Formative experiences with firearms

[trekker73]

when I was 6 my uncles taught me to shoot my grandfathers old single shot 22LR. I cant even recall the model. They also allowed me one shot of a 30-30 and one load of birdshot from a remington pump 12ga. They were supporting the barrels on the last ones. We were shooting at an old paint can and when I saw all the little holes in it from the birdshot I asked them if the shotgun was a 'machine gun'. My parents divorced early on and we had no guns in my mothers house. First gun I bought myself was a Franchi Spas-12 at age 19 or so.

 

[Dirtybob]

First (not a bb) gun I ever used was an old JC Higgins bolt action 12 gauge (pheasant hunting). Brutal recoil for a 100# 12 year old skinny kid. That one got sent in (bolt) for the recall and was replaced with a single shot H&R model 088 (kept that one until a couple of years ago).
Became familiar with ARs (among others) in the army (mine still had 'MATTEL' on the grips).
Didn't purchase a handgun until around 2020. Shot a few snub nose revolvers as a teen and was thoroughly unimpressed (still not a huge fan of handguns). Was way more interested in drag racing (doing, not watching) than guns until fairly recently but guns are much more affordable and don't seem to require as much maintenance.

 

[Howland937]

As early as I can remember, gun safety was pounded into my head. My family hunted out of necessity, so there were always guns in our house, grandma and pappaw's and about any aunt's /uncle's I visited. Sure, we spent a lot of time shooting at each other with toy guns (or sticks, even)...but even before, when I was about 6 years old and got my first Daisy BB gun that wouldn't shoot through an empty soup can. No matter. I learned it was "a real gun and will be treated like one or you'll never see it again".

Moved up to a Crosman 760 when I was 9 or 10. It would shoot completely through a Campbell's can when pumped up to 8 or so. I remember dad telling me that it'll kill a bird pretty easily. And if I ever shot one, make sure it was one that tastes good cause I'd be the one eating it. I learned not so shoot anything I didn't intend to eat.

For my 12th birthday, I received an old Savage 24 .22/.410. Killed my first few squirrels, rabbits, quail, and pheasants with it. Whichever barrel I was using, it's still a single shot. I learned to make my shots count.

First gun I ever bought with my own money was an 1100 LT20 when I was 16 ($375). Killed more game with it than I could ever add up. I learned that bigger isn't always better and I could do everything I needed with that 20ga.

I gave my kid a Daisy Red Ryder when he was 6, and went through all the safety I could pass on to him so he'd hopefully begin his process of learning the same as I did. I don't hunt much anymore, but I will try to introduce him to it if he chooses.

Owned a bunch of guns between then and now. Some really nice, some crappy. Some I regret selling and some I only regret buying to begin with. I've had and still have rifles and handguns that shoot more accurately than I am capable (allowing other people to shoot them proved it). My favorite guns to shoot nowadays are an old Winchester 52B with peep sights and a kinda beat up MKII Ruger. I've learned (again) how much fun shooting .22's is, and I don't need a fancy range, huge backstop, rangefinders, high dollar scopes etc to really enjoy it.

 

[David Hoback]

Got a Daisy for my fifth Christmas. Dad and PaPa (Mom’s Dad) taught me to shoot it.Dad was still smoking and smoked Lucky strikes so that big red ball on the label made a handy target. When I could keep ten in a row in the red I would back up and shoot from further away.

Dad originally would unscrew “barrel” insert and keep it and let me keep the rest of the air gun as a pop gun. He encouraged me to use the sights even if I was only making sound.

When he was home from work he would eventually let me have the BB launching section and let me shoot in the back yard unsupervised.

An aunt gave me these awful toy soldiers that had claws for hands so you could stick seperate toy rifles and such in. I disliked them.

They became BB gun targets. About half a year into the BB “rifle” I was shooting these bluish beasties “shot gun style” that is pointing rather than aiming and so missing some high. Dad’s baby brother, about to start Senior year of high school was over and saw me missing a few with unaimed fire. He allowed he was a better shot with his Daisy air pistol than I was with my “rifle” and bet me so with our guns as the prizes. Needless to say for the contest I aimed and won. Uncle was good at his word and gave me the air pistol …. and then there were two. Cocking the air pistol was extremely difficult so Dad let me keep it intact sure I could not cock it. Of course I figured a non standard way to cock it.

