didn't kill many, if any pigeons with the .22. I don't think his scope was correctly sighted in or I just wasn't a good enough shot at that distance. However I soon discovered that my old Red Ryder wouldn't put holes in the metal barn roof, but if I hit them in the wing it'd injure the pigeons enough that they couldn't fly so they'd fall to the ground where I dispatched them. Dad paid $2/head, and I bet I made $80 that first year and probably $40-60 for the next few years until I got their population under control. One day over at my neighbor's farm (who paid $3/head) I dropped 18 in about 10 minutes.

 

I was 7.
It was a single shot .410

 

I was about 7 years old- bolt action 22 on the Boardwalk in Wildwood NJ

 

Mom had a picture of me dragging around a BB gun (that Dad had taken the tube out of so it wouldn't really shoot BBs) when I was no more than 4 years old. But the first time I fired a "real" gun was when Dad let me shoot his .22 semi-auto while we were on a fishing trip with my aunt and uncle when I was 6 or 7.
Mom and Dad gave me a .22 rifle (a Model 55 Winchester) of my own for my 10th birthday in 1958. I still have it.

 

I shot my big sister with my home made rubber band pistol when I was 7 or 8. Got my ass wore out by dad for daring to "hit" one of my sisters.

Seriously though, the first time I fired a real gun (22 bolt action) was when I was 10 or 11 at boy scout camp (Camp Steere, NC) at paper targets.

 

Dad's Stevens single-shot .22 (manufactured back in 1918 or so), out in the woods of NW lower Michigan (when there still were woods left) while on a fishing trip -- age 5, with Dad helping me hold it up.

 

Probably 8 or 9, Charter Arms AR7. Spent more time clearing jams than actually shooting....

First handgun, I was maybe 12. There was a fella at the range where we were plinking asked if I wanted to try his M629 .44 Hunter. That was exciting.