For me it was back in the mid to late 70s', I was flicking through a magazine that showed a guy nealing next to acouple of Boars they had taken on a floodplain. The rifles were also in the picture in front of the hogs, resting on harris bypods. One was a boring as bat crap rem bdl700/270win, the other a MkV Dlx .270Weatherby Magnum with a Low slung Khales 2-7x steeltube in Weavers low steel mounts.That Weatherby was a real sight for me, That was it ! I had that type of rifle set in my sights. It impressed me so much more than the boring rem700.It was the more inspiring and aggressive/formidable looking of the two by far,and when you cracked the bolt and drew it back alittle,to see three of its lugs,it was like a shark showing a row of teeth. I was about 11yo, by the time I was 14 I had my MKV .270mag.( i was working in agunshop part-time, and the owner was selling one of his MkVs').He sold it too me but gave me only one month to pay it off. It was a mad scramble. I used my saving,my wages,borrowed some, and cleaned up about 15 LeeEnfields@$20 apiece, but I did it.
It started off with a 3.5-10ao Leupold in the Buehler mounts, then progressed to a Leupold2.5-8x burris rings/Leupold bridge base, then to Zeiss 6x32c in Leupold Fluted 2pcbases/rings, then back to Leupold 2.5-8x /Fluted bases/Redfield low rings. It looked areal treat like that.
Next step was a Brown precision Synthetic stock which I installed/bedded/ painted myself(I used Devcon alluminium putty). 8 1/4lb with no:1 24" factory tube. I had that thing for about 12yrs all up. It has been gone for some time now.

As a kid, I guess it was a toss up between my dad's magnum handguns and he and his buddies magnum rifles.

When I was a kid my dad had a S&W revolver in .357 Mag with an 8 3/8 inch barrel. That darned thing would really shoot. We used to shoot jack rabbits at some really longe ranges for a pistol.

My dad killed a mess of black bears with that gun since he was hunting with dogs back then. But, just as soon as he heard of the new .44 Remington Magnum he sold the .357 and ordered one of the new S&W handguns in that cartridge.

Dad also killed a mess of bears with the new .44 Mag. He still has it, it is one hell of a great handgun.

I just had to have a 44 Magnum! I saved my money made mowing lawns and working in gas stations and by 16 I had my first 44 Mag. It was not a S&W, but a used Ruger Super Blackhawk with a great Lawrence holster and belt. I shot about a jillion rounds through that gun.

I sold it and bought a S&W some years later. Heck,I have had several 44 Mags since then, currently own an old Super Blackhawk just like the first one.

And, when I was 12 years old I killed my first deer with a .244 Remingotn that my dad gave me for Christmas. I loved that old gun, still have it. But I remember as a kid of 12 to maybe 14 being teased by a couple of my dad's buddies. My dad shot a 300 Wby Mag and they had 308 Norma Mags. They would tell me that some day I would be able to own a real "man's gun". Well, I have gone through several 300 Magnums since then. Still have one in the safe, a 300 Weatherby Mag.

Lots of fun remembering!

my dad and jack o'conner.

Ditto on Jack O'connor,

Actually i had an article in PS mag. several yrs. ago concerning just this subject. It was entitled, "Through Their Words", about the gunwriters of my youth that motivated me to wanna pursue a hunting/shooting life. A number of years ago Bob Bell wrote a small piece as a foreword in his book, "Gun Digest Book of Scopes and Mounts", called, "In the Beginning". It was a romantically written short piece about a long-range shot he made on a woodchuck in his home state of PA. I read and reread that piece 50 times i bet. Before i wrote my article, i called Bob Bell, and he gave me permission to offer that little piece as a tribute to those writers.

Jack O'Conner. I loved his stories, and I still love those beautiful rifles he used. I would love to have one of those custom Biesen? stocked pre-64 model 70's in my rack, just to take it down and pet it now and then. I keep a copy of the January 2002 Outdoor Life propped up above my reloading bench. The cover photo is of O'Conner carrying a bighorn ram over his right shoulder, and a beautiful rifle in his left hand.

Other than tagging along on bird hunts with my Dad and Grandpa starting when I was five I remember a few Seyfried articles that pulled me in. First was one of his Shooters Insights columns. Had to be about '87 or '88 as I was 13 or 14, in junior high, and completely mesmerized by his recount of obtaining his .577 NE and his first experience shooting it off of the hood of his truck. I remember how he described that the first shot bloodied his nose. Second big article was his September of '89 feature on the .340 Weatherby. I wasn't quite sure what the heck this fabulous cartridge was but I knew I had to have one someday.

