I thought of this idea today and I thought I would post it here for you all.
What was the first gun you ever shot? Where was it? And With Who?
The only rule is that BB guns/Air Guns don’t count, and I would like to say .22s too, but I was always taught that a .22 is the most dangerous gun because people think it’s not dangerous, so what the hell if you want to use a .22 for your story do it!!!
For me I was raised around guns, but I couldn’t touch one till I was around 7. Before 7 I used to play toy guns with my friends, but when at home my Dad strictly insisted I follow all of the rules of Fire Arm Safety. If I picked up my toy gun, I needed to check if it was loaded. If I didn’t have proper muzzle control I got in trouble. Ext. If I broke the rules I lost my toy. Then at 7 BB gun. I lost the BB gun at 9 because I got cocky. Got it back later.
My Dad taught me to shoot on the BB gun. To squeeze the trigger, to breath, to aim, ext. Spent some time on a .22 Marlin Bolt action once he felt comfortable.
Then one day I was Sage Grouse hunting with him, his best friend, and my best friend. They were training a new bird dog who would always chase up the grouse out of range. The hunt turned into a big joke. At the end my Dad and his friend asked if we wanted to shoot their guns. I said yes. I think I was about 10. Walking me through all of the steps I was coached through the shot. I took it, it spun me around a bit, and whoa. First high cal shot was a 12 gauge tall back out of a Double Barrel. After that day I was taught how to shoot center fire. Now 18 years later I have a healthy respect for all firearms, and I am looking to teach my future children and people of my generation about the proper use and respect of firearms.
Ithica lever action 22 rifle with scope shooting peach pits off of a cattle fence in The Copper Basin in Custer County Idaho. I was 8 years old and I still have that rifle.
I was raised away from guns. It took a visit to the family farm to finally be exposed to shooting at the age of 9, and it was my uncle’s single shot, bolt action .22 of some sort. My cousin and I hunted jackrabbits for days. He still has that rifle. Shortly after that I got my first BB gun, and after that, a Marlin model 60 which I still own.
I’m happy to say that the first gun I ever shot was mine!!! A Benelli M3 Super 90. I saw it, I had to have it, I held it, I coughed up a deposit, I picked it up and then I went to the range!
Later that day was some .38 Taurus revolvers. But I still have my Benelli. I love that gun!!!
a 7mm magnum when i was 18… just signed up for the army, i went in search of a rifle- i didn’t want my first time ever shooting a gun to be during BRM. I went to GI Joes, a sporting goods chain on the west coast that just recently went bankrupt, and told the guy at the gun counter that i’d just enlisted, and wanted the closest thing they had to what i’d be shooting in the army. I knew it’d be an M16, but i didn’t know what caliber, or even really what “caliber” meant. I knew the m14 was a “7.62mm”… so when he handed me a remington 700 “7mm” magnum, and said “this is what we’re shooting right now,” i didn’t really question it. i also snagged a box of ammo, of course- 20 rounds of 165gr soft points for $25- the guy said “we must be out of full metal jackets…” what a fuckin moron.
i dragged that boomstick around in my cutlass for a few days, looking for a good place to shoot locally- i grew up surrounded by nothing but miles of flat, rural farmland, encircled by miles more of forested, hills, but by the time i got back from school and was ready to enter the gun world, my entire county had boomed into a technoindustrial wasteland, complete with strip-malls and oceans of beige-on-brown and brown-on-beige subdivisions with not a native tree to be found till at least three county lines over. finally realized i’d need to drive for a bit if i was ever going to fire that thing. After an hour and a half drive, i found a gas mainline that said “Public Day Use Permitted. NO TARGET SHOOTING” Perfect.
no ear plugs, I brought that buttstock up to my shoulder, aimed those open irons at a tree, and jerked the trig back-
And Trinity detonated.
Hard to believe that was over a decade ago…sometimes it feels like yesterday, most times it feels like a million years.
The first firearm I shot was a rifle in .22 LR, an old Springfield M1922. It’s probably worth a bit now, but back then it was some old trainer gun that I believe was surplus from the military. I was 10 or 11 and it was at camp. The instruction wasn’t great. They were more concerned with us not shooting each other than in teaching us how to shoot properly.
