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What's your experience with shooting firearms.....years-wise?

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Jim

I was five so 63 years.

I was five so 63 years.

I don't remember not shooting.

Obviously started with BB guns but on to 22 RF early on.
I'm 66 so..... I had my own .410 by age 8 or 9. Still have it.

Five or so with my Benjamin and I am now fifty four. I started handloading when I was sixteen thanks to a M29 I bought that I could not afford to feed. About the same time with shotshell handloading for the same reason...

This sounds like a depression story but...

Started with a break action pellet rifle without a rear sight. When couldn't afford BB's (it was a .177), would shoot maize out of it. Could usually afford a pack of BB's...

Got my first .22 when I was 8, still have it.
Bolt action .410 when I was 10, still have it.
Bought a French Berthier at a hardware store when I was 11, still have it.

63 now.

I think I started around 3, my dad and brother would pump up the benjamin, I'd rest it on the handrail of the deck and proceed to shoot dixie cups off the wood pile. Somewhere around the same age I was allowed to squeeze off a few from dad's remington #4 rolling block. That would be 40 years and change.

My dad started me with a .22 revolver shooting .22 shorts when I was 5. We shot all the time. That was back when you could drive outside the city limits and drive down a dirt road and throw some cans out and start shooting. He gave me a 20 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun when I was 14. I'm 57 now, so 52 years.

Started with a Daisy BB gun at around 5. Got first .22, a Stevens Crackshot 26 at 6, still have it. Got a 20 gauge single-shot shotgun at 7. It's still in the family. Pappy (Grandfather) "sporterized" a .303 Brit No.4 Mk1 for me at around 8. Started reloading for it at 11. Killed my first deer with it at 16. Still have it. I'm 60, so that makes 55 years shooting.

43 years.

29 years of handloading my own ammo.

61 years, Daisy, 22LR, and than a mail order trapdoor Springfield from "Ye Olde Hunter". That was followed by a Krag, .30 U.S.

GTC

64 years behind the trigger. 60 years at the loading bench.

Started around five, going out plinking with my father, so about 58 years.

I'm 63,started at 5 or so. Got my first gun(can't call it a firearm),a .177 cal.,Benjamin Pump at 7 yrs old. I had to wait until I was 8 for a real firearm. I got a Stevens .22/410(my dad had won,just after WW 2. I killed my first deer with it. My grandson now has it! memtb


As an addition: I got my first handgun(a Browning Nomad) at about 10 or 11, and I bought my first centerfire rifle at 13( Winchester Model 88 in .308),started handloading at 15 with a $9.99(still have it) Lee Loader,as it was the only way I could afford to shoot it. I finally got my first centerfire handgun at 16(a S&W Model 28), my mother had to sign for it,thanks to the 68 Gun Control Act.

I can remember sitting between my father's knees and pulling the trigger of his Remington 521-T when I was around 2 or 3. I'm 67 now. Been reloading for 43 years.

When I was a kid, the County Fairs still used real 22's in the gallery shoots. I was around 5, so 57 years.

I would say 6 or 7 so in that case, 61-62 years.. Been fun.. I need to go shoot today..

Started shooting when I was 5 or 6 and I'll be 65 in June, coming up on 60 years I guess. Started reloading in my early 20s, so 40+ years of loading my own.

No idea when I started shooting my grandfathers 22 but I was reloading for my deer rifle when I was 13 and I am 66 so that would put it over 53 years.

Started with a chipmunk 22 when I was five or so with my dad and reloading with him at 7 or 8. Continuing the tradition with my daughter. Got her a cricket 22 for her 5th birthday and a Model 7 compact in 243. She also likes helping reloading which we call Bullets by Brenna.

55 years shooting, 50 years reloading.

I was a latecomer. I did not start shooting until I was in my early 20', well out of college. I started hunting shortly after that. I waited until 15 years ago to start reloading, but I'd saved every piece of brass I'd shot.

I'm 58, so that would put me with 53 years of trigger time, 44 years of reloading, starting with the tried and true Lee Loader, like most everybody else.

Only around 46 years....

