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My great uncle Bill Roggenkamp grew up on a farm in North Dakota at the turn of the century. He was a World War I vet who contracted the Spanish flu in basic training in Louisiana. Everyone in the Barricks was sick and, or dying and he decided to go AWOL and go back home to ND. After he recovered the army took him back with no hard feelings and he honorably completed his service. As a young kid his father would give them 2 or 3 shotgun shells for a single shot 12 gauge or 16 gauge to go get a couple pheasants and not come back without the birds. Later he raised champion English setters in Fond du Lac Wisconsin and shot a very early browning sweet 16. One of the best wing shots I ever saw.

Great stuff guys! I bought my first handgun when I was 20. S&W model 39 9mm. Carried it when I was bow hunting for protection. Don't have that one any more.

Ron

H&R .410, typical full choke. 12yo, reward for graduating hunter’s ed, basically. Rubbed that stock with formby’s tung until became quite presentable. Was squirrel crazy in those days, an upgrade from a Daisy 880. Guess dad figured I couldn’t get in as much trouble as with a rifle.

Aside from squirrels, learned to throw a clay from a pull-lanyard Trius trap, mount and pull back hammer, shoot with fair success.

Benjamin 22 Cal pump pellet gun when I was 7 for Christmas.
Awsome rifle and I still have it.
I was 13 at Christmas and my Dad gave me a beautiful Sweet Sixteen Browning.
I still have it, still love it, and it's a great gun!
My dad gave me my Grandpas Browning Light 12 for Christmas when I was 16.
Many many many guns later........
My Dad gave me a worn Nickel Plated H&R 38 that a Chicago Police Chief gave my Great Grandfather.
My Grandfather gave it to my Dad for his 35th birthday with a beautiful letter to my Dad about the gun.
My Dad gave it to me for my 35th with a lovely and touching letter.
In 2 years I cant wait to give it to my Son.

H&R 9-shot, break top .22, at 8 years old, S&W 41 the same year.
It's been S&W ever since

Stevens single shot 20 ga and a Win Model 94 30-30. Got them both when I was 8. Shot my first duck with the 20 that fall and shot my first deer at age 9 with the 30-30. Still have both of them.

A Coast to Coast .22 for my 8th grade graduation in 1968. I still have it.

kwg

I cannot remember not having a BB gun so I must have been pretty young when I got it. My first real gun was a Mossberg 142A - the one with the folding forearm, I got it for my 10th birthday and my grandson is using it now. If I said how many gophers that gun has killed I would be branded as a fibber but lets just say it has been in the thousands.

Oh yes, it not only had an adjustable peep sight but it also had Mossberg scope on it, but it disappeared somewhere during the years - no great loss.

drover

My mother got me a Remington 511 for S & H Green Stamps, my dad got me a Savage Fox 12ga. S x S. When I was in college I bought my first centerfire rifle a Winchester M/88 .243 from a fraternity brother. I traded it for a pre '64 M/88 .308 after my dad told me he didn't think the .243 was enough for whitetail.

This brought back a bunch of memories. My dad didn't hunt when I was young but the rest of my family did so I had help.

My brother-in-law Don Stewart gave me a BB gun and a full box of red bb tubes the Christmas I was seven. Next he gave me gave me an 1892 in .32-20 with a 24" octagon barrel. I was eight.

For my ninth birthday I got a Model 55 Winchester and ammo from mom and dad. They let me keep it in my room with the ammo.

That summer when I was ten, my uncle Hubert gave me a tube feed Reminton bolt action .22. I sanded, polished and cold blued it, refinished the stock and put peep sights on it. I was a fool to sell it.

Don and an aunt lent me 94's in .25-35 for that fall and the next. The Savage and both 94's had Marbles tang sights. You can do nice work with those. These days I have an 1899 with them.

For my 12th birthday dad bought me a 99 Savage in .300 Savage. At the same time he bought a Model 88 in .308, the only rifle he ever owned.

When I was 15, I bought a Stevens 94 in 16 gauge with money from selling fireworks.

The next summer, me and three other kids from work bought Ruger autoloading .22LR pistols.

