When did you buy your 1st firearm?

At 18, a 10/22 from Collias Lawing. First handgun was a Charter Arms Undercover a few years later. That thing keyholed HBWC's. :rolleyes:
 
In 1970, it was a .410 to shoot rats along the Hackensack River in Teaneck, NJ. One of the Bergen County Sherriff's used to give me a nickel apiece for ammunition once he saw my pile. I thought I was going to be in trouble until I saw the smile on his face. I let my nephew borrow it for squirrels, never to be seen again!
 
"When did you buy your 1st firearm?"

1960.
 
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Oklahoma City Gun Show
September 1982
S&W 586

Sold it ten years later to buy a Beretta 92. Still have the Beretta but still regret selling the 586!
 
20 years ago. Beretta 92fs. Sold it when it boned me in class. I was doing a tap rack drill and my hand caught the safety and activated it. I came up on target with a dead gun.
I've got a Beretta again, but it's decock only so that can't happen. Really like that gun.
 
10/22 at Best Products on Western Blvd in Raleigh in about 83 or 84. I was a late bloomer but Ive made up for it.
 
I do remember the first time I could have bought a gun. 10 years old with my grandpa at the flea market in Kentucky. The guy saw my face looking at the Llama sitting on his table and he put it in my hand and said it's yours for 200.... grandpa intervened. No deal
 
First gun I actually purchased was a Glock 17 in 1995 when I turned 21. I went to the gun show in Charlotte to buy one but Edā€™s had sold out. Went to their shop in Vass with a couple friends the next week. All three of us walked out with 17ā€™s. Still have mine sitting in the safe. Also have one of my buddies that bought one then he wanted to sell a couple years later.
 
My first purchase was a Marlin 30/30 back in 85' working part time at a Pawn Shop. I had to put it on layaway. I really wish I still had it.

I've got a Winchester 30/30 ,but its just not the same as the one I paid for a little bit at a time.
 
My first firearm was a Marlin Glenfield 25 .22 bolt action that my dad bought in a local hardware store for me. We had a lot of fun shooting it together. When I was 17 I bought a Spanish M43 mauser. My dad was mad because I hadn't cleared it with him. He was so pissed about it, I sold it to the shop that I had bought it from. I used the money plus some funds from my part time jobs to buy a Marlin 336 .30-30 which he approved of. I guess the difference was he was on board with the Marlin. Both are long time gone but they started me on the path of buying, trading, and buying some more.
 
S&W Model 66 that I bought from a friend of mine around 1981. Still have it and itā€™s a sweet shooter.
 
Scsmith42 said:
S&W Model 66 that I bought from a friend of mine around 1981. Still have it and itā€™s a sweet shooter.
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My first pistol. Bought from Southern Law supply or whatever their name was on Downtown Blvd., Raleigh. Apex Police Dept trade in when everybody went Wunder 9 crazy. Spray and pray boys, spray and pray. My 66 was a good gun and I should have never sold it.
 
The first gun I owned was a 12 gauge SxS Noble that I got for Christmas when I was 11. It was not a very good gun. I traded it on some goose decoys. I still have the decoys. I actually bought my first gun the Monday after JFK was killed. We did not have school that day because of the funeral, so my father took my brother and me to the Army Store down on Vine Street to look for stuff. I got a 1903 Springfield for $29 and my brother got an Enfield for $11. We fitted them out with bayonets and some surplus ammo at a dime a round. I sporterized that rifle and have used it deer hunting quite a bit. I wish I had left it as it was. It was not long after that that I went back to the Army Store to try to get a Ruger 44 Magnum Super Blackhawk, but they were out of them. I came home with a Winchester Garand instead. They were still out of the 44 Magnums the next time I went there, and I came home with a 357 3-screw Blackhawk. It has traveled many a mile with me.
 
....my first was a remington 870 at Bills Gun Rack when he was still in Walkertown..........1995 or so???
 
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First new gun was A Springfield XDM .45 back in my 30ā€™s sometime. Bought it from Nichols store in RH and still have the hemorrhoids from that reaming.
 
I had just turned 13 and had been saving my money for a while. Dad took my to a local gun shop and I walked out with a very lightly used Winchester 1300 Turkey. I still have the gun, the hard case and the receipt from the purchase.
I will never sell that gun.


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At 16 years old, I bought a Remington 870 Wingmaster Police Riot Shotgun. 18 inch, 12 gauge, beautiful blue with the honey wood and corncob for-end.
It was $169.
From a gun store,
in California.
 
