Who taught you to shoot?

I taught myself how to shoot. When I first started shooting, I thought that you had to aim the gun lower, so after the gun caused the muzzle to flip, it would then align with the target. It took me a couple of sessions to figure out why I wasn't hitting anything.
 
My Dad and my Maternal Grandfather gave me the basics of rifle and shotgunning, and provided ample oportunity and supplies for near unlimited "independent study" ...... they took us hunting till we wore them out and then would turn us loose on the small game population .... we spent many, many hours shooting prairie dogs in Furnas and Red Willow counties ......

I took up handguns kind of on my own, picking up much by reading the writings of Jeff Cooper, and taking pointers from his "Man in Nebraska" (F. L. Nicholson ;) ) ...... and I learned a lot by shooting in Bowling Pin Matches at the local gun club, run at first by one Kirk Christensen. Kirk would bring several small hardsided suitcases full of guns to the matches, and if you did not have a gun to shoot a particular class, he was more than willing to lend you one so you could shoot...... I will always be greatful for that: I learned more about different makes and calibers of handguns in a couple of matches than I've learned in all the years since, I think. The guys at the matches got me infected with the reloading bug, too ...... seeing guys with buckets of ammo that cost little more to make than the 3-4 boxes of factory ammo I brought was a pretty convincing argument to get the press cranked up!
 
Dad didn't share my early love of guns and hunting, but he did tolerate it and bought me a BB rifle at about 12. He wasn't against them, but he didn't really seem very comfortable with them and hadn't done any hunting since he was college age. My maternal grandfather was an avid hunter and WW2 Navy vet, he was the one who taught me the finer points of shooting and gun handling. Grandpa George even gave me my first deer rifle at 14, a .30-40 Krag sporter he had used for most of his adult life. Still shoot it on occasion :D
 
My dad started me out and I went through the local NRA CMP under a local instructor by the name of Pete Rassmussin. At a later date when I was in California I was lucky enough to spend a couple range sessions with Bob Chow.
 
My grandfather.

My father was an Army captain during WW2 and, presumably, learned how to shoot at least well enough to qualify, but he showed no interest in teaching me and my brother to shoot.
 
1- Dad (shotgun) while hunting pheasant and rabbit circa 1964-1966
2- Grandfather (revolver) while plinking at Prince Albert cans on a fencepost circa 1969-1972
3- Air Force using M16A1 (for that one, yes only one trip, circa 1976, to the range at which I qualified for a marksman medal) ;)
4- guys on this forum and at the range 2012-present
 
Me. None of my family had any interest. Later the military, then instructors in LE, couple trips to Gunsite,etc...
 
My father taught me to shoot when I was 9, up in the hills with a single-shot .22 rifle. I loved it, and I loved that he wanted to teach me. My mother hated it, and she drew the line when I had a chance to learn to shoot a handgun a year or two later (it was a big "cowboy" revolver, and my hero was Clint Eastwood. :()

But here I am -- I guess my dad won that one. :D
 
I've read a few post in this thread where dads were WW2 vets and had no interest in guns or shooting.
I would have loved it if my dad had taught me but I understand his lack of desire.
I am very grateful to my buddies dad for including me in a very special time between father and son.
Shooting, collecting as well as reloading have been a life long hobby that has given me much enjoyment that I hope I can pass along to my grand kids.
 
Learned bad habits with my trusty Daisy Red Ryder.
If my Mother had only known!
Unlearned them at YMCA summer camp with old .22 trainers, along with archery and canoeing.
Learned about pistols after college, from the old fellow who operated a small gun store in the neighborhood.
There was a single lane range in the basement and he didn't let anyone out the door with one of his guns unless they were reasonably safe.
Also learned all about Ruger pistols from him.
Probably why I don't have the usual problems from them.
 
My parents absolutely FORBID any of us to have BB guns! They felt BB guns would breed bad habits. And while for a while, we were worse off than the rest of the neighbor kids who did have BB guns, we also never shot stuff we weren't supposed to, either. In this, I think my parents were right.

My 14th birthday present was a Winchester.22, of my very own!
 
My entire shooting foundation was laid with decent (relatively speaking) BB guns and air rifles and pistols. The amount of shooting I would do in a week in the basement rivals or eclipses the volume of shooting that a normal working family man is able to pull off in his best month from any calendar year.

