A discussion in the books section with NormanConquest got me thinking.

Please provide picture, story of first game taken or hunt with the first rifle or gun your father or mintor bestowed upon you. Please no I dug ditches 6 feet deep and five miles long to buy my first stories. Not that I do not believe you or respect that; just feeling nalstalgic.

I was adopted by a couple who were children of parents of the Great Depression. My family is from SE KY. My father grew up when KY at least in our region did not have a deer season. He had returned home from working at Ford to earn enough money to move back to KY and retired before he ever saw a deer on his farm in the late 90s. He did grow up shooting small game to supplement supper.

I really do not know how I got the big game hunting bug. By big game hunting I mean deer. Even in the early 2000s there were not hardly any deer in SE KY. Like Pa, I grew up hunting squirrels, rabbits, whisper pigs, and the occasional escaped goat or pig with the family marlin 22 or shotgun. I had uncles from my biological side that lived outside of the Bluegrass region and they had killed deer. I had saw the mounts on visits, heard the tales of the chase, and watched them prep their rifles and gear the night before. Yeah, I wanted to be part of this ritual.

When I was 14 in the early 2000s he bought me the sleekest Remington ADL 3006. I thought it had all the class of a rigby Mauser with its fairly black walnut stock, 22 inch barrel, good iron sights. My Pa never understood scopes. I barley do today. A pair of good boots and bibs and good coat to hunt in that fall.

I bought four boxes of Remmington Corlockts in 165 grains. I thought I had enough ammo to start a second civil war. By the time November and deer season got around, I had one box left. I had put my full faith and credit in the 165 grain load bc I read an article by Jim Carmical about the ballistic superiority of the 165 grain compared to the 150 and 180 grain bullet. Looking back on it, I have no idea what type of bullets he was comparing. At any rate, what difference did it make. I did not practice past 75 yards with my new 30/06 and her iron sights.

When November arrived my biological mother took me to her family home like she had done every year to speed time with her, her family, and to assist with her family in stripping the years tobacco for sell. There was one great difference, this year she would take me and my knew 30/06 on the family deer hunt.

There was a hard frost on that morning. My uncle had given me some kind of tube call set on the doe bleat dangling around my neck. We started up on top of a little knoll with a small creek bottom directly below us to the left side ran a holler with a sweet potato patch that had been hit hard by deer. The simple plan was to catch a buck or doe coming through the holler. The day got up, and I watched the frost burn off creating a mist in the air. About noon we had not seen a deer.

We climbed down off the knoll and started to climb a little ridge that ran parallel to the holler. I saw my first rubs on that ridge. We ditched off just the top of the ridge, and I SE down resting the bevertail of the forend on my knee as a shooting rest. I then pulled a low hanging branch down on top of me. My mom was just off my right shoulder a little behind and above me. She told me to blow on the call. I gave three slow moans, and here cam the biggest squirrel I had ever heard trotting at the bottom of the holler. Soon the sound gave way to an image. The first live deer I had ever seen was at the bottom of the holler. My heart was beating so fast I thought each pulse was actually moving me. I swallowed a ball of air and blew one more moan. The deer came head on up the holler. I saw two tines. A buck I gasped. My mom placed her hand on my back and told me to breath. I was facing paraell to the ridge. The book when he had climbed exactly 90 degrees to us turned head on took two steps and stuck his head and neck up and out. My biological mom told me to shoot him or she was going to run. I nudged the white bead of my 30/06 on to the neck center of the way up and broke the trigger; just like my uncles had regaled about. Before, I came out of recoil the buck was rolling back down the holler. I slapped the bolt back and down like the King's own. I asked my biological mom three times quickly, "Shoot him again." She said no and the buck's rack caught him in a split tree.

