Your first firearm

[Ronald Moore]

Model 660 Remington .308 caliber, I have probably taken over 100 white tails with that gun. Then a model 66 Remington, still have it and original manual it came with.

[Bill Murphy]

Pete, I still have the Outers bullet trap that I got for Christmas when I was about ten years old. I had been using a rural mailbox packed with newspaper. After a few bullets bulged the back end of the mailbox in my bedroom, my parents thought I should have a proper bullet trap. I also still have the mailbox. My first .22, a Model 5 Savage, is long gone.

[Bo Butler]

Winchester Model 37 Youth. Still have it. Hopefully I'll be able to teach the grandkids to shoot some day. Need some grand kids first!

[Fishtail]

My first gun was also a Winchester 37 Youth...I think it was actually a 37A, mid-late 1970's vintage. I still have it and it's the gun I grab when something around the house needs a dose of lead therapy.

[wally vernon]

My first was a Winchester model 190 with a weaver scope that came from Santa in 1976. Wore it slap out. First shotgun was a H&R topper Junior 20 gauge that kicked like hell. My buddy whose family owned a Bank used his granddaddy's Parker. I promised myself at the ripe old age of 12 that I would own one someday....

[Allan McLane]

My first gun was a Francotte 20ga box lock, 28", M/F, given to me by my father when I turned 12. It was a much nicer version than a Knockabout, with considerable engraving and better wood, and I shot a lot of duck, dove, and quail in South Carolina with it. You had to let the quail get out a way before firing if you wanted anything left to eat.

After I moved to Vermont it wasn't much use for partridge and woodcock so I bought a Ruger 20, 26", I/M when they first came out; much more useful here and actually a great quail gun too. When my daughter was old enough I gave her the Ruger and it brought a tear to watch her bring down her first quail.

The Francotte was destroyed in a house fire during hurricane Bob (1991) in Newport but I did manage to salvage the stock medallion my father had had engraved with my initials.

[John Cinkoske]

My first was a Remington Model 33 single-shot .22 my mother found at my grandfather's after he passed away. I was about 11 or 12, and she sold it to me for a dollar. It has the plunger you cock it with that'd blister your fingers until you developed callouses. The first shotgun was a Lefever Nitro Special in 16 gauge, it was under the Christmas tree when I was twelve from my Dad. I'd love to see all of the shells I've run through those two guns in a heap, it would be quite a few. I still have both of them, and I had the Remington sleeved sometime back. It's now really a tack driver. This is a great thread, I am really enjoying it, keep 'em comin!

[WHO]

My first gun is a Winchester Model 06 22. We owned a hardware store 13 miles south of Yosemite. Our store sold sporting goods along with normal hardware items so I had a nearly unlimited supply of .22 ammo. Another plus was that my brothers and I had a shooting range set-up just outside the rear door of the store. This explains why the rifling of the barrel is basically non-existent today although the gun is still very accurate. The Winchester was made in 1935. We owned the store from the late 1950s through the middle of the 1960s. It was a great place and time to be a kid. California was a very different place than it is today.

[full choke 16]

Dad got me a Westernfield 20 gauge bolt action, that I absolutely hated, because my Grandfather convinced me that a proper bird gun should have 2 barrels. Two years later I bought my own gun (SxS spanish 20 ga.) and Dad traded the bolt action for a Stevens for my younger brother. Fifteen years later, I was fortunate enough to inherit Grand Paps 16 gauge Steringworth and find out what good doubles was all about. I like bolt action rifles but have never touched a bolt action shotgun since the Westernfield.

[Bob K]

My first one was a used JC Higgins 16 gauge bolt action that my Dad gave me on my 10th birthday. He got me a hunting license that year(1957) and put down on the application that I was 12. The following year I was 13. Then I went back to 12 the next year when I was actually 12. The owner of the hardware store where we bought our licenses didn't seem to care. That's where we bought most of our firearms and ammo for years.