When Dad learned I had been doing so for over a week and not shot my sister’s eye out or destroyed any propperty that would require him to “nip it, nip it in the bud” He gave me the BB launcher for my Air rifle
-kBob

But the REAL answer everyone wants to know “RALPHIE”… is did you “Shoot Your Eye Out” out & have you had any other great Christmas??

 

[kBob]

Dave,

I (and both sisters) still have all our eyes.

Other great Christmases involved a “Click-clack” .22 rim-fire semi auto rifle.

Also another a Pedersoli Flintlock “Kentucky Pistol”

Also the Christmas Giving of a Cricket ( now out grown by everyone) and later a BearCat

-kBob

 

[David Hoback]

Dave,

I (and both sisters) still have all our eyes.

Other great Christmases involved a “Click-clack” .22 rim-fire semi auto rifle.

Also another a Pedersoli Flintlock “Kentucky Pistol”

Also the Christmas Giving of a Cricket ( now out grown by everyone) and later a BearCat

-kBob

LOL! Yes, I figured you did. Although I actually DO have only One eye!

No, it was a musing of the classic Christmas favorite, “A Christmas Story”. Centered around Ralphie, the main character, & his ongoing struggle to acquire the coveted Red Rider 200-shot Air Rifle with a compass in the stock & this thing which tells time! One of the greatest Christmas tales of all time.

 

[Mike J]

My early experiences with firearms were very limited. I was the little boy with the cowboy hat & the cap pistol. My mother was from Texas & her father had been a working cowboy when she was young (later on he became a roughneck (oil field worker). There were plenty of gun & hunting stories but I didn't get to shoot a real gun when I was a little kid. My dad had an old Winchester pump action .22 that would only shoot shorts in his closet. I was under strict orders not to touch it.
I am another that started with a Daisy Red Ryder. I was 9 when my parents got it for me. I wanted one about as bad a Ralphie in the Christmas Story movie. I used it to kill a lot of tin cans in the back yard. I was not allowed to shoot any animals & was ingrained with all the safety rules. There was only one time I tried to do something I shouldn't with it. My sister figured out what I was up to & locked me in the little utility room that opened onto our carport until I cooled off (I had went into it to get the BB gun).
When my parents divorced my father gave me the choice of the .22 or the Revelation 12 gauge pump he had at the time, I was 16, I chose the .22. It was a really neat rifle. I used it to go shooting with my older sister's boyfriend & one of his buddies. The boyfriend also sold me my first centerfire rifle a little later. It was a Marlin 336. By the age of 21 I had sold both these guns due to drinking & getting into jams.

I stopped drinking at 22. I bought a post -64 model 70 at 23. I wanted to be able to hunt so later I picked up a Marlin model 60 & a Mossberg 500. I figured with a .30-06, a 12 gauge, & a .22 I could hunt anything I wanted to Then I got interested in handguns. It really just goes on and on.

For the record. I am another that didn't shoot my eye out but one of my grandfathers did lose his eye due to a BB gun. He said he was sitting on a truckload of pipe watching 2 other boys play army with BB guns & a ricochet hit him in the eye. He had a glass eye. I thought it was really cool when i was little because he could take his eye out.

The cool part is I have three kids. My oldest daughter likes to shoot & will shoot with me any time she gets a chance. My younger daughter (15) never wanted to try but this past weekend she took her first shots. I had her shooting a Browning Buckmark & a couple of old Marlin .22 rifles. In the past I have tried to work with my boy (9) & he was always willing to shoot but I couldn't get him to hit much. In the past couple of weeks he has taken to his Daisy Red Ryder & is hitting stuff (plinking cans). I am going to try to get them all out for a rimfire day soon. I need to pick up some rimfire & air rifle spinning targets so we can make things more fun. I will gradually introduce the younger 2 to shooting centerfire but I want to give them time to get comfortable with what they are doing where they are before I put more on them. I am happy to be getting to teach.

 

[jar]

Dave,

I (and both sisters) still have all our eyes.