I did almost all of this COMPLETELY by myself so I would say that I learned plenty of safe habits along with a handful of bad ones. The one memory of this that is still difficult for me to digest is that I never, ever, and I mean EVER wore shooting glasses in those days. EVER! In fact, I bet I had been shooting shotguns, rifles and handguns for at least two years before I ever wore any protective glasses for the first time. And I didn't grow up in the 50's mind you, I started shooting in the mid to late 1980's.

When I think about the time I spent shooting BBs and lead pellets, they are some of the warmest memories of my childhood. And when it occurs to me that I never once wore safety glasses, it's almost appalling to me. :p
 
Learned to shoot .22 bolt action at a summer day camp for boys when I was 8-12 years old. The shooting counselor would make us lie down on an old rug, hand us 10 rounds of .22 short and let us shoot downrange at targets tacked up on a big cable/wire spool. No hearing protection provided or encouraged. In fact, if you plugged your ears with your fingers, the counselor would call you a female body part.

Learned to shoot revolvers with my uncle. Basically shot .22 magnum and sometimes 38's out of his .357.

Everything else was completely self-taught.
 
Both of my sisters got pink Daisy BB guns; being a boy I got the Red Ryder.

While we were never un-safe per say, a lot of things that didn't need shooting got shot. A lot of things.

You'd think Mom and Pops would have wised up with my little sister, but nope. :D
 
Dad.

He grew up on a dry-land farm in TX [Anna Nicole Smith is the only person you're likely to have heard of from his home town] and hunting was necessary to supplement the larder. Served w/ the Marines in Korea [later in the war, not part of the RRF initially sent to blunt the NK advance before they could completely overwhelm SK.]

My older brother tells tales of me being in diapers w/ dad holding up a Ruger single-six so that I could shoot it, but I have no memories of such. 1st memory of going shooting was when I was 5; dad had to borrow a Marlin 60 from my uncle, as it was the only 22 rifle among friends & family w/ a short enough LoP for me to have any hope of manipulating it. Didn't get my 1st pocket knife until my 6th birthday, so I was pretty d@mn pleased w/ my 5-y.o. self, let me tell you! ;) By the time I was 6, I'd grown enough that I could begin using the Rem 521Ts that my older brothers had been using, altho' I was never able to equal their shooting [they had a 4+ year lead on me...] Still love the 521T, would happily trade my lightly used 541x for one in good condition; the 521T is the Student Prince of bolt-action repeaters. :)
 
Nobody. :-( A friend took me to the range, taught me the basic safety stuff, and got me interested. Unfortunately, it's hard for us to get together to go very often. I know I have a lot to learn, so I am now looking for an instructor type person.
 
My entire family hates guns so they were no help at all (actually a constant hindrance) but luckily I was friends with a Texan whose family were avid hunters. They generously taught me how to shoot with clays and a 20-gauge over/under shotgun. After learning to shoot that way they gave me a .270 to shoot and I picked up rifles pretty naturally.

Much later on I started to teach myself handguns, first with a .38 revolver that I had for a couple years and then later with a .40 shellshucker. I've also purchased an SKS.

Learning to shoot repeating weapons, and handguns in particular, has, in my opinion, been much harder than rifles or shotgun. I have been especially surprised by how difficult it actually is to control a 7.62x39 rifle during semi-automatic burst fire.
 
Dad purchased a .22 pump when I was six (1957) and we popped a lot of tin cans. He gave me the basics, but Dad was not a hunter or really a shooter. But I did have a uncle that spoiled me. WWII Army Sgt who loved guns and punching paper. At age 10, I fired my first centerfire rifle, a Pacific bring-back Jap. I was hooked. My first handgun to shoot was a Colt 1911 of war vintage. Spent many a Sunday afternoon with targets but no hunting. What I learned and the memories of spending that time with Uncle Buck have stayed with me. And yes, Dad still has that old Savage. Over the years I have tried to buy one of Uncle Buck's rifles from my cousin without success. He is very anti-gun. One day I need to talk about my FIL, but that is a whole chapter.
 
Us country boys used to throw old cans in the creek and shoot them as they flowed downstream using a Daisy bb rifle. That's how I learned.
 
I was taught in basic training US Army style.Qual'ed as marksman with the M14,then expert with M-60 later transitioned to the M-16 when I was ordered to SE Asia...aka Vietnam.
 
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