Calling Old Timers To The Firing Line

Old Timers

I guess I fit into that category at 70, have been shooting most of my life but just started reloading in last 30 years.
I do not type but just use one finger, only learned about the Computer at 60 from my wife, so am very slow at this which is ok because I can do other things fast, but typing ain't one of them.
 
Another young punk reading this thread (24 here). I always enjoy talking with the older gentlemen that I see at the range, they always seem to have such interesting stories to be told. Lots of nostalgia of the good old days and stuff like that.

I just hope that I live as long and will be able to share such memories with my children and god willing, grandchildren. (First I need to find the right women, hah!)

Many blessings upon you all, may you live for many years more ;)
 
I will be 60 come this January. I still have the Marlin 81, I bought when I was 13 years old, for $19.95. I still shoot it regularly. Just yesterday my youngest son and I were out back of the house having a shooting competition using this rifle and a couple of others. It is part of some of my happiest memories.
 
This is a necro-thread, a good two years old before it was recently resurrected.

That doesn't bother me a bit, just pointing that out. And the part I'm going to quote here in a second is also a 2-year old post.
Will be 79 in 4 weeks. Due to divorce I was sent to the farm to live with my grandparents.
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MAN, that reads quite funny.

Makes it sound like a 78-year old guy upsets the wife....
gets divorced...
And the ex-wife sends him off to a farm to live with some really, really old people. :p:D;)
 
64 years old, first fired a firearm-22 rifle at Boy Scout Camp, Summer of 1963, have my first rifle I purchased-M1917 Enfield-and first handgun-Browning High Power, both purchased in 1967 when I was in the Army.
 
I'm 55 and starting to be on the receiving end of the old fart jokes. At least I can get the AARP discount.

My dad started me out around 5 years old with the BB gun and shooting a .22 with him holding it around me.

This is my grandfather's old Win model 12, not sure what year it is, but probably the early 1930's. I inherited it from my father, and will pass it along to my grandson when he is old enough. So it will be his great, great grandfather's gun. It's well worn, but no rust. I only shoot it once in a while, just because.

Winchester12.JPG
 
I made it to 79, back in July.

Started shooting my grandfather's .22 in 1940. First Daisy Red Ryder at Christmas, 1941, courtesy of my mother (Okay, Santa. :)) Had my first very-own .22 in the summer of 1945 at age 11. Moved up to '06 and handloading at age 16.

Been pretty much useless, ever since.
 
70 here. had a daisy bb gun until i joined navy. they gave me a 1903 springfield. then a M1,then a M14,then a M16A1 then a M16A2 and i carried a M60 in my 5 ton truck. good times.
 
I fit your desription of an old timer. First gun was Mossberg 144 (in about 1957-'58, learned to shoot at a club in Queens, NYC. Unfortunately I don't have it anymore. Then got a Remington 513T - now in possession of one of my sons, so it hasn't left the family. Won Bluejacket's Marksmanship Award at Great Lakes boot camp in '64. Got M1 carbine from CMP in '65 while in primary flight training; still have it. Shot on 4th Naval District pistol team '66 through '69. Had hiatus from shooting in medical school and residency. Now do recreational trap/skeet and multi rimfire and CF pistol rifle when I get the opportunity. Still think about the Mossberg 144 and shooting in Queens when you could ride the bus with a cased rifle without any publicconcern. How times have changed!
 
I'm 68, almost 69 and my first gun that I can remember was of course a Red Ryder, probably about age 5. I really can't remember, case of CRS I guess. Anyway the first "real" gun was a Remington Model 41 Targetmaster, bolt action .22. I think I must have been about 8 when I got that one and my dad and I used to hunt rabbits near San Antonio on the weekends.

The first gun I bought myself was at age 16 when I went into a pawn shop and saw this beautiful Swiss Vetterli 1878 and I just had to have it, so I saved up the princely sum of $15 and bought it, and carried it home on the school bus. Nothing unusual at that time, and I completely refinished both the metal and wood on that one. I still have it, and the Targetmaster. I haven't shot the Vetterli in about 40 years because ammo is impossible to find.

I've since added a few more to the collection. :D
 
I'm 69. Got my first firearm from my grandfather in 1951.

It's a Savage Model 3 in .22 Short - .22 Long - .22 Long Rifle. Single shot.

Yes, I still have it and shoot it.
 
I am 71, and grew up on a dairy farm. The first gun I used was a single shot springfield 22 and the targets were barn yard pigeons, because they carried a disease called "Bangs". If your herd got this disease, the whole herd had to be destroyed. And there was no compensation given to the farmer. Dad wanted the pigeons killed, but if all you did was scare them away,that was OK too. The Springfield was a cheap gun and we had 3 of them always loaded with shorts. One was in the house, one in the barn, and one in the machine shed. Anytime you saw a pigeon you grabbed the closest gun and tried to kill it. I was only 5 years old at the time.
At the age of ten I wanted a shotgun to hunt ducks and pheasants. I trapped pocket gophers and got two bits apiece for bounty. Come fall i had earned over $40 dollars in gopher money. The coast-to-coast store had a L.C. Smith 20 ga. double in the used rack. I had put $20 dollars down it on a 90 day lay-away in July and paid it off the first week of Sept. I trapped a bunch of gophers that year and rode my bicycle many miles over most the township doing it.

