Your first experience with firearms

My first experience was in elementary school in New Zealand. I was allowed to fire a Bren gun. For those who aren't familiar with it.... It is a fully automatic machine gun. That was fun.

I started shooting around 6yo with an old Winchester 1906 .22. They were a smallish framed tube fed pump. I must have shot a thousand rounds thru that old gun as a kid. The barrel was shot out but it still was deadly accurate out to 40 yards or so. We had chickens and ducks in a big pen and lived close to a river. The rats and weasels were out of control , once in a while a hawk would come around. I used to bundle up and sit out on the deck at night. Used to get several every night. The biggest rat was over 18" nose to tail.


Never shot anything as neat as a bren..did shot a Thompson Contender in .35 Remington. Split the palm of my hand open but I hit the target. The owner coudn't, but then he knew how bad that POS kicked.

Very first gun I shot was a 12ga shot gun. I was trap shooting with my Uncle when I was maybe 15 or 16. Maybe even 14. I can't really remember. During the same outing, I then shot the next gun I've ever shot. A .22 rifle.

Now, going from just shooting a semi automatic (so some recoil dampened) 12ga shotgun to a .22 rifle, when I took aim, I shoved that .22 as hard as I could into my shoulder and was prepared for a 12ga kick. I squeezed the trigger and... "pop" and the round hit the target. I remember saying to my cousin, "That's it?" lol

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

I can count the number of times I've gone shooting on one hand.

Having never shot a firearm, I had a concealed carry permit in NH, mostly to piss off the (dirty) chief of police in our town. Never actually carried.

First, was a .22 with subsonic rounds in the back yard of a friend who ended up committing suicide by heroin overdose. I was actually pretty accurate.

Second, at the range with a couple different .45s. Pretty sure somebody mentioned the broad side of a barn.

Third, tequila infused skeet shooting, again hit nothing.

Since then, handled firearms a few times, but just to transport, not shoot. I really should have a 20 gauge and/or a revolver where I live, but with two young children and not a lot of space and a lack of time to practice, I'm better off without for now.

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

i wish the Air Force would let us regular types try out the three round burst at least once during weapons familiarization! That said, i have marksmen with M16 and M9.

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Single shot 20 ga. shot gun when I was 12. That was an experience! The nice old guy who we got the insane bird dog from taught me to hunt pheasant. He could tell it was some thing both the dog and I needed.

Waking up at 7 years old to my sisters crying and no parents. My brother and his best friend were putting guns away after a hunting trip when one that hadn't been unloaded went off and killed my brothers friend. First shooting was with friends grandpa around 10th. Ruger.

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Grant Hughes

It was in Boy Scouts at the H Roe Bartle Scout reservation. We were shooting .22lr out of I believe Ruger 10/22s, maybe Marlins. It's been a long time. I do remember turning around with the gun and pointing it behind me. What a stupid thing, while no one was hurt, it gave me an appreciation of why there are four basic safety rules. It wasn't until I was an adult that I bought a Ruger P series gun in 9mm and a Ruger 10/22.

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It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
William Ralph Inge

TANSTAAFL

other than bb guns, 357 police special when I was 12, 12ga around the same time, 9mm, 22 and several others the same year. I enjoy skeet shooting when I get the chance but other than that I don't have the disposable income to afford a gun habit.

Got a Daisy BB gun when I was about 6 that I shot in my basement. My dad set up a cardboard box trap for me to tape my targets to.


First centerfire rifle I shot was an M1 Garand when I was 7 or 8. lol

Not sure, teen years maybe with my uncle, I vaguely recall shooting at a target at his house. Then in my late 20's I went out with my roommate and her boyfriend and some coworkers and shot some of their guns, couldn't tell you what they were though.

Then around 18 or 19 I had my friend's step-brother-to-be pull something on my twice at their house (he was a tweaker). Same friend, her mom sold drugs, so same time frame-ish, two raids so guns on me from cops both times.

Now I have a few of my own I inherited from my uncle. Same guy I went with the last time is going to take me out and show me how to use them and clean them, etc.

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b00sted
Got a Daisy BB gun when I was about 6 that I shot in my basement. My dad set up a cardboard box trap for me to tape my targets to.


First centerfire rifle I shot was an M1 Garand when I was 7 or 8. lol

I remember using my aunt's bb gun to chase the neighbors chickens out of her vegatable garden when I was in my early teens. Chickens aren't very smart, it usually took a while to get them home.

I have an old Buck Jones BB rifle circa 1940 . Still shoots.

My first experience (that I recall clearly - there were others prior, I'm sure) was Orgasmic: my Dad's neighbor (at the time), C.W., had a pile of weaponry from a Kentucky Rifle in .50 caliber, to a .45 Colt revolver, to a Montgomery-Ward 12ga. side-by, as well as a Winchester carbine chambered in .45-70 (THAT sucker had some kick!). I was Ten at the time, and "ate up" with the Gun Jones. So C.W. and Dad arranged a "shootin' day" and we all went and shot hell out of a piece of 3/4" plywood (back when 3/4" plywood existed) on his Grandfather's 80-acre wooded farm (backstop, don'tcha know!).

I imagine there were a couple of .22 rimfire weapons, including this Marlin lever-action of C.W.'s that I always coveted.

C.W. was also the person I experienced my first (and only) gun accident with - that my Mother still doesn't know about near-30-years later. The man made it through two tours of Vietnam as a Ranger, shot so many of the enemy he lost count, and first time he was ever shot himself was drinkin' & plinkin' down at the creek - nearly shot me in the side of the head (still have faint scars from the powder-burns on the left of my face, and bad hearing in that ear) and got himself in the foot: culprit for that was a Ruger Blackhawk SA revolver - the one Ruger recalled BECAUSE of the flaw that resulted in the accident. It faulted, and I could not get the hammer to seat again properly, so he took the pistol (as it was his, and he was familiar with the problem) and I started policing the brass - somehow his thumb slipped off the hammer and it went-off right in my face - if I had leaned a bit over his foot (where the bullet struck) I would have been shot in the back of the head. Had a hard time covering that one up from Mom, managed with a bit of help from Dad, though....

(WHAT? C.W. somehow SHOT himself? How?.....)

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Parfois, on fait pas semblant!

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My wife and I went to the range for the first time yesterday. I had shot a 22 pistol a couple of times when I was much younger and my wife had shot a 22 rifle growing up on the farm. (My mother was actually an award winning shot)

Shot an assortment of handguns:
9mm glock, 9mm CZ and a couple of throwbacks, a colt 45 and a .38 cal revolver.

Fun time, but not something I could see myself doing frequently.

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john vanlandingham
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