Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Was your Father a Shooter/Reloader

Dad was a hell of a shot on running deer with his 870 and a smoothbore slug barrel. Maybe memory plays tricks over time but, I remember one almost unbelievable shot - and him just smiling at me after the shot like, "Yes, son, that is how it's done." My mom killed a buck when she was pregnant with me. I'm looking at his little spike rack on my wall right now. She gave my dad a Belgian BAR in 30 06 for a wedding present. Mom's pretty cool. Dad didn't handload but, my mom's dad did and he had me down in the basement loading for the sporterized small-ring Mauser in "7mm Mauser" that he gave me when I was 12 or 13. I don't handload now but, I'm slowly gathering the necessaries and building up to it. Lots of memories of hunting with dad and both grandfathers - upland, ducks, turkeys and deer mostly. Mom stopped hunting before I started. I'm one of the lucky ones.

None of the above!!

My dad was and is a hunter. When I was small he loved to bass fish and we went all the time. He and his brothers loaded Peters Blue Magic 12ga hulls in anticipation for dove and quail season and all three kept a setter if not two.

He had me shooting a 22 before I was old enough for kindergarten and ground sluicing doves with a cut down Stevens 410 by kindergarten. Sat beside me as I shot my first buck in the 4th grade, first turkey the following spring as he and one of his brothers called a big Tom into range of the single shot 20ga I’d graduated to by then.

Started taking me out of state to chase pheasants by the time I was 8, nearly froze to death every trip and didn’t actually kill one until my 3rd year but I was always raring to go with “the guys” no matter how bad the forecast was.

Let me go to the mountains on the annual pilgrimage to elk/mule deer camp at 13 but the dirty jokes and the way beer tasted were to stay in the mountains or else! Neither of us got much hunting done that first year, me worried about getting lost and him worried about losing me.

Other than shotshells he wasn’t really a loader. He’d buy a box of bullets he liked the look of from a magazine ad and go load them at a good friend’s house. He did buy me a Lee Loader second hand at an estate sale when I was 12 or 13 and let me get some bullets and powder to load 38s I’d then get to shoot out of his 4” M19 S&W. I really picked up loading for rifles and pistols when my best friend’s dad got him a Rockchucker kit for Christmas one year and gave us a crash course with the admonishment to only load what was in the book.

When I really got the shooting bug at about 12 he made certain I had 22 shells. If I wasn’t in trouble I got a 550rd Winchester value pack per week as allowance. I never had any left by the end of the week and song birds and varmints were scarce within a mile or so of the house. Ended up that the whole family kind of got into it and my uncle made a bunch of steel targets he put up out at the cabin. Every Sunday evening we’d all get together for a picnic and afterwards we’d shoot, sisters, brothers, grandparents, pretty much all of us.

Dad still doesn’t miss a day of rifle season out in the hills and lives for the year he draws a mule deer tag. But it has to be a pretty dang big buck before he’ll drop the hammer on him. I don’t know that he’ll shoot another elk, never really been big into elk hunting but has killed a bunch over the years for the freezer and to have something to hunt on no deer tag years. I don’t think he’s as mad at them as he once was. Still a dang good shotgunner, I can’t remember seeing him need a whole box to kill a 15 dove limit but we don’t seem to get the birds migrating through like they used too.

In all I had an outstanding childhood egged on and nurtured in my outdoor pursuits by the whole family. It was great and I’m trying my best to duplicate it for my son.

My Father was a expert rifleman, USMC 1937 thru 1947, and an avid 'chuck hunter, but only casually interested in shooting game. He figured that hunter/gatherers had evolved centuries before and was happy to have a local farmer raise a couple of castrated Holstein bull calves every year. He did go to deer camp every year up until around 1975 when his WW2 buddies were starting to drop out. He and Bearrr264's Father were lucky hunters, in that both of them killed multiple bucks over 200 lbs. that got them Maine Big Buck Club patches. The Tarawa Crew, all WW2 USMC vets, set up their deer camp on Sunday Pond in northwestern Maine from around 1950 until around 1975.

My Father was more interested in his pre-'64 Winchester 70 collection than anything else. When he heard from his friends in the gun business that Winchester was going to change the Model 70, he took a month or so of vacation and traveled all over 10 state in the northeast buying up all of the NIB, excellent used, and uncommon Model 70s that he could find. I remember how pissed that my Mother was when the dining room and parlor were stacked full of guns for months in late 1963 and early 1964.