He was a broken 2 year old 10 pointer. My Pa never killed a deer, and due to his health when only hunted two more squirrels two more times together. He passed on February 28, 2012 before I graduated college, married, passed the bar, and bought and paid for my home. I still hunt in those boots, bibs, and coat taking my first elk and a lot more in them. That 30/06 stands beside my Heym 500 and a real Masuer; just to name a few. Sadly, those old boots are about past retiring with holes wearing through the canves.

I have pictures of the 30/06 and that buck on the wall of my home if anyone wants to post them.
Happy hunting.

Nice story, thanks for sharing. Email me (mjines@live.com) your pics and I will post them.

My father was not a hunter or outdoorsman by any stretch of the imagination. I'll never understand where the urge to hunt came from but it hit hard when I was 14. Sensing my budding passion, Dad bought me a 20 gauge Mossberg bolt action shotgun. I don't have any stories about hunting adventures with Dad, because there were none. Any hunting that I did back then (early '70's) was with my uncles who were more interested in seeking out booze than game once they got out of town. Let's just say that hunting wasn't exactly a "blood sport" for me at the time.

I never did shoot anything but clay pigeons and targets with that Mossberg but it held great symbolic value. It was as if Dad recognized that while I was, and always will be, his son I was an individual of my own accord and had my own interests and goals. The gift of the shotgun proved that Dad trusted me at a point in time when kids, especially big city kids like myself, would do stupid things and get into trouble. There were no lectures or scare stories when I got the Mossberg, it was as if Dad knew I was ready for the responsibility of firearm ownership. It was quite a compliment at the time.

Later in the decade ('78) I had a car and started to venture afield on my own. My hunting interests gelled into deer rather than creatures with feathers so it was time to get a proper rifle. Being on my own, money was tight but a great opportunity came up. My friend worked at a fancy restaurant and the head bartender needed to have his 3 cars winterized. So, on a Saturday I went to his house and drained/flushed/filled 3 radiators, did 3 oil changes and changed 24 spark plugs and 6 tires. The bartender gave me a crisp $100 bill for my effort and I made a bee-line straight to K Mart and bought a Marlin 336. Got just over $2.00 back in change! A bit later on I saved up and upgraded the sight to a Williams peep. Maybe not an "I dug ditches for 12 hours for whole summer" sort of story and I hope it's appropriate.

The next year my first kill - a young deer - fell to that Marlin and I haven't looked back.

The Mossberg was lost in a fire and I don't have a photo of that first deer and the Marlin.

I can't remember my father giving me anything, especially a gun, when he was still alive.

He was a miser who started charging me for room and board when I was nine years old. I sold newspapers and did yardwork and odd jobs for neighbors to pay my rent and buy my clothes, school supplies, and everything else I needed.

I saved my pennies and bought my first rifle, a used .22lr Remington semi-auto with a tube feed when I was eleven and my first shotgun, a used Winchester single-shot 16-gauge the same year. (My mother handed my money to the sellers.)

At age 12, the legal minimum age for hunting deer in Arizona in 1948, I bought a used iron-sighted lever-action Model 99 Savage in.303 Savage with a crescent-shaped buttplate. As I remember it, that rifle cost me all of $25 and came with a box of cartridges. I used it later in the year to kill my first mule deer and my first of more than 50 javelinas a few months after that.

I've had a lot of rifles and shotguns since then, but those three guns were my "arsenal" until my mid-twenties. They served me well and I hated it when burglars stole them and three dozen other guns a few years ago.

Bill Quimby

My older brother had shown interest in hunting at an earlier age than I did. He had an old Ranger bolt action 20 gauge that had malfunctioned and could be dangerous. My dad had a source where he could buy Remington at wholesale, so he bought him an 870 Wingmaster in 20 gauge. Later, I tried in on a dove sitting in a tree and got the dove and I was hooked. By then my dad could also get Winchester and I had my choice of a model 12 or an 870. (We certainly weren't wealthy and these guns did represent a sacrifice on my dad's part.) Didn't have a clue as to the difference, but Winchester sounded good. I still have it and when I got older did get a 12 gauge, but soon learned I prefer the 20.