My dad’s Colt .22 Single Action Revolver when I was 5. It was at my grandparents’ ranch in the Texas Hill Country. Shortly after that I started shooting .22 rifles with my dad. My first non-rimfire was an AyA 20 gauge that was my grandfather’s. I decided I wanted to go dove hunting when I was about 9. We were going out to visit my grandparents and stopped in town to get a box of 20 gauge shells. My dad set up a feed sack on a fence to see if I could shoot the shotgun. I decided to hold it 1/8 inch from my shoulder so it wouldn’t kick so bad :eek: The first barrel knocked the absolute crap out of me. I pulled the trigger again and got hit even harder. I had a bruise on my shoulder for a good while and decided that was not to be my year to go dove hunting. It was 2 or 3 years before I shot another centerfire gun and that was my grandfather’s .30-30 (made in 1922) which I used to kill a deer when I was about 12. To this day that 20 gauge is the hardest recoiling gun I’ve shot . It now belongs to me and I put dove in the bag with it every year. It doesn’t kick so hard these days.
I never had BB guns as a child, but when I was 11 my father gave me his fathers double barrel (side by side)12 gauge, my fathers .22L/.410 over under, and my grandfathers 32 winchester lever action. Not sure if it was that same year, or one year later my father saw a JC Penny 12ga pump shotgun for sale in the newspaper used for $50, so he got me that as well. This was all around 1982.
For a short time I had my mother’s dad’s 16 ga side by double barrel, but when my pap died my Uncle demanded the shotgun back so that he could throw it in a closet and never clean or oil it…and that really pissed me off.
I still have all of them, and in about 1994 I purchased my first pistol. This was a police trade in Glock 17. I still have it as well. As a matter of fact, I still have every rifle/shotgun/pistol I have ever came into posession of. I just can’t sale a family member.
I was 10 or so when I shot my dad’s sawed off pistol grip 12 ga. He put his hands on top of the barrel to keep it from flying up and hitting me in the face. The only problem with that was that meant I only had one little hand at the back of the gun…recoil put the grip about 5 inches into my belly…
That was the only time I ever fired that gun…dont know what he ever did with that one.
~D
I too was raised around guns. My first gun was a 16 gauge Remington 11-48 given to me by my grandfather when I was born. It was the first shotgun he bought after WW2. The first gun I ever shot was a .22LR at age 10. My Dad and Grandfather were dove hunting in northern Nevada, and I came along on my first hunting trip with them. Someone had brought a .22LR, and I learned from my dad and grandfather how to load and shoot. On the way home I asked for a .22. My dad gave me a long speech on “responsibility” saying “we will see”. A later that week my dad had found a Stevens .410 double barrel shot gun, which he fell in love with, and which he gave me. That weekend I was out chukar hunting with my Dad and his brothers in the Nevada desert. The .410 was my first center fire big gun I shot. Age 10, 1974 in the Nevada desert. I shot a 1911 .45 around that time too, just one shot and my ears rang for along time. I shot that 16 gauge around age 12 along with a 30-30 Winchester my grandfather gave me at age 12 to go deer hunting. I shot my first deer at age 13 and finally got my first .22LR that year for Christmas.
First for me was my Grandpap’s Remington 12 ga Semi when I was 8. Unbeknownst to me, he put his hand on the top of the butt that was sticking out above my shoulder to make sure I didn’t fly. One of my best days.
Probably 8 or so, single-shot .22 at a Boy Scout camp when I was still a Cub Scout.
Not much after that other than BB guns until we went to California and I shot 1911s in .22, 9mm, and .45, and FA MP5 and M16 with my uncle who was an instructor at Gunsite and with the Border Patrol, as well as being an active career BP agent. I was 15 at the time.
Then another big gap until I was 19 and I bought my first .22 rifle for $75 at Beckwith’s Guns in Micanopy FL from Harry himself. It was a bolt action Marlin with somebody else’s initials carved in the pommel, and I still have it now 16 years later. My friend bought an SKS around the same time and we used to go to the public range in Lake City to shoot.
Then I started shooting FDCC in the very early days (maybe almost 10 years ago now?) with those guys and it’s pretty much been all action shooting and training since.
I was 8 and the gun was a Marlin 81-DL in .22 LR that belonged to my Dad. He bought it while working the wheat harvest in Oklahoma in the early 50’s from a guy that would throw walnuts up in the air and bust them with this gun. Dad was impressed with it so much that he had to have it. As I was right handed, that’s how Dad had me shoot and he told me to center the front sight in the peep and squeeze. After 10 or so rounds, I still hadn’t hit the can and he was getting fustrated and short tempered as I told him I couldn’t “see” the can. Didn’t know at the time my right eye was “weak” and wouln’t allow me to focus on the sight and can as everything would start going black. He had me try left handed and from that point on, no can was ever safe. Still have the gun and it still holds that special place in my heart. I also made sure when teaching my kids to shoot to determine which was their dominate eye LOL!
. It now belongs to me and I put dove in the bag with it every year. It doesn’t kick so hard these days.