About this same time frame I really began to actually hunt with my Dad and I persuaded him to buy me a few used Gun Digest issues at a gun show. I must of studied those more than I did for school at the time as I sure remember their content better than any text book I had.

Other people in my life inspired me to shoot and to hunt. My dad was a decorated WWII combat veteran, and a great shot with anything that burned power, plus he was as cool as ice, always, when it came time to press the trigger. He taught me more about rifle and pistol shooting that anyone else ever has. He also taught me to get excited AFTER the shooting is over, rather than beforehand, and it's a lesson I've never forgotten.

I remember marching down into my grandfather's basement with my dad in 1962, when I had just turned five years old, to watch my grandfather pull a brand-new Remington 700 BDL in 30-06 (with a Weaver K-4 scope) out of his gun cabinet and hand it to me. If was the first real big game rifle I ever held in my hands, and that moment absolutely enthralled and enchanted me -- past the point of no return -- for life.

During high-school, our varsity basketball coach was a dedicated mule deer and elk hunter, and he had us over to his house many times to look at rifles, trophies on the wall, etc. This man actually taught a big game hunting and game management class at our HS that was an actual accredited course, and he taught it very well and expertly. He was the first confirmed 300 Win. Mag. fanatic I ever knew, and his passion for that cartridge inspired me. I often wish that he was still alive, and that we could get together for a long visit, and so that I could show him to what use I'd put his favorite cartridge over the years..........

I also was inspired by a neighbor, who, like my dad, was a blooded WWII veteran, a great hunter, and a great shot. He had a Model 70 Featherweight 270 Win. that he bought in 1956 (wholesale), and he used it exclusively for the next 45 years. He had a rogue's gallery of big trophy mule deer and elk that he took with that rifle, plus moose and other stuff. He showed me so very clearly as to what a good man with one good rifle can really do. He also showed me that honest hunting experience counts for far, far more than a safe full of rifles that seldom get used.

As to writers, well, John Jobson of 'Sports Afield', Bob Brister of 'Field & Stream', Jack O'Connor of 'Outdoor Life', and later, Jim Carmichel, also of 'Outdoor Life', and Bob Hagel of 'Rifle' and 'Handloader' inspired me with great hunting stories that included the use of some great rifles (no "Gun of The Month Club" nonsense back then). These men, to this day, remain the greatest hunting and shooting writers I've ever read the works of, and their common-sense expertise has endured and has enspired me for the last thirty-some-odd years.

AD

My Dad used to read my brother and me to sleep with O’Connor stories. When he was the senior officer on the Oklahoma Army National Guard Rifle Team I pulled targets for them. We had decades of the American Rifleman, closets full of guns like they just don’t make any more and enough ammo to keep our little corner of Oklahoma City safe for democracy pretty much permanently. His father’s name is on the same page as Alvin York’s in the roster for Company G, 328th Infantry, but my grandfather didn’t have much use for guns after the war.

Later we inherited a bunch of nice freshwater tackle and two boats from my maternal grandfather, but I never saw the point of fishing when I could shoot frogs and turtles with a scoped 22 and eat just as well.

On the first day of Army sniper school, an instructor on the line chambered a round in an M-14. That makes a very distinctive sound that I had not heard in years, and I remember looking around for my Dad.

He’s a Palma shooter in Texas now.


Okie John

I grew up in a hunting family and was inspired/mentored by my dad, uncles and grandfathers. I also would read back issues of Field and Stream and Outdoor life at my grandfather's while the grownups talked. There, I first read Jack O'conner and Jim Corbett. Many years later I found a set of Jim Corbett stories and was amazed at how much I remembered after so long. Certainly those stories were part of my inspiration to hunt in Africa.

Seeing Dad and Papaw bringing deer in when I was knee high to a grasshopper. Heck Dad used to have me sit w/ him when I was only 3-4 years old and then he had a gun in my hands by the age of 6, by 9 I had already began to slay Whitetails, Squirrels, and Rabbits. My Grandpa loved it to the day he died, I think he managed to take about 12 deer the winter before his Heart Attack. I drug many a deer out for that old man. Good Times....

Reloader

My inspiration came from the Chicago Field Museum
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/.

From the Lions of Tsavo to the great diaramas of animals fron around the world.I cant say at what age I first seen its wonders,but it was the point that I knew I wanted stuffed animals from africa.