Not too long after I got the 20 gauge, my dad found a steal on a Winchester model 42 .410 pump in 3 inch chamber full choke. This gun, the serial number is the same backwards or frontwards so is the only gun I have that I know the serial number on (5 digits).

My dad had never hunted deer (around Wichita Falls,Texas, deer were few to none back then, but now there is a sizable population.) He was going to go to South Texas on a deer hunt and he bartered electrical work (he was an electrician) for a Marlin 30-30. He got a deer and soon after came across another barter for a Remington 721 in 30-06 which became his primary gun for a many a deer. (I inherited the 721 and gave it to a son in law that has taken deer, antelope and elk with it) When I was a youngster I made my dad a hand tooled leather sling for it and proudly tooled his name on it. His name was Howard and I made a slight mistake and tooled Howad---my son in law affectionately calls the rifle Howad and he and Howad are legends. His Marlin became just a back up gun that almost never left the case. He had gone to his lake cabin and had the 30-30 under his pickup seat and neglected to remove it when he got home. Someone stole the rifle. He had a Lyman receiver sight installed on it and had a recoil pad installed. The gunsmith that installed the pad had pads with his name embossed on them. PERRY WRIGHT, GUNSMITH WICHITA FALLS TEXAS. This was before zip codes and the abbreviated TX. My dad also had a harness leather military style sling on it.(No Howad) Over a year after it was stolen, I was a young teen-ager and went into a pawn shop and saw the rifle. I recognized it by the pad, sling and sight. We got the gun back and I have it to this day--about 1948 model and probably less than 100 rounds.

We had five guns I the house growing up a 99 in 300sav a 870 20ga a Springfield 94c 22 a rem rolling block in 22rf and a colt officers model 38spl

My first gun I owned was a nylon 76 22 I brought for 12 dollars. The first gun my dad gave me was a 20 ga model 12. I used the shotgun for every thing for 6 years. It had such a tight choke I killed a lot of game on the second shot.

Then a brought my first double shotgun still have the model 12 but it hardly gets used any more.

A great many memories with that model 12.

My 76 stocked cracked and I sold it. I was with out a 22 for a couple of years. Then one Xmas there was long box under the tree. It held a marlin model 25 22. I was one happy camper.

Many thousands if not 10s of thousand rounds of 22 have been fire through that model 25 and it is still going some 46 years later.

There were always BB guns around the house but I got my first rifle ( a bolt action single shot Savage/Stevens 22lr) for Christmas when I was 8 years old. That rifle went everywhere I went except school for many years. It does not have much finish left on either the metal or wood but I still shoot it sometimes for fun. I used dad's old no name 16 gauge SxS shotgun for turkey and deer hunting for a few years. I was 15 when he paid for half of a well used Ted Williams marked Winchester 30/30 at a farm auction. I still take it deer hunting every now and then. A few years back, dad gave me his old shotgun to keep. I now have many more guns that shoot better, look better and cost more but these three are the only ones that cannot be replaced. My dad is 92 and does not hunt any more but he does manage to shoot something from his front porch every now and then.

Well this is not the first gun, I received but the first gun I really had a want for....





I grew up on a farm and ranch southwest of Abilene Texas. My family were hunters. We always had a 22 or a coyote gun in the truck (my dad's 222 sako). We loved to hunt dove and quail and hunted deer every season. I was the baby of the family and the accident ( my brother was 13 years older and sister 15 years older). We had at the time a Western Auto store in our little town--they stocked auto parts, home and garden stuff and firearms! As my dad would come in and look for an alternator or wire for re-wiring a trailer, I'd stroll over to the gun counter and see what they had. Most of the time they would have one or two things that would peak my interest. That day they had a little semi auto that I had not seen before, it had a nice wood stock and fancy hang tag thru the trigger guard. I asked the owner if I could see it. He obliged--it said HK 300. The price tag was $375, and the scope mount was another $175..ouch.

