First shot - How old were you and what was it

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shot big brothers daisy eagle bb gun when to young to know the age.... maybe 4-5 got my first daisy cub at 7..... shot bolt 22 (brother again) when 8-9 just cant remember.... got first hunting license at 12 and started to seriously shot quail..... which is one of lifes great pleasures.....i think its a lucky thing to be taught to shoot and hunt at an early age....
 
When I was about 5, my Dad got a pump-action "gallery gun" like they used in the old carnival shooting galleries. It may have even been a smooth-bore barrel, which may have been the reason he didn't keep it very long.
A couple of years later, he taught me to shoot his M1 that he got when he was in the National Guard.
 
Other than BB guns, I shot my grandmother's .22lr rifle around age 11 down on the farm and a shotgun at the State Fair Turkey Shoot around age 14. Didn't shoot again until I took a beginner handgun class this year at age 55, where we shot Glock 19s. Got a lot of catching up to do!
 
I remember my first rifle shooting very well. My father signed me up for a course given for Marine kids on the Coronado Naval/Marine base. I would have been about 8 years old - 3rd grade. The rifle was a .22 bolt action single shot. I think it was a Stevens, IIRC. I can still hear the range officer's loud chant when we had to stop firing to check targets - "Cease fire, cease fire. Open bolts, unload!" If you didn't do that immediately, you were done for the day. I also remember Marines practicing at the handgun range maybe 20 yards away using their 1911 Government issue. I remember thinking to myself, I want to get one of those someday. Of course, I did. :)
 
jmr40 said:
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I was probably 9 or 10 when dad let me shoot my great grandfathers 20ga SXS. This was made in the late 1800's or early 1900's. He was born in the late 1850's died in 1952 well into his 90's. This was actually my primary hunting shotgun until I was 16 and could afford to buy a shotgun of my own. A few years later I figured out that it had Damascus barrels and was probably not safe to shoot. But it did account for a few squirrel, rabbit and quail when I was a kid.

I so want to let my kids and grandkids shoot it just once. But the risk just isn't worth the reward.
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Could load up some black powder loads and be safe.

5 in 1970, met 2 guys Dave and sedrick, while riding motorcycles, Dave was a shooter, let me shoot his bolt action 22lr in murphy's sand and gravel pit. Met him again about 30 years later at a cw reenactment, he was General Grant.

Took my grandson last year at age 6, he shot his, present from poppy, Marlin m60, my m11 savage 223, and my 5
56 Ar 15.
 
P-08 built out of random parts I was 4 (fired from rest) gun jammed about every couple of rounds. My brother and I fun with that thing for quite a while even in jam-0-matic it was super accurate. putting bullets in base of beer can taped to rail 10 yards or so down range. Hitting just the can was too easy.

woerm
(btw Mom and Dad were right there firing their Walther and Browning)
 
I was 7 and it was a 12 gauge pump shotgun. My two oldest brothers were there and one caught me and the other caught the gun (they said it was a magnum round). It never bothered me, but it is not how I recommend starting out the young shooter.
 
I was 7. Dad's Savage 24 with 410 shells. Dad was shooting blue rocks. He was not a good teacher. Handed me the gun and showed me how to load it. Point it at the target and shoot. I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

Years later dad told me of his first shots. Winchester 1901 lever action 10 gauge. He went out by himself with it at the age of 5. Completely self taught. Once he learned how to shoot, he rarely missed. For several years he hunted pheasant and duck with the single shot 410.
 
Likely 8 or 9. It was a 22 that belonged to my best friend dad or big brother and in the just cleared hay field with the rolls still smelling so sweet and the tree line ever so far away. Not sure whether it was the dad or brother that took us out that day, when you're ten everyone you have to look up at is an adult.

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I was lucky enough to see one for sale not too long ago and as soon as I saw it the whole day rushed back as crystal clear as if it were yesterday; the smells, how big and heavy the rifle was, how scary it was, how at the first shot all the birds stopped singing, how I decided that when I was big and grown up I'd have one just like it.
 
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Grade 10 - In the deserts of New Mexico with a lever action .22 shooting jack rabbits. My first rifle was a Winchester Model 94 in .32 WS for deer bought in 1970 (college kid). My current rifle is a Model 94 in .32 WS. Deer season in 5 days....
 
Age 3 in 1969. Sitting on Gramp's lap. Single shot, break-action 22 pistol. About a 10" barrel with a skeleton butt stock that slid into a groove in the backstrap of the grip. I don't know the make or model, but my uncle still has it. I should find out. Come to think of it, I think we have a faded Polaroid of me shooting it around here in my mothers things. One of dad's favorite moments; probably mom's most terrified. They divorced 10 years later. Who woulda guessed?:) Lemme see if I can find that picture.
 
Probably about 8, 12 ga single shot of some kind. In Maine at a Camp on Sabattus. It was a very memorable experience. I was pretty sure that shotguns were for the grown ups...

Jeff B.
 
The first one I remember I was 9 and it was my first deer, shot with a Remington 788 chambered in .243, but at that time I had already had .410 that I had been hunting with for a few. I also remember rabbit hunting with an old O. F. Mossberg 22lr, but I don’t remember killing anything with it.

But my first shot, I have not idea my memory doesn’t go back that far.
 
6 or years old, .410 single shot that my dad cut the stock down on to fit me. He had to cock it for me too as I couldn’t cock it myself.
 
A .22LR bolt action at Cub Scout camp. Anyone know if there is a standard model the Boy Scouts use?
 
5 years old, sitting on my dads knee with his Winchester 22 auto, barrel rested on top of grandpas dog house, shooting tin cans off the top of a stone fence next to the barn. I remember me and pop laughing with glee every time I hit a can.
seems like it was yesterday even though it happened 64 years ago. :thumbup:
 
I don't remember my first shot. It would have been before my memory kicked in. But it would have been a 22 and the target was probably a can or bottle. Most likely the gun was a Winchester Auto in 22 short.
 
Many years ago I was watching a movie on the black and white TV at my grandparents house. I pitched a fit and wanted to shoot "that gun" every time it was shown in the movie. My grandfather who was a gun guy just happened to own a M1 Carbine just like it. So soon enough he took me into the back yard and helped me hold it and how to pull the trigger. I was off to the races and shot the full 5 round MAG. Many of them. He thought I would be scared but it just fueled my firearms lust. This was related to me by him some years later that I had been 4 years old and as I liked his Underwood carbine so much he decided to give it it to me, to be official when I turned 10. In the mean time I Was given a single shot stevens .22 at Christmas when I was 7 and have literally shot a ton of .22 through it. Sigh, you never get over gun fever.:p
 
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