first gun purchased

[wrenchman]

I have noticed that there is a rather large group of shooter here and was just thinking to my self while cleaning the first gun I ever purchased that js a marlin model 25 in 22 I was 18 and was 42 years and many guns ago how you guys started down the road.

[bigrich]

my first when i was 17 was a 1942 6.5x55 husky in immaculate condition for $69 from amart all sports at underwood qld . i put the bolt and ammo in a plastic bag and walked home with it . no one batted a eyelid back then . with swede military ammo it out shot a mates brand new stirling 22mag at 100 . the stirling had a scope , my husky was open sights. i had real sharp eyes when i was young

i got out of it in 1996 due to howards laws , got back into shooting about 11 years ago . first gun i put money on was a winchester supergrade with a madco barrel in 6.5x55 at rebel gun works. it was silly accurate , .4's with 140sst's and 46.5gn re22 , i think, but it didn't feed well though, so i moved it on . in hindsight i should've got it rebarreled to 30-06 which probably would've fixed the feed issue with the longer 30-06 case . oh well

[Damo300]

I bought a, I'm sure it was a Slazenger air rifle, from sports fair opening at Capalaba Park in about 1987.
Either that or "AP" All Pro, or Pro Am?

My dad got a 12g at the same time.
I saved my pocket money for a long time and decided I wanted to buy it. $25 from memory, because the lever action bb gun was $19, or there abouts.

Dad had to buy it of course, but I could carry the box to the car through the shopping center because I was a responsible gun owner now, although carrying a gun in public back then wasn't a surprise to anyone.
Funny how little events like that make you grow up a touch more as you come to being a younger adult, then you turf it all out the window as you hit 17ish, and you start again.... haha.

I was like rich.
Gave up in 96, although knowing what I know now.... Hmmmmm. We lost some good rifles in that.....owell.

Returned about 5yrs ago.
Found these tikka branded bang sticks had improved considerably, and had rumours similar to the old rem 700s. So I got one in 300wm.
Straight to the top of the "class" that we can have in this country, because anything bigger is a massive please explain.
I love that rifle. It's fed my family very well indeed.

I have others now but that 300 is my first Center fire that I can call mine, all the ones when I was younger were "dads". I could store them, use them, clean them etc, but if questions arose, they were his.

[Wapiti]

My Mum and dad used to take us for an air rifle shoot in the bush out Compton road way, when we were kids. She's pack an esky of drinks and fruit and maybe some of her baking in a tupperware box, and we'd shoot cans and targets made from boxes. But that was dads' gun, bought from Struddy's Sports store in Sunnybank. I really was drooling at the Bentley 8-shot pumps, the Stirling Mod 20 semi-autos, or the Winchester 70 222,s and 243's.
Then, when I was about 12?, a neighbour asked that I'd feed their dog over Easter when they were away, and gave me that Stirling Mod 20 semi-auto for payment. Was completely normal then. Mum and Dad, even though they'd watched GI's executing German teenage paratroopers in the streets at the end of WW2, had no issues with it.
Brightways hardware at Sunnybank sold me the ammo, even though how young I was. He'd take my money from working in the fish 'n chip shop next door with a wink, never a caution.
They just said, behave yourself with that.
So in theory, that was my first gun.
The first one I bought was a 1951 Garand 30-06, with help from Dad. Didn't even have a drivers license yet.
Dad had no dramas with that choice, because he'd carried one in the Dutch East Indies against the Indonesians, and again in South America. He showed me how to disassemble it with virtually a blindfold on, all those many years later in what was FREE Australia. When the country was run by politicians intent on building it, instead of activists.
I'd bet that Garand was crushed in '96, but I actually hope it's stashed in someone's shed, as the piece of engineering excellence and prize that it was.