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Over the next year I would go in there on a regular basis and fondle that rifle. I know the owner would get a crooked smile and head to the gun counter when I would walk in. He told me he was going to have to nock a $100 off of it because I'd removed too much bluing from handling it.

In May of that year (also my birthday month)My dad picked me from school. I jumped in the pickup and started to discus what we were going to do. I looked a the rifle riding between the seat, and it was the HK 300 with a Leupold 3x scope mounted on it...my dad grinned and said happy birthday!

[URL=http://s8.photobucket.com/user/Ed_Bredemeyer/media/image.jpg1_zpserhtoveh.jpg.html]

(My HK 300 today)

I shot the crap out of that gun, I killed rabbits, coons,opossum,rats, fish cranes, even a deer or two (I knew I wasn't supposed to but it worked). I still have that gun, it wears a different scope, and don't shoot it that much anymore as parts are getting few and far between. My father as dementia and is in a home--I work in the city and miss the days of my youth running around on 4,000 ac. I will always remember that gun as I know it was a stretch for my parents,and they knew it was something I really wanted. Good memories!!!!

Thanks for the story, guys it made me think about some of my good times past....

Ed

My first rifle was self procured using money I made from my paper route. My father took me to a pawn shop where I purchased a used single shot .22 bolt rifle for $16. It was the old Springfield model made by Savage/Stevens. I was 15 years old.

I used that rifle to shoot a pile of squirrels and many rabbits. I put countless bricks of ammo through it. Then one day while at the range with friends, it blew the extractor away and my friend's face was peppered with grains of powder. Close examination revealed an oversize chamber. I couldn't tell if the chamber had expanded as a result of the blow-up or if the expanded chamber had caused the blow-up. It didn't matter. The rifle was beyond economical repair. I sawed the receiver in two, cut the barrel, and tossed the pieces into a dumpster.

That plain, cheap little rifle gave me, the second hand owner, over a dozen years of very heavy service. In the meantime I fired dozens of different civilian and military weapons and aquired centerfire rifles in several calibers, a couple of shotguns, and a few pistols. But I had no other .22 caliber rifles. I never needed to purchase another .22 rifle until my boyhood rifle was finished. That was $16 well spent.

Great stories gentleman, and 505 I love the picture of you and your father. I will avail myself of Mr. Nines hospitality when I get back home tonight. I have imposed on Mr. Biebes enormous th and I need to give him a break.

You know it is thinking about those boots that for lack of a better word makes me the most sad. I am going with my brother on a back pack hunt next weekend. It is suppose to be 16 degrees. I will have those boots on, same bibs, same coat holes be damned one last time.

Again, thank you gentleman for sharing,
Marry Christmas

For Christmas 1987 I got my first big game rifle. Prior to that my brother and I were hell on gophers and rockchucks with our Marlin single shot 22's. We were always a hunting family, and would hunt all over MT with my uncles and grandparents.

My new rifle was a custom made by my cousins that were cobbling together rifles on Santa Barbara actions. Barney did the metal work and his brother Roy would stock them. They did pretty decent work. This one was a .243 Winchester with a short stock to fit a 12yr old. I have since re-barreled this rifle for my wife in 7mm Mauser and she took it to Africa. The stock fits her perfectly.

I was stoked that I didn't have to use my brothers rifle.

So, in the '88 hunting season, my father and I were up at our family cabin in the Little Belt Mountains south of Great Falls, MT. We would spend every chance we got there starting with grouse season, and archery season in Sept.

It was the weekend before Thanksgiving and I hadn't filled my buck tag yet. Earlier in the year I had missed a good 4 point. My brother took his buck that year on opening day, as did my dad.

Saturday morning was on the cold side, about 5 below, and there was 3-4" of snow at the cabin. At the top, there was about a foot of snow. We got up, stoked the fire, and ate a plate of Hormel corned beef hash with eggs fried on top. Most of our hunts started with this as our first meal. Mostly because my dad is a one trick pony when it comes to cooking, but it became our tradition. I'll still throw a can in, even on a backpack hunt, to have the first morning.