Other great Christmases involved a “Click-clack” .22 rim-fire semi auto rifle.

Also another a Pedersoli Flintlock “Kentucky Pistol”

Also the Christmas Giving of a Cricket ( now out grown by everyone) and later a BearCat

-kBob

I still have a Click-Clack, a 187M.



Even still has the deflector on it.

 

[Skylerbone]

@Dave DeLaurant your gift at storytelling has always been a joy to read, with the above narrative perhaps my favorite to date. A sincere thank you for sharing with us and for that alchemy which turns prose into far more for the reader.

As to my beginnings, a Model 15 was frequently brought to my father by me for cleaning. Being his duty revolver, I knew it to be loaded as I methodically made my way to the living room. Once there, dad would take custody to remove the cartridges while on my second trip I retrieved the cleaning kit. Some years later, around age 12, I was given the opportunity to shoot that Smith before it was replaced by a 92FS.

I’d not yet become acquainted with rifles back then nor had I trudged through woods in search of prey. By age 8 my father had invested in a lever 30-30 who’s brand escapes me, partnered with a single-shot 20ga. One day that year in 1981 we headed out for such a purpose, just a kid tagging along with 4 men intent on filling the freezer full of duck.

Once 12 had been bagged I was given my first ever shooting opportunity compliments of that scatter gun which bit me on yanking the trigger right at the junction of arm and shoulder. I let out a whelp as all 4 adults laughed heartily then handing it back, I vowed never to shoot again.

The rest is a bit long, terribly dry, but catches up to us today where I find myself as enthralled as any child ever was with any firearm. Every new acquisition still stirs me within like few other things could. Each time I find myself wandering back to that field and taking aim, though it rarely reaches such a level of disappointment after pulling the trigger.

 

[gila_dog1]

When I was 8 yrs old my Dad took me shooting for the 1st time. He brought his Winchester model 62 pump action .22 rifle. We shot some cans with it and I learned how to hold it, aim it, pump it, cock and uncock the hammer, how to load it, and how to clean it. He kept it leaned in the corner of his bedroom closet with the tube full of ammo, but an empty chamber. One day we went out to shoot and he decided to go for a walk out in the desert with me. A cottontail rabbit jumped up and took off running. Dad's first shot was about 1 foot behind the rabbit, the 2nd shot was a few inches behind it, the third shot rolled the rabbit. I thot that was amazing, but he said he should have seen it before it ran. He said a good hunter makes easy shots, a crappy hunter has to take those running shots.

 

[gwpercle]

Everyone in South Louisiana hunted and fished from a young age .
As soon as you were old enough to walk , carry a gun and could do what your daddy and grand dad told you.. they taught you safe gun handling and how to hunt ... you usually got your first gun a single shot 22 LR or single shot .410 . You went out hunting with them and they gave you one round of ammo and said ... "you better make your first shot count " ... if you hit a game animal ...you got another round ... and high praise ...
if you missed ....
You just followed them around and carried what they shot ... telling yourself ... that next time you would squeeze the trigger , not jerk it and miss ... Next Time you would make that first shot count .
That was one lesson ingrained in my fabric ... I wait and hold my shots untill I'm sure the first shot will be a killing shot .
Gary

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

... when I was about 6 years old and got my first Daisy BB gun that wouldn't shoot through an empty soup can. No matter. I learned it was "a real gun and will be treated like one or you'll never see it again". <snip> I gave my kid a Daisy Red Ryder when he was 6, and went through all the safety I could pass on to him so he'd hopefully begin his process of learning the same as I did.

A few years ago, one of Stuart Mowbray's editorials in Gun and Sword Collector related a childhood experience with his Daisy lever action BB gun. It was a good cautionary tale about gun safety -- and also very funny.

Like me, Stuart was a fan of the old Rifleman TV series. One time he attempted to replicate the title sequence from it, the one where Chuck Connor's rips out eleven shots from his levergun in under four seconds. Not something suited to a Daisy BB gun however. Stuart tried to make up a story about nearly amputating his right thumb that didn't involve his airgun, but his mom saw right through it. He didn't get his Daisy back again until decades later.