What is a "5 diamond" 760? I'm not familiar with the term.

Jim

My dad was neither a shooter, reloader or hunter but lucky for me my uncle was a deer hunter. As soon as he took me to his deer camp I was hooked. A few of the men at camp were gun dealers and it seemed like everyone was glad to offer me some sort of advice. My parents saw that my new hobby was keeping me out of trouble for the most part and they bought me a Marlin 336 in 30-30 from the local farm supply store for $88. Soon afterward I got my pistol permit and my first purchase was a brand new Colt Python for $459 at the original Dick's Sporting Goods in Binghamton. I learned mostly through trial and error. I didn't start reloading until about 30 years later. Looking at my gun collection and reloading supplies I can now say that I have too much of everything, and I owe it all to my Uncle Hank who took a dumb kid to deer camp.

The 5 diamonds refers to the checkering on the forearm of the 760 BDLs made before the early 1960s. The standard grade 760 ADLs had vertical grooves, often referred to as the "corn cob" style, on the forearm.

I have no proof my father ever fired a gun of any kind.

kwg

My Dad did some hunting in his 20's. Then he sold his guns. Ended up working with some guys in his mid 30's that hunted fox. He got a 243 as he figured if he ever went deer hunting he could use it for deer. He went deer hunting once when he was in his early 40's. When he was about 50 my brother got a job in a South Dakota. He knew a lady from high school that lived on a ranch out there and wrote to her if she knew of anywhere my brother could hunt. She and her husband had moved to town but her son still lived on the home place. It worked out good as my brother and I have hunted out there now for over 30 years. My Dad went out with us about a half dozen time. He enjoyed hunting but seems like life kept him busy. My brother got me hunting with him and I started reloading with Ruffcutt.

My Dad didn't hunt or shoot. He cut his hand nearly off when my brothers and I were very young and as a result had no feeling in it and diminished control of it... It wasn't that he didn't know how to shoot. He said he's shot everything from his shotgun before WW2 to the issued 1911's and the deck guns on his Destroyer Escort. He just couldn't shoot. He knew that we had a huge interest in hunting and saw to it that we had access to a place to shoot and hunt. He joined a hunting club his friends were in just so that he could take us hunting and we could learn from people that he knew well. I can't fault him for how he handled the situation and hope I did as well with my sons.

I have never seen my dad shoot or fish, he golfs. A friends dad used to take me hunting or fishing trips a few times when we where in high school. I loved it. I am very thankful for him taking me.

Dad was a passionate pheasant hunter. He really liked hunting deer, pronghorn, coyotes, shooting gophers and prairie dogs, but he LOVED hunting pheasants. He loaded his own rifle, pistol, and shotgun rounds since well before I was born. I was allowed to start helping when I was strong enough to "double-thumb" primers into cases with a Lee Auto-Prime.

Summer I turned 12 I was on the youth trap league. Dad traveled every week for work. Left on Tuesday am and home late Thurs afternoon like clockwork. The deal was, I had to have the lawn mowed and 100 rounds of trap shells loaded (50 for each of us) by the time he got home Thursday or I didn't get to go. We both shot Rem 1100's. So, I had to size the AA hulls with a single-stage Mec sizer then load them back up with a Lee Load All. Dad's hunting buddy had 2 boys about my age and the 3 of us would sit on the reloading room floor counting 25 #4-buck pellets into "Sandhill Crane" shells when lead was still legal for them then we'd hand them back to one of the dads for crimping. When I got to high-school dad's neighbor bought a progressive PW and we'd get a whole season's worth of shotgun shells knocked out on a winter a weekend.

Started loading rifle ammo on a Rockchucker. My job was to de-prime/re-size/trim brass so it was ready to load. Again, I'd spend winter days doing that so stuff was ready when it was time. Sometime in Jr High dad got a Dillon 550 and that sped up the re-fill process quite a bit.

I know factory rifle ammo is good these days but I still "feel" like I'm using an inferior product when I get lazy and shoot factory. I don't mind shooting factory shotgun ammo but I do have a Dillon SL900 I'll sit down @ for 2-3 cold winter weekends every 2-3 years and get several season's worth of target ammo loaded up.