We drove our Willys Jeep up to a set of clearcuts a few miles up the valley. The first clearcuts were empty and we went around the ridge to check the next set. These are two big clearings that run up both sides of a long gulch. Nothing in the south clearcut, so we drove the bottom road to look over the north cut. We parked and made our way up the center road that would take us to the top of the ridge.

Halfway up we ran into deer feeding on scrub fir trees 200 yards in front of us. We both grabbed rests on short pines to glass the deer through our scopes. Doe after doe crossed through my scope, and I was becoming a discouraged 12 year old thinking I would never get a buck. Then he stepped onto the logging track that I was watching. Buck! An instant later I squeezed off the shot sending a 100gr Winchester Power Point into his chest. He whirled to run downhill, and my dad's 30-06 roared. That put him down in his tracks. I'd made a good shot, but my dad didn't want him getting into the jack pines and deadfall.

We watched him for a few minutes and then got the Jeep for an easy retrieval. We had a hell of a time getting his horns to fit in the cramped cargo bed of that Jeep. The photos were taken back at the cabin. This deer has graced my wall for many years.

Jeremy

My father got me a Ruger 338 win mag when I was 14. I shot two moose, a Dalls sheep and some deer with it in Alaska.

Mine was a used single shot 22. Cost my dad 5.00,I still have it today fifty years later. My friend let it slip and knocked off the front sight. They guy that replaced it couldn't find the factory one and just put another on it. It is a Revelation model.

We had several shotguns in the family when I started hunting ducks with my Dad and older brother when I was 9 years old. My first mallard fell to a single shot 20 gauge Winchester. That was 66 years ago.

I started hunting deer when I was about 15 using my brothers M70 feather weight in 30-06. I don't recall why my brother bought it as he never hunted with it. I bought my first rifle, a model 70 300 Win Mag in 1961.

Dad was always a deer and turkey hunter before he got married.
Only gun in the house was his '17 Enfield '06. Late '40s he
started elk hunting and dropped everything else. When I was 8
started tagging along. When I was about 11 Mom took me to the
local Western Auto and we picked out a Stevens 86-C .22 bolt gun
tube mag. I didn't get it until Christmas, it cost them $45, I
still have it yet. Hasn't been fired in 30+ years. A second uncle had helped kill off the passenger pigeons. He'd buy a carton of ammo every weekend and take me out shooting, he seldom fired any. Just wanted me to learn how to shoot. I've killed a couple dozen beef, and more than that many deer and one bull elk with it over the years.

When I was 14, Dad took me to a hardware store selling surplus
'17 Enfields for $15. I got one, don't recall for sure but, think
he bought it for me. Got a box of FMJ military ammo. The gun after
I'd cleaned the cosmoline out and had it checked. Gunsmith said the
chamber was too loose and take it back. So we did. The old man at the
store showed me a stack of crates and pick one out. He gave me 100 rnds
more for cleaning the first rifle up. I shot the new one so much the
headspace was starting to get loose. I used it for prairie dogs by the
thousands for years. In '73 I had it rechambered for .300Win/m. The bore
is so worn now the rifling is hard to see.

That first year I killed my first bull elk with it still in the military
iron sights.

In the '80's I did some work for a guy and got another '17 Enfield. Man's
just gotta have an '06!! IT had been butchered. I had it worked over and
now a nice rifle too. A few years ago I got a third one that had been cut
up. Had it rebuilt into a .358U/Mag. Now I have a 4th '17 in the works to be
a .243. All as near alike as can be made. I don't think any other action has
a better safety than these old 1917 Enfields. Hard to break the habit when
you were raised with a certain action.

I've got around 45 rifles now, still have my first two.

