Your First Gun & Story

I thought it would be a good topic to put up a pic of your first gun(if u can), what it is, a brief story.

This is my first gun. Its a Winchester Model 37 Stilbuilt 20Ga 2/34" single barrel shotgun. It was my Dad's and when I finally got to start hunting(my Dad didn't hunt but my Pastor was an avid hunter, gunsmith, gunbuilder, and Lifetime NRA Member influenced me in "The Way of The Gun" Ha, and my Grandfather took me squirrel hunting with him and his Marlin Model 60) The Model 37 served me well hunting and shooting everything that moved until I moved away from home. It stays there so Dad has a shotgun but he knows it has to go to me. I have a 16ga like it, and am always looking for a 12ga, 410, 28ga, or another 20ga to go with it.

My first gun was an H&R 20ga. I'm too lazy to look for the camera and then go upstairs to get it bu it looks like every other one they made. My first rifle was a Winchester 190 22lr that I worked all summer to earn the money for. When I walked into Westrn Auto to buy it I was told the sale had ended and I didn't have enough money. About that time a woman walked up and told the man he was wrong the sale had been extended. I walked out with the rifle and a box of ammo. I still don't know who she was or why she decided to help out a young'un. My first handgun was a Ruger single six i bought at S&H Kress the day i turned 21.

First gun I ever shot was a Winchester 67 .22. Next was a Mossberg single-shot bolt action .410. My mom still has both of them. First gun that was mine was an Ithaca 37 12 ga. My first rifle was a Ruger 10-22 and my first handgun was a H&R 929. I've still got all three of these.

My dad was a gun and coin collector/dealer (Not his regular job). Cant ever remember a time we didnt go to gun shows to buy/sell/trade back in the late 60's-mid 70's, especially at Greenbelt Armory just outside DC in Greenbelt, MD. First gun I EVER shot was a 1911. I was 4 or 5, my dad and his friend and me went to Conowingo Dam to shoot, they were shooting some FA guns. They handed me the 1911, pointed me towards the Susquehana and I started pulling the trigger, and turning around, and shooting, at them, and all over the place. They were running around trying to get the gun from me. I can remember it like it was yesterday. My first gun that was mine lasted exactly one outing and one shot. It was a Mossberg Bolt Action 12 gauge with a polychoke. I was aroun 6 or 7. First, it felt like it weighed 400 pounds. Then I took one shot with it and it liked to knock my shoulder off. I cried. YEA I CRIED. lol. The next day we went to a department store called Two Guys and I got a Nylon 66. I kept that for a long time but the next year I took the NRA Gun Safety Course at our local Boys Club and was allowed to go hunting with my dad. He bought me my first rifle that I could handle, hunt with and loved. A Model 94, 30-30. Fired lots of different guns and had some great shooting and hunting experiences with my dad until the bottle took over when I was about 14. SOme things happened, our house was raided and they took over 300 guns from our house. Made the news on that one.

Not MINE, but same as my first gun. Mossberg 395K

It was some time in late Summer or early Fall of 1973; definitely before quail season opened. I was 12 and my Grandfather took me to O.D. Miller's gunshop in Gulfport where he bought me a Savage Model 94 single shot 20 gauge. That Fall and Winter, and for many more, we hunted quail in the coastal pine savannahs behind Buttons, his Brittany Spaniel. Lots of guns have come and gone but I still have that one and from time to time I take it out and look down that same barrel and remember the smell of the Autumn woods, the smell of my Grandfather's coffee from his old green Thermos, the smell of gunsmoke trailing from an ejected case, and the contrast between cold hands and a still warm quail from the dog's mouth. Lots of guns these days have attachments but to me the best guns are the ones with memories attached.

For my 12th birthday I got an H&R .410 single shot. Didn't seem like much gun for a big 12 y.o. like me, according to my scoffing friends, but I was "proud as a puppy with two peters!" (wasn't that from the movie City Slickers?).

Still have it and still shoot it.

Illinois Central ain't got a freight train that'll haul all the squirrels that thing has killed!

Mine was a Mossberg 500 20ga given to me by my dad to start hunting with him. When you find time take a look at my thread what was your first in the long gun section.

The first gun I hunted with was a Stevens model 95A bolt action 410. But the first gun that was MINE was a Remington 870 20 GA. I got it for christmas when I was 10. Killed my first deer with it. The model 95 still resides in my brothers safe. The remington was stolen from my apartment in 1975.