That was it until I got out of the Marine Corps in 1970 at 23. I sold most of them when I went in. I still have the Model 55, one of the .22 Rugers from a friend (who bought his when I did mine) and Dad's Model 88. It is my grandson's now.

A neighbor showed me how to reload for the Savage the year I got it..

After he left, the guys at the local Foster Sporting Goods let me use their gear if I bought bullets, primers and powder. 100 grain half jackets, 150 grain Hornady soft points and Ball C2 powder. You could still do worse.

I was given an Ithaca 66 12 gauge when I was eleven by a family friend whose son didn't want it anymore. I soon understood why. That shotgun would kick you down and stomp you.

My stepfather thought I was exaggerating. We were squirrel hunting one day and he fell in the creek. We built a fire and he was drying off. He spotted a squirrel and my shotgun was close so he grabbed it and shot.

It was comical as he shot in his underwear to see him spun around by the recoil.

That Christmas (1971) I had a brand new Rem. 870 Wingmaster 20 gauge under the tree from my stepfather. I passes it down to my son but it's still in my gun safe.

The first gun that was actually my own was a Stevens/Savage 20 Ga single shot,I think I was 11 or 12. It lived thru me,my brother, my cousin and both of my kids. Still in surprisingly good shape. Still kill a stray cat with it occasionally.

I was taught to shoot with a Sears bolt action 410. My first gun was given to me by my grandfather at Christmas when I was 10, a Remington 11-48. Didn't shoot it until I was 12 and still my go to shotgun.

All my sons each got their own Marlin 39 as their first rifle. As they got older, they got the following.

Rem 700 Classic in 250 Savage.
Savage 99A in 250 Savage.
1st year Remington 700 ADL Carbine in 30-06

I was not given my own firearm growing up. I used family guns. When my father passed in 2015, they all became mine.

The first that was actually mine, as opposed to family guns I had the use of, was an old FN single shot .22 that I was given when I turned 10. I'd already been out rabbitting with various family members from about the age of 7, so I was allowed to go out by myself on the family farm and those of the neighbours (all of whom were related to me). I would be issued a single round of ammunition, and expected either to come back with a rabbit or that round, or a good explanation.

When I turned 14 I was given a scoped Brno Model 1 .22, which was a big step up, though I'd tried various other .22s that my father and others had, such as Sportco, Browning and Ruger 10/22 self-loaders, a Winchester 1906 pump, and one or two others. The Brno was more accurate than any of them, and as well as shooting truckloads of rabbits and foxes I won several prizes with it. I also bought myself a new Winchester 1400 12 ga that year, with the 28" Winchoke barrel and 20" "riot" barrel. The latter proved ideal for close range bunnies and pigs, and I shot a lot of them, as well as shooting a lot of ducks with the longer barrel. I started reloading that year too, to keep the 12 ga fed.

The first gun Dad ever gave me was an old, very heavily used Ward's Western Field .22 single shot. It was pretty tired when I got it, but was very accurate.

At 11 my mom bought me an HR 410 single shot new from Kmart in Ogden Utah for $48. That same year I bought my own ruger 10/22 from Tom's marina in Burley, Idaho after a long layaway and many early mornings working at memorial monuments making wire rewards frames for concrete burial vaults.

Then I bought an H&R 12 gauge single shot with a plastic button plate no recoil pad. My friends called it Mulie because it knocked a few of them to the ground with 3" XX lead shot.

At 13 my grandpa gave me his old 1903 A3 30-06 sporterized with a fiddleback myrtle wood stock. At 14 I bought myself a new 700 BDL in 6mm.

I still have the 410, the 30-06, and the 6mm.

Bb

I had an ancient Winchester single shot rifle, a gauge single shot shotgun as a kid. When I was , I ordered a .38 revolver from an ad in Outdoor Life.

When I first answered this OP, my eyes saw “guns”....my mind read “firearms”! So, I guess my first gun was at age 7.....a Benjamin Pump in .177 caliber! memtb

Stevens model 15 single shot bolt action 22lr. Dad got it for me when I was 7yrs old. I can still remember how hard it was to pull back on the cocking knob with frozen fingers. I don't recall what happened to it but I found one 40 years later in a pawn shop and bought it. I still shoot it at least once a month. It is a tack driver for it's age. By far my most prized gun.