Great thread, hope more join in.
George

Winchester Model 94 rifle, 38-55, takedown model, octogon barrel, crescent butt plate. I like looking at it.

when I was 3, I was a pretty good shot with my dad's benjamin .22 pellet gun. I couldn't pump it up past 4-5 pumps with the long stroke, but I got my first kill (a sparrow) out the back sliding door of the house. I loved that pellet gun! (and have it still, but the seals are shot)

After my parents divorce when I was 5, My dad would take my sister and I out shooting .22 LR on his weekends. I got pretty good with his Browning BL22, even though the stock was too long for me, making me hunch over the comb of the gun. I was hell on pepsi cans while they were standing up, but once I'd knocked them over, I couldn't hit them anymore. Then one day I knocked over the can and he says to me, "If you hit that can laying down, you can have that rifle."

I concentrated HARD and POW! That can jumped about 5 feet in the air. We both looked stunned! He lived up to his word, and I that's still my favorite .22. It's been shot A LOT, and the stock shows a pretty good amount of dents and dings, but it's still a straight shooter.

Interestingly, that rifle had been in a roll over with my dad and the forestock, barrel, and magazine tube had all been damaged. He had it repaired before I was born.

And my sister has its better looking twin, a BL22 that has had less than a box of shells through it. I think dad liked her better...

Posted for LHeym500:

I got a single shot 20 ga from my mom and dad for my 11th birthday. I took it hunting that fall. Killed a bunch of squirrels and rabbits with it. I took it deer hunting with pumpkin balls that fall, but I never got a shot.

My first rifle was a Remington 700 in .22-250. It was a Christmas gift from mom and dad, I think later the same year I got the 20 ga. I killed a couple dozen whitetails with it and countless numbers of groundhogs.

I still have both of them. Not sure if I'll give them to my kids when they're old enough, or buy them something of their own.

My first guns were all stolen or sold for some reason, however, my all time favorite is one my wife bought for me and had it delivered to my office!

In 1990, I had given up hunting due to cost and the theft of all of my guns. We were broke, the oil business was in the tank, we just had our third baby in four years. A friend put me in for an elk tag in Oklahoma and I was actually drawn for it. I had no gun and no interest but he convinced me to go and have some fun.

Well, two weeks before the hunt, I had borrowed a crooked barrel .30-06 that I was getting on paper at 100 yards. I was disgusted that I had no real money to spend on this. She sensed my frustration and went to a friend of mine at a sporting good store, bought what he told her to buy (Winchester M70 .280 Rem with a Leupold 2.5x8 scope) and a box of ammo. She had him deliver to my office, walking right past security with a gun! Anyway, I was stunned and very thankful. She had saved up some extra cash and somehow paid for the rest.

I got home and cried and howled. Ended up killing a super elk in the Wichita Mts Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma.

I have shot the barrel out of it and re-barreled it. It has been to Africa and shot a lot of stuff, then has been all over Wyoming taking several mule deer, antelope and elk.

It is my favorite gun and in a seriously ferocious gun safe with booby traps - so don't come around my guns!!!!

I've been hunting since before i can actually remember. My parents tell me about my playtime and hunting my stuffed animals, and an imaginary buffalo herd in my backyard with my toy guns. i dont remember doing this.

I was very lucky, in that i was clearly born a hunter, to a father that was a hunter. the fire burns today hotter than it ever has, and dad and i still hunt together every year. so as soon as i was able, dad had me out hunting with him.

Christmas of '86, i would've been turning 6 years old in March of '87... i woke up early with my little sister to see what Santa had brought us. under the tree was a little NEF "pardner" single shot .410. even though it was a youth gun, we still had to have the stock cut a little bit so it would fit my small frame. i squirrel hunted with that gun until i eventually outgrew it and graduated up to dad's single shot 20ga.

in TN at that time i had to wait until 10 years old to deer hunt. so in '91 i took my hunters safety class, and one day in the corner of the den when i got home from school, was a winchester youth ranger .243 bolt action rifle. Christmas came early that year! me and that little .243 were responsible for putting a lot of meat on the family's table over the next several years.

at around 15, i started using dad's old remington 700 .30-06, and retired the .243. i really wanted a climbing tree stand, and since money was a bit tight, dad said to get it he would have to sell my .243. i was not thrilled about this, but i begrudgingly said ok.

