Where did you learn to shoot?

[bigfellascott]

After a discussion in another thread I thought it would be interesting to see where peoples shooting journey began, so where did it all start for you?

How long have you been shooting
What do you like doing shooting wise the most (hunt/target etc)
How did you get into shooting in the first place?
What was the first cal you shot?

For me my shooting journey began with my dad and older brother, we went hunting for pigs and foxes, roos etc and the first rifle I ever shot from memory was a old 303 with open sights (I was about 8 at the time I guess) and I loved it and have had an interest in firearms ever since, I think my first rifle was a Crossman 788 BB gun followed by a Sharp Innova .177 air rifle (bloody powerful that little bugger and deadly accurate - used to practice shooting little accorns I think they are called (well that's what we called them anyway of trees around the backyard and bush along with all manner of other things along the way.

When I was old enough to buy myself a rifle I think I bought either the Brno Mod 2 or the 222 Howa (can't remember which came first) I can't even remember why they were chosen and why those particular cals were chosen now (I guess I bought them to chase the bunnies and foxe and goats etc (probably influenced by Sporting Shooter Mag at the time (loved reading all the hunting stories in those) certainly got the imagination going I'd say.

I was also influenced by a family friend who was an editor of one of the shooting mags back in the day and I guess the rest is history really, been hunting on and off ever since (Goats, Deer, Pigs, foxes and Rabbits) and have loved doing it - learn't on the job as it were out there regularly chasing game whenever I could (never really did the range thing to learn to shoot like most seem to do these days) never needed it as had access to hunting land so no real use to me (only time I ever visited ranges was when doing some load testing but don't really bother with them much any more to be honest (wasn't overly interested in the political side of things when it comes to some ranges and the look at me crowd didn't do it for me either and had very little if any interest in shooting groups all day long (much prefer the solitude of the bush, the smells and sounds etc, just chilling out under a tree for a while scanning the surrounding bush land in the hope of finding my quarry, it didn't matter to me whether I found something to shoot or not (still doesn't) I just like being out there enjoying the bush.

So what's your story on how it all began?

[bladeracer]

Police & Citizens Youth Club as soon as we moved into the big smoke.
Was shooting competition with air rifles and bought my own Norinco .177 right away.
Also joined Army Cadets at that same time and was part of their small-bore team, and we even got to shoot the M16 rifle (semi-auto only, but the Army instructors did some full-auto shooting to show us what it was like). We were also issued with de-act SLR rifles for drill.

I really enjoyed crow shooting as a kid, they were really smart which made for lots of long-range shooting across open farmland. They're protected now though.
But cats probably give me the greatest pleasure. I hate the damage cats do even more than I hate what foxes do. I was pretty spoiled as a kid, although I wasn't aware of it at the time. My "job" was essentially controlling the pests across several thousand acres of farmland, every single day, on foot. Keeping an eye on stock, fences, gates and such for the property owners. Looking back, I realise now just how lucky I was.

I can't recall being around firearms at all prior to that, although I'm sure plenty of people owned them (we used to take ammo out into the bush and throw rocks at it and set fire to it and we must've been getting that from somewhere). I started collecting replica firearms while still in Hedland, probably about age ten I guess. As youngsters we used to go aboard all the Navy ships that came through Port Hedland and Perth and I was always at the firearms displays trying to work out how they worked. On HMAS Perth, I had my finger over the ejection port of a Sterling and dropped the bolt - ouchy! Still have that scar.

Then we went back to the bush before I finished high school and I started buying all sorts of goodies.
First rifle was a new 10/22.
First centrefire was a new Remington 788 .222 a few weeks later, and immediately started reloading ammo for.
First shotgun was a new Bentley 8-shot 20" pump gun.

On the properties I was shooting, the farmers would often ask me to take their youngsters out. Usually city kids that had no idea about the bush or firearms. Those experiences very quickly put me off wanting to shoot with people I don't know intimately.

[juststarting]

Partially here...

