How did you start?

sidneyreilly

rrpc wrote:

You start wherever you want Sarah. If you want to do .22 Target Pistol, you start there. By all means you can also do Air, but there's no hard and fast rule on where you start.

Just bear in mind that target equipment is expensive, so try everything before you decide what you want to do, and definitely before you buy anything.

2nd that in it's entirety! As a matter of interest, who on the boards started on what. Better still, what was the first thing (make type etc..) everyone shot?

Make a interesting thread.

Sparks

Why yes, yes it would

I started with indoor 25yd .22 smallbore prone and 10m air rifle, then shot nothing but smallbore prone for about five years, then took up 10m air rifle and shot both for a few years, and in recent years have focussed more on 10m air rifle, and I've started 10m air pistol. First shot was on an Anschutz 18xx series smallbore prone rifle (an 1811 I think). It was older than me, and it's still in use today in DURC for training new shooters, even though the stock broke and has been mended since.

bunny shooter

Baikal 12g and a CZ 22 hornet, oh the memories

sidneyreilly

Old fella's .22lr Cooey/Winchester (sp? was some time ago) bolt action single shot down the back field into a ditch at about 7 or 8 years old.

Chopperdog 2

My first shotgun was an old Zabala (Spanish) side by side choked 1/2 and full.


That gun made my dentist quite wealthy from redoing alot of my fillings

First rifle was a .22 semi-auto mongrel of undetermined make, merely stamped as Brazil and its number.

stevoman

i started on an old pedretti. when i traded it to the dealer he said, yeah i might sell it, to an oul farmers whos looking to scare birds away!

fathersymes

12 years old, out with my uncle, he handed me the gun(20b S/S, Vickers (English Gun))) after a some stern warnings and said off you go. Thats 26years ago and I remember it to this day. Strange thing was I started seeing imaginary magpies flying over me for the first few minutes! Got a few grey crows and magpies during the day, still hooked!

Manic Moran

I seem to recall the first firearm (i.e. bigger than a BB gun) I fired was a .22 revolver, on a US Army base's club in Korea. At the same range, add in a 9mm and a .45, for fun.

The first I repeatedly shot was at UCDRC, 4.5mm Olympic Air Rifle, which then branched out into Clay Pigeon and .22, for occasional distractions.

First full-bore centrefire rifle I fired was the FN-FAL in the FCA, also the FN-MAG.

It spiralled from there.

NTM

yank_in_eire

I started on an old single barrel 12 ga - with no butt plate. The old man and his cronies had a great laugh at my expense. Fortunately being knocked on my *ss didn't put me off shooting.:D

newby.204

first shot at bottles(plastic) with wnchester semi 12g and my first gun was a beretta al391 urika bunnies got it good that day!!! as did a car door

IRLConor

I started with the very same rifle as Sparks. Have occasionally shot 10m air rifle since then but I've mostly stuck with prone .22 at 25yd indoors and 50m outdoors.

SMERSH

I am new to the game still, I started out on a Remington 597 .22 lr semi auto which I have great times shooting the rabbits and targets with.

I am think of getting a 12 guage for taking out the crows.

DJKH

Started on .303 Lee Enfield, then progessed to Bren, Gustaf and eventually the FN in 7.62, had an opportunity to train on GPMG and fired 84 Recoilless Rifle.

Funny think recoil or noise did not put me off and give me had trigger habits, must be down to the initial training!

Double Barrel

A shot from a single barrel 16 bore brought down a pigeon sitting on a branch of a giant pine tree ( everything is big when one is eight) at the end of a field of tillage. I watched my father roll his own light hand-loads and shot two boxes supervised before I was allowed to go afield alone at about twelve.
Shot my first grouse on the wing over setters at eleven.
I have enjoyed every minute in the field since.

bunny shooter

Fired to date in RDF - FN 7.62mm, Gustaf 9mm, Bren LMG 303", GPMG 7.62mm, Steyr AUG 5.56mm, BAP 9mm, Accuracy International 7.62mm, 81mm Mortar, grenades...........

Our man in Havana

I started on my dads 12 gauge shotgun shooting rabbits and crows at the age of 12. I then joined the FCA and shot FN 7.62 and Styer AUG 5.56 .

Traumadoc

Pony club!

Rovi

First shot was out of my father's old 12 gauge BSA side by side at age 10-11 or so, if I recall correctly.
That was 'fun', as the stock was broken from when he'd defended himself against a wild bullock by bashing it over the head with the gun. :eek:
The broken bit was 'repaired' with wood glue, copper wire, and insulating tape, which made the whole thing somewhat flexible in use. :rolleyes:
I fired one shot out of it and didn't touch it again until I was in my late teens.
By this time, it was so worn it would 'double' (fire both barrels simultaneously) more often than not. Can we all say 'anticipate' and 'flinch'?
It got traded (scrapped) a few years later for the Beretta 302 semi-auto I still have.

My first experience of rifles was with .22LR semi-auto and bolt action rifles belonging to relatives and family friends.
At around age 14 or so, and after much campaigning, I persuaded my father (and more importantly, my mother) that a pellet gun would be a 'very good thing' to have around the place. I 'loaned' my dad the money for him to buy the gun I had picked out for him (;)), and in due course a shiny new BSA Meteor in .22 appeared. Bear in mind that this was in the mid 70s, when getting anything with a rifled barrel was a really big deal.
I put tens of thousands of pellets through that thing before eventually trading it in against an Anschutz 525 semi-auto in .22LR.

The Anschutz and Beretta were the sum total of the collection until a few years ago when a bit of common sense finally broke out in the powers that be, and much cool stuff (by Irish standards, at least :rolleyes:) has been acquired since.

cavan shooter

First shotgun was a Baikal IJ27-E O/U got when I was 16 and still use to this day. Wouldn't part with it, in saying that I don't think a dealer will trade it.

Now I also have a Bettinsoli Supersporter for clays and a Urika.

First rifle was a CZ452 american .22lr now I shoot a remington 597 .22WMR

meathstevie

First shot with a S/S 12g Saive that got "nationalised" by a friend of my father's during WWII in Belgium. Rightly tought it was wasted on a Nazi blx anyway..it was the dad's main rough shooting gun until about 15 years ago. Moved on to a 9mm rimfire shotgun then a shared Browning B25 trap with the old man... . Happy owner of an Anschutz .22 hornet a Merkel S/S 12g now..jury still out on the Stoeger M2000 ( bit of cycling trouble ).

smallfry

First time I pulled a trigger was about 12 years ago on an old
Winchester .22 rifle owned by my uncle, he setup some targets and we took
turns. I hit more, I was hooked...
I got my single shot Krico .22lr two months later.
My first shotgun came courtesy of a neighbour, BSA 12g single barrel (canon),
and that made way for a cheap and cheerful Baikal 12g O/U......
There's nothing I'd rather be doing than shooting......

smallfry

jcatony

My Father's old 12 gauge Pedretti O/U.