Dad had always felt horrible for selling my rifle, but he was trying to teach me a financial lesson, and money was tight then. Probably a decade later, he tracked down the guy he sold it to, and bought it back for me. i'm getting a little misty-eyed thinking about it right now. it is siting 10 feet behind me right now in my safe. hopefully i will have kids one day (soonish), and i hope dad gets to go hunting with me and his grandchild with that rifle to keep the tradition alive.

Kjim4: I shot and ate so many whisper pigs growing up with my Pa I cannot even kill them not w when farmers offer me a bounty on them. I just can't eat them anymore and will not shoot them if I want eat them.

Cooperjd: My adopted mother is still alive she tells stories of me picking up sticks and using them as rifles to hunt and fight my way up the Congo when I was young after watching Tarzan.

Dogcat: Thank you for sharing with us your story. You have a wounderful wife. She is very special.

We have heard some great memories. That we have heard of taking that first mallard 66 years ago from a single shot 20 gauge. The world has changed a lot; just think about the lead bans alone.

What a mule deer, dall sheep as a first animal, and we got someone whose father went the sportiness military rifle route that kids like me have only read about.

The 30/06 is staying home this trip, but the old boots are loaded with my gear ready to hit the road tomorrow. This is an E.KY public land hunt this weekend with my brother to practice our backpack hunting skills. I do not expect to load down the meat pole, but it will be another memory.

Good hunting everyone and thank you

My first gun was a brand new Win 870 Wingmaster 20 ga the local gun store had on sale. $199 was the price, must have been early 80's when my dad took me down there and bought it for me. I was 11 years old as I was able to hunt that fall (12 years old). We lived in northern WI and my dad didn't really know about chokes, barrel length, etc and I grew up hunting the woods around the house with a plain bead (no vent rib) fixed full choke 30" barrel 20 ga on the only game around...ruffed grouse! Still remember my first grouse I killed out of the air with that gun...ground swatted many before that!

We also found a 20ga slug barrel and that's what I started deer hunting with. I missed a very nice 8 pt buck my first two years hunting with that shotgun. As soon as I could (two years later I think) I bought myself a Rem 7600 in 30-06 for the deer hunting which was replaced with a Win 70 XTR sporter a couple years later after I started reading EVERYTHING hunting, shooting, and fishing.

My first real gun was a beautiful mid-1970's miroku charles daly 20 gauge, which i still have. I shot ducks and doves with it, and my step son uses it for sporting clays. I'd like to have it restocked or at least the stock and metal refinished.

The first deer rifle I had was borrowed from an Uncle.A Marlin 336 in 35 Rem.The first rifle I owned was a Post 64 Mo.70 in 30/06 I bought on base in 1965.

Christmas in 1969. Savage 24D 22 mag over 3 inch 20 gauge. Next year (1970) Remington 11-48 in 12 gauge.

My first rifle gifted by my parents was an H&R single shot 12 ga. I was in my teens in the 70's and my best friend and his family had me bitten by the water foul bug. That was back when bird hunting along the shores of the Great Salt Lake was AWESOME! Forget that it was an inexpensive single shot, that brand new rifle under the tree was nothing short of a thing of beauty to my eyes. I was gonna do some serious bird slaying with it! I will never forget the first time out with it. Flyweight 12 ga, 2 boxes of 3" magnum 2 shot super X and a plastic butt plate.. Black and blue shoulder and loved every minute of it.. The next time out that Mo Fo had a recoil pad on it though.. I loved that gun. It was one of those rare rifles that seemed to come up and aim naturally.

