Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Were you raised by a gun guy?

also my father did youth gun safety in a school for fun so we got to shoot plenty. our favorite past time in the spring and summer was shooting rats at the dump sure we had to clean up a truck load of garbage or tree limbs at our house ,uncle`s or grandparents but they all supplied us with 22 ammo to shoot rats at the dump ! now days there are no dumps but man that was fun shoot`n those rats !

Yes,but later,money being the holdup I'm sure. Dad was raised in a quail hunting family, they raised and trained bird dogs. My Grampa C had one rifle that I know of, a 63 Winchester. He had a finer bead mounted and supposedly won numerous shooting matches with it and killed one deer I'm told. He died when I was young so I never got to hunt with him. I have the rifle and it's a shooter.

My Dad had a Remington 1100, M700 6mm Varmint Special and Speedmaster BDL, that was it until he joined our towns volunteer police reserve. He went through various duty guns in my teens, He was a trapshooter too and we loaded many a shell together. He reloaded rifle and tons of pistol rounds during the cop days. He always qualified expert and at his funeral the Major of the Sheriffs Department told me "Before there were speedloaders your Dad could load faster from his pocket than anyone. Even after speedloaders he didn't switch for a while. He'd stick his hand in and come out with 6, not 5 or 7, I never saw anything like it "

He did buy several rifles in the 10 years before he died. He hunted with my friends, he always took a weeks vacation during deer season dating back to the mid 70's. We went to Colorado 3 times elk hunting and he killed two cows. We shot trap every week for 7 years or so until he died in 2006. He died way too young and I'm grateful for all those times now.

My Grampa M retired to the farm early and he and my Dad started the deer season vacation thing. He had one CF, a 742 in 243, that was the "big rifle" LOL. He was an old timer that ate a lot of squirrels and rabbits, there weren't many deer until the 70's and. 80's.

Sorry this is so long I probably should have stopped at yes.

KC

Those were the days. My bud and I as teens would go to the city dump at night and shoot rats. We each had a Nylon 66 and took lots of ammo. We'd fire up our headlights, empty the rifles, turn off the lights, reload in the dark. With the lights out, we could hear the rats start moving again. It was nothing for each of us to shoot a brick of .22 LR HP's. We killed a lot of rats. No way could that be done today.

DF

Sounds like fun. My dad’s told me stories about him and my Uncle as teenagers in the 70’s going out at night to shoot rats at the city dump.

That’s exactly how they described it and yeah can’t imagine that being legal today.

Today they’d call out SWAT, put us in jail.

Back then no one noticed. And it was a heap of fun. We’ll for us, probably not so much for those rats.

DF

the city where i grew up would allow shooting rats at the dump. you had to check in to get permission and where you could shoot. much simpler times. not as many lawyers.

Nope. Dad owned only what he deemed practical. That included a Mod 12, Mod 70 in .243, and a couple .22 rifles. He saw no need for hand guns. However, compared to his father, maybe he was. Grandpa saw no use for guns. Born in 1910, he visited a VA hospital in his youth and that forever soured him regarding firearms. My other Grandpa hunted very little. All he owned was a Savage .22 and a Win 24 double barrel.

I've inherited all the firearms but one, and have added many more to the collection.

Eh .. yes and no. My dad perceives himself as a firearms expert, how about that? His beliefs, mistaken for knowledge / fact, have proven quite risky at times.

Nope, dad had a Stevens pump shotgun and a converted 98K Mauser that he would sight in over the car hood minute of cardboard box and good enough. He went to deer camp just because his Masonic buddies did and partied. At least his buddy was a gun guy who gave me his old shooting magazines.
That .22 rat shooting brings back the memory of my best shoot ever. A buddy in school found me in the cafeteria and asked what I was doing that night? We drove a hundred miles to shoot rats all night in a Milwaukee dump that he knew about. His wife drove around in the huge dump and we sat on the hood shooting rats lit up in the headlights.

My dad had what he needed for self defense and hunting. But he could shoot what he had very well. He had 2 shotguns 3 rifles and 3 handguns. He rarely missed a bird with a shotgun. I have seen him put 3 shots in a 1" circle offhand at a 100 yards. I wish I could shoot like he could.