And yep, reloading for around 36, started with the hammer and lee loader... made a couple miles since then...

And years don't mean squat either... I've known some that have shot for over 70 years and still dumb as any rock you could pick up....

BigStick says I never have. Rats. Sounds like fun.

One of my earliest memories is shooting a Winchester single shot .22 with Mom & Dad; I was probably 5 or 6. Dad wasn't much of a gun guy, but I guess that he realized that I would be and made sure I understood safety and the other basics. That would have been about 56 years ago. I started reloading 44 years ago with a Lee Loader & a hammer.

Dad started me at 3 with a BB gun that looked like an M1 Carbine. You pushed the barrel into the stock to 'cock' the spring then worked the bolt to put a BB in. That thing finally disintegrated when I was in Jr. High.
First rifle that was 'mine' was a Savage 243. Followed by a Mohawk 600 in 243. I still have the Savage and my grandson is using the 600.

All in all, 54 years.

Guess I probably started about like most, around age 5 or so, since I don't really remember not shooting.

Most of my shooting was 22s and shotguns when I was young. Didn't own my first CF rifle til I was about 36, I'm 44 now. Up until about 5-6 yrs ago I probably had fired less than 100 rounds of CF ammo in my life, then I found this site and around the same time got hooked up with a neighbor who reloaded and deer hunted a lot. Since then I've amassed a safe full of rifles, bought a reloading setup off the classifieds here, and currently reload for about 20 different cartridges including a couple of wildcats.

Started with a Daisy BB gun around age 6. Helped my dad reload starting around age 10 or so. Only reloading on my own for about 16 years.

I'm 45......

I've owned my oldest rifle for 61 years, was shooting others a few years before that.

Geez, I feel like a rookie with this crew. I've only been getting my gun off for about 40 years.

I was 11 when I fell in love with shooting at a Boy Scout Camp; got my first .22 at 13 and am still shooting at 74.

BB gun and 22 with dad's help about four. So 43 years.

53 now so probably 48.

7th birthday was - uummmm -56 years ago. (started late!)
Reloading since 1966 - wow 50 years, now!

56 years. Seems like a lot longer sometimes. Several comments about starting out with a Daisy BB gun. I would love to be able to buy a Daisy now that would shoot as good as I remember my old Daisy lever action shooting…and it wasn't even a Red Rider.

60 years, maybe a little more. I got my first .22 when I was 8 but had shot BB guns some before that. I always hunted, but when I started action shooting competition about 20 years ago I began shooting a lot more and then started reloading.

BB gun when I was 5 or 6ish, a 22 when I was maybe 9 or 10 although for the first year or so it was only under dads supervision. I got a shotgun and rifle around 12 and started to reload.


I went in the service at 17 and within a year I was on the service rifle team and later spent 2 years as a scout/sniper with the M21. I had always hunted but the military formalized my shooting and taught me a bunch of principles behind what I had been doing for a long time.

I am 50 now, and I don't shoot competitively any more but I shoot quite regularly, Mostly rifles with a bit of pistol, at least once or twice a week when the snow isn't more than knee deep.

Just saw this thread and thought I'd like to contribute.

I'm 76 and started shooting at 6 or 7 so that's about 70 years.

50 years. There was a fifteen year stretch where I didn't do a lot of shooting, kids and work travel.

Started with a Springfield single shot 22 around six, so about 62 years.

57 years now. Started at the ripe young age of three, shooting at seashells wedged into a driftwood log with my Dad's .22 revolver rested on another driftwood log on the beach outside of Juneau, AK.

Started handloading 42 years ago.

Ed

About 58 years, since Boy Scout camp. I always loved guns, but didn't have access to them until then since I lived in town and my father didn't shoot. I didn't own a gun until I was about 16, and bought my own.

My father grew up on a farm in the Texas panhandle when the country was overrun with jack rabbits and he learned how to shoot, for the bounty, but he would always rather play stick and ball games. After the Battle of the Bulge, he had had enough camping and shooting for a lifetime, and that was that. We had a baseball diamond in the back yard and a basketball goal over the garage door, but no guns, rods, or boats.