First gun of my very own was and still is a Western Field 22lr bolt action made by Mossberg. I was probably 8 or 9 and when the Sears Christmas catalog came. It was dogeared and the correct item highlighted and it was repeatedly strategically placed where my mom and dad could not miss it.
A few weeks before Christmas the Sears truck showed up in the driveway and mom made my brothers and me go to our bedroom while the delivery was made. We of course sneaked out where we could watch the action and my heart pounded as I watched the driver bring out a box of about 3x8x40 inches.
IIRC the rifle with scope was $29.95 and has seen a lot of ammo in the last 5+ decades.

My first was a Daisy lever action bb gun at 5. Then a Crossman 760 at 7 and a Marlin Model 60 at 8. My first Center fire rifle was a Remington Model 700 ADL in 243Win at age 16. Shot my first Mule deer and elk with that rifle.

In 1963, my grandfather gave me a shotgun. A 12 gauge. A Remington made on a Browning patent. I still have it. It was old when I got it. I have not shot it in many years. I need to take it out.

I have shot many doves, quail, ducks and squirrels with it.

When I was 6 I got a Daisey Winchester '94 BB gun for Christmas. I also received a BB trap target which had a motorized belt with paper ducks moving across it. There was also a bell that rang when hit. I was allowed to shoot this contraption in the kitchen until the weather warmed up.

I had to walk to a local gravel pit to shoot the gun by myself. One day a little bird with a yellow throat was singing in a tree on my way to the pit. I killed him with one shot. I cried pretty hard when I picked him up. That's the last tears I've shed after killing anything.

I later built blinds to kill sparrows under the apple and pear trees in our yard after school. When no more English sparrows would come to the trees I shot bumble bees from the blossoms with that BB gun. I kept a box full.

For my 8th Christmas I got a rifle. We went to the local shop to choose one. The guy showed me a Browning T-Bolt and said it was a great rifle. I chose a Marlin because it hat a conventional bolt. I kicked myself for years after reading about what a nice rifle the Browning was. I bought a used T-Bolt in college for $50 off a bulletin board.

My granddad gave me his father's Winchester Model 12 16ga and one box of Remington paper shells when I was 11. I killed my first duck with the last shell of that box.

My dad called me "Jack Armstrong, the all American boy"

quote:

Originally posted by dukxdog:
My granddad gave me his father's Winchester Model 12 16ga

what year is your 16ga? I have a family gun, 1928 Model 12 16ga. It's a turkey slaying machine!

quote:

Originally posted by 724wd:

quote:

Originally posted by dukxdog:
My granddad gave me his father's Winchester Model 12 16ga

what year is your 16ga? I have a family gun, 1928 Model 12 16ga. It's a turkey slaying machine!

Made in 1916 with 2 9/16" chamber, plain 26" full choke barrel

My first was the Mossberg 84B that nearly got my Father killed. By my Mother.
They had a farm, and my Mother saved her "Butter & Egg" money for a year and bought him this nice Fox (iirc) for their first anniversary. Her younger brother had a pilot's license and flew. He had the Mossberg, and would fly over their farm and land on a road nearby. They would go hunt squirrels.

If the squirrel froze, my Uncle would cap him with the 22. If he ran, my Father got him with the little 20 gague SxS. It worked that the majority of the shooting was done by my Uncle. That fall he proposed they trade, and my Father agreed. At Christmas, again, iirc, my Mother was bragging to the assembled side of her family how many squirrels my Father had harvested. Then, she got to bragging a bit about how that Fox was a killing machine, and how long she had saved to buy it.

You know what's coming, right? Yep, she tells my Father to go get it out of the closet and show it off. He "eefed and iifed around", and she finally went and got it out of the closet herself. I gather the rest of the evening was not much fun for him. I was born almost a year later, so I figured that how long (ninety days) she held that grudge.

Anyway, I got it when I was nine, and it is still in the closet.