[Adlippy]

About twelve months ago I was laying on a couch on a farm in nsw, my host arrived home and said we were going shooting, I didn't want to go, I had absolutely no interest in guns, I have been around farms all my life, I knew they had a place, my parents weren't interested in them so I wasn't. So I was dragged off kicking and screaming I was handed the spotlight and away we went. Towards the end of the night I was handed a 22 , had a few shots missed by a country mile we went home. A few days later we were out again, this time with something a lot bigger ( can't remember what it was), our "hares" had also grown in size, they were huge, this time I managed to hit one but unfortunately it was a clean kill, I walked strait up to it finished it off at point blank range handed to rifle to my mate and said to that that was the first time I had killed something, he asked if I was ok, I was, but I did say to him that I wasn't going to shoot at another animal until I knew what I was doing.
Back at the house that night I requested a license application form, I rang mates old man and asked him if he would sign the land owners permission section, he agreed. I was then straight onto the net for some education and discovered this forum and have been educating myself ever since.my shooting is getting better, it's not often I miss a rabbit or hare (both small and huge) but I still can't get a fox!!! Damn things are just to clever, I have learnt to skin and gut I have tried to tan but stuffed it up and haven't had time to retry it but it's on the cards. I have surprised my family and friends, I have spend a bloody fortune and am still spending, I brought a reloading press today. I have still not forgiven the guy in the local gun shop who handed me a Sako Finnfire 22lr for the first time and started a love hate relationship with Sako ( love the guns, hate parting with the cash but we all have a cross to bear) I am hoping for the chance to go deer hunting in a few months but will see what happens.

My only regret is that I didn't "discover" this hobby years ago.

[happyhunter]

Learned to shoot in my grand parent's back yard. I was about 4 years old, shooting one of the many air rifles belonging to my teenage uncles. By the time I was 9, got hold of a scoped BSA meteor air gun that had a bit of poke and slaughtered so many sparrows that day my grand dad took the rifle away. Been hunting just as long.

Four decades on I'm still shooting and hunting, these days almost all of it fox shooting.

[AusTac]

First rifle i ever shot was on puckapanyal small arms range, never forget being so in the moment and whilst having awesome hearing protection being able to hear the gas inside the buttstock cycling the working parts of the f88, since then i've been hooked!

[Walt68]

Army Cadets in 1980

[Sarco]

On the family dairy properties in Gippsland, as a kid of about 8 or 9 with air rifles, later on with 22LR and shotguns . Following that the good old SLR at Kapooka in 1973 (God, I loved the SLR), then later on converting to the little baby 5.56 plastic fantastic (F88). When the longarms buy back occurred, I decided to get into handgun shooting and its only been in the last 6 or 7 years that I have gone back into longarms as well.

[Oldbloke]

Taught myself. Started at 18 with a sterling 22lr. Didn't do such a great job. Lol

[GLS_1956]

I'm age 60, around 1961 or 1962, age 5 or 6, my dad took me out to the city dump in Guymon, Oklahoma. There while my mother and older brothers looked on dad squatted down with me standing between his arms, dad held a 22LR revolver that after him cocking it he allowed me to pull the trigger, firing it into a dirt bank. My brothers tell me that that was pretty much how dad started them shooting too. The gun is still in the family, inherited by the eldest son.

As I grew I was taught on dad's Winchester Model 61 pump 22 rifle, Winchester Model 37 Youth shotgun, centerfire rifles and handguns as well. I started buying guns around age 16 or 17, it is legal in Oklahoma to own long guns at age 16 and the purchases were made from private people. I'm still shooting and still looking to add to the menagerie.

[pete1]

In scouts when i was 12 with a air rifle.

[deye243]

in my backyard in suburbia ................... yep I'm getting old

[No1Mk3]

I started the same as deye243! In the backyard with a 177 air rifle salvaged from the tip. My brother made a "stock" for it from bits of packing crate. But we had market gardens on the other side of the boxthorn, so no issues shooting. That was 53 years ago. I can't really hunt anymore due to health issues but I.m still a keen target shooter with rifles and handguns. Why did I start? Back then EVERY house in our neighbourhood had a gun!

[Wylie27]

First rifle I shot was a no4 mk1 .303, I was 13 and my dad and brothers were hunting on a farm, my brother handed me the rifle gave me some instructions and I shot it.

I learnt to shoot an air rifle in our backyard after that..

[Gwion]

In a mate's backyard with his two slug guns (yeah, yeah, air rifles, but we all called them slug guns) from about age 11 or 12. We used the wood heap as a backstop and shot cans and match boxes at about 15m, i'd guess. They were all one acre blocks and both his neighbours were cops. Kid next door also had a slug gun and there were plenty of vacant bush lots in the area. We'd wander around trying to knock starlings off and nobody was concerned. Even my folks, who wouldn't let us have guns ourselves, didn't care that we were shooting with our mates.
Later on it was 22lr out on the river flats.