I still do things a lot like he did. I have lots of brass prepped/components bought and ready to load, but, I don't actually have tons of loaded ammo. I change my mind too often when new stuff is introduced. I usually keep a pretty fair number of 223's loaded with 50 V-max and 55 soft-points loaded for short notice high-volume days but other than that it's pretty rare that I have more than 100 or so loaded up for any other specific rifle.

Dad was a fine shot, both with a shotgun and rifle. Coyotes was his passion well before anyone was hunting them. Through a co-worker whom got him interested in coyotes he eventually reloaded for rifle, pistol and shotgun. I was in my teens when Dad taught me to reload my TC Contender for days in the field first practicing on paper and jack rabbits and then calling coyotes.

When I was a kid,Dad hunted small game, birds and deer on a regular basis. We shot a lot of BB’s and 22’s over the years. Dad liked to deer hunt and was still going out at age 88 although it mostly involved taking the cab tractor out and sitting at the edge of a farm field. He never reloaded but turned me over to a cousin who did when I was about 15. He shot my handloads in his deer rifle but we always bought our shot shells. Dad definitely lit the hunting fire, the cousins at camp helped fan it.

Dale

Shooter.

Not reloader.

Well...he could reload a M48 Tank.

My Dad ( a gunners mate) was also on a DE……USS Hurst , DE 250. Two years in the North Atlantic on Convoy Duty, then finished out the War in the South Pacific. He was part of many landing parties hitting small islands checking for any Japanese activity…..radio stations, ect. memtb

My old man was an excellent shot. He'd won prizes in competition with rifle and pistol, and was an excellent wing shot too. In fact he could wingshoot ducks with a .22, and in a more innocent time did it in front of witnesses more than once. He shot effortlessly, a real natural.

He was interested in military small arms, as he was interested in other military technology like fighter planes and tanks. He wasn't really all that interested in sporting arms, other than that they functioned reliably and shot accurately. I remember when I was a kid he would impulse buy rifles, mostly .22s, and if they didn't shoot well or gave any hint of trouble he'd give them away. As a result there was a bit of a procession of them. There were a few that stayed on, including my grandfather's 20 ga double, a Marlin 1893 that I now own, the Brno Model 1 he gave me, and an SMLE. He gave me my first rifle when I was 10, and was happy enough to smile and nod at the appropriate moment at the gunshop when I started buying my own from about the age of 14.

He never liked scope sights - didn't feel the need for them and didn't trust them. He also had no interest in reloading, but had no issue with me setting up in the back shed to reload my own when I was about 14.

He had gradually lost much interest in hunting though, by the time I was really getting into it, so my early hunting was mostly done with my grandfather, or an adult cousin, or by myself. About the only hunting trip I remember with him was on a friend's place after pigs.

No. All my screw-ups are mine.

My dad was a child of the depression so there was no money for things like guns and no time to take off from work for things like hunting, so he never took it up till later in life. He did realize my love for hunting and shooting which I inherited from my maternal grandfather, and nurtured it. He occasionally went small game hunting with friends when I was young and allowed me to tag along. When I was old enough to hunt he went along until I was old enough to hunt by myself. At that point I was basically on my own, although he always encouraged me to continue. He bought me all of my first guns and always supplied ammo for me to practice and hunt. He mentioned many times that hunting/shooting was a good "hobby" for me to pursue. He never shot a deer, that I know of since his only gun was a Mossburg 500 shotgun, which he used for everything. Slugs were good enough, according to him, but I absolutely know he never shot at a target to determine where the slugs were going. He also hated he cold and so sitting waiting for a deer to come by was a no go! He did push the first deer I ever shot to me for which I was eternally grateful. He saw it, never shot at it, and watched it move my direction when it spooked. He was al smiles when he heard the shots and came walking up to me and my prize.

The old man started Me reloading with Him at age of 10 by the time I was 12 I was doing it on My own. On My twelfth birthday. He pulled out two rifles a Model 20 Savage and a Model 99 EG both in 250 Savage told Me to pick the one I wanted for My first rifle I took the 99 and have enjoyed hunting and shooting and most of all reloading. I ended up with both rifles and still have them today.