My brother and I grew up in a house that was immersed in firearms, hunting, trapping, and outdoor pursuits. My dad was a forester for the state and spent a lot of his time in the woods of extreme northern MN. We would occasionally go to work with him and tag along. He had a long gait that was hard to keep up with, but there was no waiting around. I learned early to watch my surroundings and lengthen my stride when trying to cover ground. We got in on blowing beaver dams, scaling timber, and lots of wildfires. He has had his FFL since the early 70's and always enjoyed ordering guns for others and for local banquets. He did a lot of scope mounting and sighting in for different people and started several folks out reloading. He taught hunter ed for several years and was the instructor for both my brother and I. We hunted deer, waterfowl, ruffed grouse, and did some predator calling. I got into trapping on my own and have spent many years enjoying my traplines. My old man's brothers were both big time Winchester collectors. One is still around and has a beautiful collection, the other passed away a few years back and had sold a big part of his collection before he died. After my mom passed away, my dad decided that he was going to split his collection between by brother and I so that he could enjoy seeing us use them. He has had a lot of health troubles of his own and can't comfortably shoot any more. I miss the days of shooting and hunting with him, but he still loves to talk guns and has now started to collect again. My son is also an avid shooter and hunter and has a sizable collection of his own. While my dad can no longer go with us, I enjoy nothing more than spending time in the field with my son.

No. My dad was the last of six Depression era farm kids of poor Dutch immigrants. He was a bookworm child who became an Econ and history prof later on the GI Bill after WWll.. He was wounded in the Philippines with two other brothers, one a POW in North Africa, and the other on a bombed out ship in the South Pacific; this was before the Sullivan brothers event. Only one of his brothers came to hunt casually after that. He did bring a Japanese 6.5 Carcano with an obstructed barrel home with him.

My sibs and I (the oldest), are all professionals, but with me being the only true conservative, hunter, and semi-loony ( I pale next to some here). It could have been a gene mutation I guess, or adoption except that I do favor my folks physically. I could accurately say that there is a liberal bent in the rest and their attitudes toward guns, no doubt from our dad’s and other post-grad influences (even then). I have always been different politically.

I was enamored at a young age of cartridges and the odor of burnt shotgun powder from the H&R 410 my father did buy me at age 12 or so. And the gun magazines at that time. My first couple of other guns were purchased through the local Sears & Roebuck catalog store or from a local combination barber-gun shop with a stained, creaky wooden floor — it was a much different time in America as we all know.

And so it began, primarily as an Iowa pheasant hunter in the days of abundant Government Acres (now CRP). That habitat and a fresh snow competed heavily with my college classes at the time.

It was a big sport for us in HS as we did the same. We taped flashlights to our .22’s also. It was actually kind of eerie as the whole dump started moving in the dark and you’d even hear the tinkling of cans as the rats moved about. It could almost give a guy a case of the heebie jeebies. 😀

I’m a self-made gun crank, with a bit of help from Jack O’Connor, John Jobson, Pete Brown, and some others. Have no one to blame but myself.

Nope. My dad had a 30-06 he bought in the fifties, 2 shotguns (16 and 20) bought in the 60s, a Ithaca Lever-action 22 (think Henry) and a 44 mag Ruger Blackhawk and S&W K22. Only saw the the shotguns used once and the rifle only came out when it was hunting season. The revolvers only came out if us kids wanted to shoot them. The 22 rifle was used most, usually when we went to an uncles ranch near Straw, MT to shoot gophers.

When I started hunting we had 3 rifles that belonged to my grandfather: a model 94 in 30-30 with a side mounted scope, a model 99 in 300 Savage with a scope, and a k98 in 8x57. The way it worked out was I got the 30-30 because it didn't recoil much, my grandfather got the 300 Savage because he was up in years and needed the scope and my dad took the 8x57 with open sights.

After a year or two my dad had a smith rework the bolt on the model 98 and had a scope installed on it. I hated that 30-30. We hunted with my uncle and my two cousins. My uncle was the looney. The first year we all went was his return to the woods after not hunting for 10-15 years. His oldest used his 760 in 30-06 and I forget what he took that year. After that he took a liking to the Browning A-bolt's and Sako's and they all had one or two. I still had my 30-30. When I was 16 I saved up enough money and bought a model 70 classic stainless in 7mm rem mag with the BOSS system. My uncle tried to talk me into buying a Browning but I was sold on the CRF of the model 70. A little overkill for the woods of PA but I wanted a bolt action like my uncle and cousins and after pouring over ballistics charts and reloading manuals I decided on the 7MM. I killed my first deer with that very rifle.

I hated the 30-30 because I wasn't a good shot with it. Part of it probably was because I was a 12 year old kid and it didn't fit quite right. The other issue I think was the offset scope with the thin buttstock. It was nearly impossible to get a good cheek weld but I didn't understand that that was the issue at 12. I blamed the gun.

I bought one or two more rifles in my 20's when I hit 30 things got out of hand. I got a new job with a nice raise and a lot of overtime. That's when the loonyism hit full force.

My dad was more of a gun as a tool guy. I blame my uncle, those reloading manuals, and all of the outdoor magazines I read in my youth.

My father thought hunting and guns were a waste of time. My grandfather on the other hand thought guns were necessary. I just happened to be mentored by a friend of the family who knew more about guns then I ever will and taught me a bunch. Memories I will always treasure, when I buy a gun I can hear him telling me yes or no and why.

I was not but my son was.

LOL

Good answer