What started you shooting

[Shuck.]

To coincide with the "should we licence air weapons" thread.

 

Shooting cans in my garden with my old BSA air rifle got me into shooting

[bullet boy]

Started with a BSA Airspoter rifle with my Dad.

[allthegearandnoidea]

My dad got me shooting an air rifle until I was big enough to use the webley and scott .410 then onto a 12 bore.

[albob]

my older brother went rat shooting with his mate.his mate did not show up second time so i did a bart and lisa..can i go,can i go ,can i go.. wore him down in the end and when we got there,my brother was cold and stayed near the boiler to keep warm,i took the gun and shot a rat,scared the **** out of me when it jumped but,after i got over the shock,i loved it.

al

Edited March 31, 2010 by albob

[alexr]

Shooting an old Martini action BSA at Altrincham rifle club.

[camokid]

my brother gave me a gat gun for my birthday that was a bad day to be a frog

[Ozzy Fudd]

found my dads .44 smith and wesson behind the sofa when i was 3, loved guns ever since

[Kent Militia]

For me it was airguns and airsoft.

[MPT1]

Back in the day as they say when you just bought shotguns I bought an English side by side hammered 12 bore and a single barrelled Flemish 12 bore. With these a girlfriend and I used to go up to near Thetford and just ask if we could shoot.

On one of the trips we met an American from one of the bases who invited us to shoot. These guys all had automatics and what have you.

 

This followed going on holiday in Wales staying on a farm. I found a shot gun in the barn, went into town and bought cartridges. I didn't know what size so was sold .410 & 12 gauge. The 12s were too big and the .410 were too small. I bound the .410s with string, wedged them in and fired.

The whole lot came out the barrel string trailing. The Farmer, Major Bebb went absolutely berserk and we had to vacate and stay with an aunt who lived in Oswestry.

Can you imagine a 10/11year old now being sold cartridges?

 

Before all the holier than thou starts this was in an age gone by.

[mossy835]

bought my first shotgun at 15,s/s hammer 12 bore just went out in the field and started shooting crows.

[Heladoxa]

The first thing I remember is the Midwife saying, 'Congratulations, it's a boy, Mrs Goodwin! Looks to me like he's going to be a shooter!,

[aaron airgunner]

first with a shotgun at a fair, then i bought an air rifle for christmas and have been shooting for almost 2 years now.

[HDAV]

not sure how or why but got a BSA supersport (grandad had air guns in greenhouse and spare bedroom near windows with tin of pellets on the sill) did a bit of plinking was never very good and got back into it recently when i got an SGC and inherited my Grandfathers SxS)

[Shuck.]

A couple of these tales had me smiling reminding me of my first tin of pellets, would come home from school and put the cans straight up

 

back on to the subject of the other thread, if airguns needed a cert back then I'd never have got into shooting sports as a whole and I'd be an ignorant townie now (which is only half true now!)

 

now I know most of you a good 70% were introduced via airguns, do you think that having to get a licence would have any effect on your current shooting hobbies?

 

I for one would never have got a cert back then as I only had the rifle for plinking in the garden and my dad wasn't keen enough on it to buy me a licence

[groach1234]

As i assume it is with many on this site at 9 my dad got me an air rifle and taught me how to shoot it and safety and then let me go around our farm shooting rabbits and rats and pigeons and targets until i was 11 when he moved me onto a .410 and then at 15 a 12 bore as he treated me to a days shooting after an operation its been a good couple years of shooting from them and have now taken a deer and am going to be putting in for my .243 in the coming weeks

 

George

[mark the hat]

we had an old tip/quarry near us and some farm land, we used to go to the quarry and shoot with my air rifle that i mitherd my mum n dad for, tins,bottles,old windows found on the tip was allways good when you was a kid,ratting at night, got the bug and it never go's away lol

 

mark

[libs]

Was ~7 when my mothers boss at the time gave her an air rifle for me to use as his wife didn't want his kids to shoot. It was obviously knackered being an old BSA meteor from the 70's so after a re-spring and seal I couldn't put it down. Must have fired at least 1000 pellets a month for the first few months at film pots, lumps of dried clay and the occasional shaken coke can.

 

Shortly after we moved in early 2007 I started shooting small bore target rifles and then had some shotgun lessons, sent off for the FAC and SGC and have been wasting my money ever since! I now have 3 shotguns, >250 acres to shoot over and that same old air rifle.

 

SO I guess I can only thank the air rifle for starting me off, and I do think there would be a massive dip in uptake to any forms of shooting if they were to be put on and FAC system.

[Imperfection]

A BSA Meteor was my first rifle-wish i still had it.

[Boromir]

Some 22 rifle while in the Army cadets got me into shooting, then a friend took me pigeonshooting and that also boosted my interest in shooting.

[Alanl50]

Colt 45 ACP, my fathers, I was about 7 but always had an interest because all the war films, serials like "Combat" and all the cowboy films I watched, I had all the toy guns money could buy, cap guns, from memory guns have always been part of my life, toy or real.

Alan

[vampire]

Always loved guns,had a toy winchester rifle as a little kid,remember looking at gunbook in school libary(it was 1st and only time),and dreamed of being gunsmith,ended up as a builder !.

My first purchase was a Diana sp 50 .177,£6.50 saved up from milk round sat job,it looked good but was ****,if you aimed 6" high and left you could sometimes hit stuff,my next was Bsa meteor brilliant rifle so accurate,stupidly sold to a mate for £10 ,then i got the mercury thats for sale now,my first shot put a steel pellet through a metal drum out the otherside and embedded in wall,that was me hooked.

[shade695]

my first air rifle was a Diana mod 25 .177, handed down of course by the old man! as he moved onto a Valmet 12g O/U (do you still get these?) the year was aprox 1980.

[flytie]

First personal gun, a BSA Meteor Super in .22 for my 11th birthday. I had to recite the poem "A Sporting Man's Advice To His Son" before I was allowed to use it. 22 rabbits from my bedroom window that summer holiday, bliss!

 

First shotgun, a Greener GP when 16.

 

First driven shoot @19 years old using my dad's old Ilsley s/s. Which really didn't fit me, but I loved the day all the same.

 

ft

[Colster]

I'm a recent shooting addict. I moved into my dream house just over a year ago, got a nice bit of land with it and fields behind so got a hankering to have an air-rifle. Started with a Gamo springer and had great fun plinking away, then other half's step-dad (farmer with 600 acres) said if I wanted to go shooting rabbits on the farm that was fine.

 

Through that I met the guy who was doing the real rabbit control, we became mates and I started going out lamping with him using his LR - not surprisingly after my first go with a rimfire I thought I have to get one of these...

 

Having reached a outwardly mature age (41 this year), I put in for my SGC/FAC and now have as listed in my sig, a 12b SxS, an LR and a FAC PCP and love them all

 

 

....but the OP's point is proved. If I couldn't have just walked into a gunshop and come out with an air-rifle I wouldn't have got started.

[steve_b_wales]

I started at a young age of 9, with a GAT gun. Moved on to a Relum Tornado .22 air rifle, bought from KAYS catalogue, when I was 12! Moved up to 12 gauge shotgun at 15, then progressed to full/small bore pistols as a member of LITTS. Continued ever since.