That winter I trapped muskrats, mink and weasels. Rats brought $1 apiece weasels were $2.50 and mink were $20 apiece. I did quite well that winter had over $200 in my pocket. I went back to coast-to-coast and for $125 I ordered a 30-30 model 64 winchester. My dad had one, and other than the three springfield 22's that was the only gun he owned. I still have one of the springfields, the L.C. Smith and both 64's and I still hunt with them.

Those were great times then, I built a gun cabinet with glass doors and storage drawers in wood shop at school. It was put in the living room to display with pride not only the fine looking cabinet but to proudly display the guns too. It don't even have a lock on it. Today I have to hide the guns in a safe and the gun cabinet is got shelves and the wifes knick knacks in it.

They didn't offer kindergarten back then, but I was taught how to shoot and handle a gun before I went to the first grade. Go figure, by todays standards I was raised by unfit parents.
 
old timers

76 here. winchester 1906. still have it could go to the woods hunting by my self as a birthday present at the age of 12. first shot gun was a 16 gauge stevens single shot. none of my teen age buddies would shoot it more than once. that gun had a kick like a mule wish i still had it.
 
Old timers don't sleep long? I was on the Lap Top at 4-30. Well first I am 78, became so, on the 27th, 3 days ago.

Reading all the good old American first gun stories, as an Englishman (Citizen in 2011) makes me jealous, I was born 8 miles from the Liverpool Docks, that got hit with German Bombers in the second World War, we got a few over shoots as well, lost a buddy to a stray one.

Got my first gun, and 6 Navy Cutlasses, found in a bombed out house, at age 8.
So called owned by some IRA old guy? The Revolver said British Bulldog on the barrel, the front sight was gone, barrel cut short. I think it was a top break, don't remember. My Older Brothers 410 shot shells fitted in the cylinder, 6 shot. But too long, so I cut some to fit, melted wax from a candle!! to seal the shot in, crazy. Did not blow any fingers off.

As my Dad kept a Pub, I took it down to the Beer cellar to try it out! Huge bang, 100 years of dust came down, a barrel of beer was contaminated, my backside was hot for a while! Gun went to local Police.

Next one was a 410 break open, single shot, shotgun. Used to shoot rats with it, at local dump. It had a skeletonized butt, the middle was missing, from new.

Webley Mark I Air Pistol, break top Air Pistols for years, shot a million pellets through them.
After National Service, two years, bought my first .22 Pistol, a Spanish Star.

It had the worse trigger ever, joined a Gun Club, started trading up.

I got to be a real good shot, joined Pistol Clubs in England, Australia, Canada, The US of A.

Now carry a pistol every day (Glock 19, spare G17 magazine too) gave my Grandson a Glock 19, so he could work for his Dad, my Son.

My Dad said I would grow out of this Gun thing! Wrong. He also said I would not live to see 35 (after the second time I was stabbed, working at The Cavern Club, as a Bouncer, 1960 till 64) still here Dad!

Great reading all these stories, I am still shooting IDPA matches, won most accurate spot in Sept. out of 68. Still fit, Wife of twenty years, second one, and I still having a great time.
 
I'll be 67 in 30 days. The first gun I ever shot was single shot bolt action .22. I did not own it, nor did my father, grandfather or any other relative. I welcome to this forum those with little or no firearms experience, regardless of age. There is a wealth of knowledge among members - valuable knowledge that can be communicated to the inexperienced.
 
I'm 72. Started with a bb gun at 5 and got my first 22 rifle when I was 12 years old and a 20ga shot gun when I was 15.

I don't have any of those any more.
 
I'm another young whippersnapper reading this (I'm 28), but I love reading history written by those who lived it. I'm a firm believer in the old saying, "When an old person dies, a library burns to the ground." So keep it coming!
 
I just retired at the age of 62 this month. My Dad started me shooting along the local creek bank while training the dogs when I was around five or six. He used to carry an old Iver Johnson Target sealed 8-shot .22 revolver. For my 12th birthday I awoke to find his old Remington 121 pump .22 on my dresser. I couldn't begin to guess the number of bricks of .22's we put down the pipe of that pump till then. But once I turned 12, Dad said I was old enough to cut grass and earn money to buy my own. I was never without ammo, even if Dad had to actually hand the money to the clerk until I was 18.

I passed the rifle on to my oldest son the same way on his 12th birthday. I still store the Rem.121 for my boy, right next to my Dad's other pump-gun. A Remington 141 in .35 Rem. They make a nice pair in the gun closet.

Dad didn't allow BB guns or fire-works because they were illegal in the city limits. But he had no problem getting me a one lb. can of Carbide to make noise with on the 4th of July with a home-made paint-can-cannon.:eek:

I got my carry license in 1975, and have been doing so ever since. Not so much at first, but it has become almost second nature the last few years, just like grabbing the wallet and truck keys. What was the old credit card commercial, "Never Leave Home With-out It"...
 
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