Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire What turned you on to guns?

My ex-brother-in-law around 1986. I had just joined the Navy and finally had some disposable income. My first purchase was a Winchester 94 XTR chambered in 7-30 Waters. Shot my first whitetail with it and sold it when his sister and I divorced a few years later. He's still a great guy, but she's only gotten meaner and a bit bigger.

Grew up on a farm in very rural west central Kansas. There wasn’t much else to do in free time, except shoot, hunt and fish. So I and brothers really got into guns.

Good question. My dad’s best friend was a gun guy and he gave me all his old gun magazines when i was old enough to read them. He also helped dad get me a good Winchester M62A as a starter .22, probably out of his own extensive collection. When I needed to borrow a deer rifle, I got a Winchester M64, then pre-64 M70’s as i got older. Launched me nicely.

My father had a bring back Luger that I was shown as a youngster.

Analyst say it's because my generation grew up with TV that was loaded down with westerns & war movies.

But my attraction goes back to before that. I've often wondered. But from some of my very first memories of life, guns have peaked my interest.

I don’t really know. I had no dad or uncles. I guess it’s was from guys at school talking about it. Bought a Stevens 12 gauge when I was 16. Used it to dove hunt, deer hunt, and shoot for fun. I still have it.

Where about in the Adirondacks? I hunted Franklin County, near Sugarbush, with my Dad, Uncle and Grandfather and tagged along with them from about the age of 12.

I get hungry.

I've told this on other forums but it's still real to me.

I was @ 10 yo and my Dad borrowed a sporterized 303 B to go deer hunting from a family friend.
He stood it beside the front door the night before so I got to LOOK at it.
Can't tell you what rifle or what had been done to it. It looked GOOD to me.

A Rifle Loony was born.


Jerry

Genetic predisposition.

My grandfather bought a Browning auto 5 before I was born. I was fascinated with it as a small, pre school child.

He would sit me up in a big, stuffed arm chair and lay the Browning across its arms and give me an oily rag. That would keep me quiet and occupied for a long time.

Not to bring up the J and H words, but my parents are holocaust survivors and I grew up knowing what happens to unarmed people who become the targets of those with numbers and/or weapons. So while my parents never liked guns generally, a good part of my family were firearms users. My uncles and cousins lived in rural areas (around Yuba City/Marysville and Shasta) and guns were just part of life...we went hunting and target shooting and that was pretty much it. It was just normal for us and we also knew that guns were not only not evil, they are survival tools in the most elemental sense.

as a young boy didn't need any encouragement it was instinct guns are cool

I was friends with the neighbor kid who lived across from me when I was about 9 or 10. He had a bunch of older brothers......one old enough to drive. One day the older brother showed up with a dead deer and a dead hog in the bed of a pickup when I was over. We just stood around and stared at them while he and his Dad talked about the hunt. It was an epiphany! One of those moments where you are like man I gotta do this!

I went home and told my Dad about it and told him I wanted to go hunting! Dad was a big fisherman and cared nothing for hunting but he was a great Dad. He took me to "the country".....a few miles outside of town where he grew up, which is now a shopping mall and Mack truck dealership and we shot his 22 at cans. He had a 22 and a 12 gauge languishing in storage. Later we did a little squirrel hunting nearby. When I killed the first one I was so excited it may as well have been one of the Tsavo lions. Later than that when I could somewhat handle the shotgun, we slipped up on some wood ducks and I bushwhacked one sitting on the water in a swamp and had to wade out to get him. I was about 21 or 22 before I managed to kill my first deer thanks to some guys I met in college so it took awhile from the day I saw the deer and hog in the back of the truck that day.


The same Dad got me a Browning BAR for college graduation. He was the best. Sure miss him.

I don't really know. There are a lot of things for which I just seem to have a natural affinity.

6 yr old kid in 1969 growing up in northern maine got a daisy red ryder for xmas.
Grandfather got it for me.
Been game on like donkey kong ever since.

LOL.

I turned myself on to them, I was fascinated by them.

I was born in 1950....... By 1955 I was playing with cap guns & squirt guns and watching all the guns on TV. Lots of local "big kids", ( 10-14 or so) had really cool stuff like BB guns. Local sporting goods store had racks full of new & used guns including tons of old Mausers, Lee-Enfields, etc., some of which were sporterized and left me drooling. My dad had a Model 67 Winchester 22 & a 16 ga. Iver Johnson break open single shot that was his pheasant gun in the early 40's . Back in the 1950's I thought rifle rounds all looked something like the 22lr's that dad's model 67 took. Because that's a rifle, right? First time I ever saw a .30-06 cartridge up close and in my hand I was dumbfounded by the huge size of it. Never could satisfy my gun curiosity, which is why I'm still trying.

Yep.

When I was three, my dad took me out and let me shoot his .30-30, with him helping hold it. His intent was to scare me away from guns so I wouldn’t play with them. (No earplugs) He had two: a Mossberg 22 for small game and that Marlin 336. They were just tools for hunting. His did not realize his intent, and by making them mysterious, he made me curious. Have been fascinated with them since. I have considerably more than two.
Side note, he died while hunting in 2003, holding that Marlin. Last year I shot a deer with it on the anniversary of his death.

Old70

Between Holcombville and Johnsburg, off Peaceful Valley Road and Back To Sodom Road. Oven Mountain. Not sure, but I think that was Warren County.