[bigfellascott]

Keep em coming fella's - some interesting stories of how the firearms journey started. Oh to have the good ol days where you could shoot your air rifle in the back yard and no one would complain or bat an eyelid at it, they were the days hey, sadly kids of today will never get that sense and feeling of freedom like we did as kids, quite the opposite sadly.

[RealNick]

From a terrible instructor.... Myself

[deye243]

my air rifles were a telly 177 and I used to go through around 700 - 1000 a week and when we got the wanders up

I bought a pump up jobbie in 22 cal this was when we moved in to town , when I was 7 I used to use a Lithgow B1

single shot 22lr on the farm .

[bigfellascott]

my air rifles were a telly 177 and I used to go through around 700 - 1000 a week and when we got the wanders up

I bought a pump up jobbie in 22 cal this was when we moved in to town , when I was 7 I used to use a Lithgow B1

single shot 22lr on the farm .

Ah the good ol Pneumatic - had a Crossman 788 bb early on and eventually got a Sharp Innova .177 which was way better than the Crossman power wise and was extremely accurate with open sights (amazingly accurate really when I think back about some of the stuff I was shooting and the sizes of it and the distances I was shooting at it) tiny little accorn nut looking things in some sort of pine tree (not sure what it was called) but certainly was great to practice with and really honed ones skills when I think about it.

[deye243]

yep the one I had had sights like a rem 700BDL a silver receiver and brown plastic stock and forend I think I was 11 or 12

when I walked in and payed the cash and walked out with s**t it took a lot of eels and rabbit to pay for that air rifle

[Title_II]

My dad when I was 4 years old. .22 rifle. He helped me hold it to make sure I didn't swing the thing around or do anything dumb.

Then my dad and my uncle trained me on various firearms. And my dad bought me airguns.

Then my step dad trained me. And bought me guns and loaned me some of his.

Then I got instruction from magazines and books.

Then I got training from the US Army. I knew what they were selling but it was a disciplined refresher.

Then the Airborne trained me. I had to score Expert every 30 days or I would be kicked out.

Then Insights trained me for civilian defensive handgun use.

I've picked up tips a tricks ever since. Including here!

[Sydor]

Learn to shoot at my middle school Basic Military Training back in USSR. I learned how to assemble and disassemble AKM as well.
National service after that.

[Draco]

When i was about 8 i was allowed to go down to local mud flats with a group of the older boys. About 10 of us with maybe 4 air rifles. The local sergeant pulled us up and asked what we were doing. We explained and he said he would be down soon. When he came down it turned into a shooting lesson. Great memories

[albat]

I grew up in the uk in the country on a farm , in the 60's 70's my old man had heaps of guns ,including a couple of air rifles bsa meteor , bsa airsporter, me and my brothers got into these buggers early in the peace , shooting anything that moved around the farm rats in the barns , crows, rabbits galore before the myxo got into em, then as we got older we progressed to the .22 brno for foxes and the 12 bore crow shooting over the crops and then deer hunting with the parker hale .243 on properties in around the farm so ye was very lucky as a kid regarding shooting and lifestyle

[Chronos]

Missed this thread BFS so I better chip in now

I grew up in Murwillumbah in northern NSW until the age of 6 when we moved to Sydney so even though y father grew up on a farm I never learned to shoot as a kid. I fired a .22 at a friend's farm near Armidale and shot the cousins air rifles when we visited but it wasn't until 2008 that I joined a rifle club here in Sydney and started shooting.

I shot service rifle, shotguns, pistols, rimfire silhouette every weekend for a few years moving into F class, centerfire silhouette rifle and benchrest after a while and was luck enough to learn from some very experienced people and have some great experiences. I started hunting a few years later and although living in Sydney means hunting requires a weekend away at the least I've been lucky to hunt with some experienced hunters, take part in culls, shoot fallow in the snowy mountains, goats and pigs in the hunter and new england region, hunt a few state forests with mates and recently shoot Cape Barron geese in tassie, my first wing shooting experience.Very lucky to have a wife who not only supports my shooting activities, she also takes part owning a .223, a .22 and a 12g now herself, she nearly beat me on Sunday shooting 18/25 on only her second try with her new shotty

Still learning but also enjoy helping others down the path of becoming safe shooters and responsible hunters

Chronos