1986 - Western Auto Supply, Susanville, CA
12ga. 870 Wingmaster.
 
IIRC the first gun I bought was a Ted Williams (Sears) 30-06 bolt action. Made by Winchester, basically a Model 70. Around 1978.
First pistol was a Ruger Super Blackhawk, 1981.
Still have both.
CF
 
When I was 11 I hounded my (future) brother in law into trading me his Atari 2600 for several knives I had.

When I was 12 (1986), I took that Atari to school and traded it for a single shot FIE 20 gauge. We both had to keep our trade fodder in or on top of our cubby-holes until the school day ended. Took the shotgun and a paper bag full of shells home on the school bus.

First gun in a formal setting was the following year when I was 13. Went to the Greensboro gun show and traded my 20 gauge and a couple of 22 rifles plus $30 for an Inland M-1 Carbine. Guy at the private booth had wanted $110 for it. Now THAT is the gun I wish I still had.

First long gun in a store at legal age (1992) was a Pittsburgh Police Dept. trade in Wingmaster 12 gauge with 18 inch barrel. Beat all to hell but ran really smooth at $149.

First handgun in store was a Ruger KP-90 .45 at Ken's Gunsmith Shop in Madison NC.



I don't have any of those guns anymore. I wish I still had the carbine and Wingmaster.

My dad wasn't a "gun aficionado", but we always had guns in the house. My parents never bought me guns. Dad didn't look at them sentimentally, they were just a tool in his mind. First time I asked for a .22, he was like "Why? We already have one (Remington Speedmaster).You can use it whenever you want. Why do we need 2?".

Fortunately, even though I didn't hang on to "my" first guns, I was older and more established when I inherited the "family guns"and did mange to hang on to most of those. My only big regret in that regard is that I was not able to hang onto the S&W 39-2 that my dad carried as a policeman in the big town of Liberty NC starting in 1978. I WILL find another one soon. Whether I can afford it or not is a different story, but I figure I'll make it happen.
 
Infamous1 said:
There was this old chicken house flea mkt down the road where they had auctions every saturday night. They sold anything and everything just depending on what was brought in that week.
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Oh man, I am very familiar with that which you speak of and look back on it very fondly. I had almost forgot about going there and buying those stupid $7 chinese made survival knives with all the crap in the handle! LOL!
 
2009 at the Raleigh gun show, while I was visiting someone here in NC before heading over to Montana for a year. They're really into revolvers and lever action rifles, but I was 20 at the time and couldn't buy a pistol yet. So there was a Marlin 336w on the table of a pawn shop out of Hickory, NC, and I asked them if that'd be a good choice because I trusted their judgment on the topic. Just about good as any, Marlin is a dependable brand and that model has killed a whole lot of deer. Sounds good. Paid the $330 (earned working as a research assistant at college) for it but because I was not only out of state, but had moved around a *lot* before then, on top of being so young, the background check couldn't complete while I was at the show. So three days later they called me and said I was clear to buy the rifle, and we drove out to Hickory to pick it up. I took it with me out to Montana and actually got to be a pretty good shot with it at a small public rifle range nestled there in the mountains. I still have that rifle, and while it's not my best firearm now by any stretch, I wouldn't get rid of it for the world. :D
 
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May of 1982, when I turned 18.

Marlin 783 bolt action, tube fed, .22WMR.
 
The first handgun I bought was a Super Blackhawk, used, at a gun show in Ashevi)le in 1985 for $175. I was 21 and had spent the summer at Ft Bragg for ROTC Advanced. Camp and Ft Jackson with the 548th Engineers and had money burning a hole in my pocket, lol. Went to the show with dad just to go, and ended up with the 44. .
It's been all over with me on camping and hunting trips. The grip frame is beat up from driving tent stakes one frozen night on the western rim of Linville Gorge. It resides in an old Hunter leather holster long ago formed to every corner and cranny of the pistol, hanging from a very well worn Vietnam era USGI pistol belt.
It's final resting place may very well be mine too.
 
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First one I ever bought was a Bersa Thunder 380DT from Young Guns in Apex in 2006, right after my wife and I obtained our CHPs. I sold it four years later, after putting over 600 rounds through it. Learned a lot from/with that pistol. Incidentally, I only ever had one failure, and it was merely a failure to lock the slide back on an empty mag. All rounds fed, fired, ejected.
 
Inherited my first gun, my grandfathers WWI 1911 in 2004. Took it on a few camping trips. Realized that gun needed to not be banging around in the console of the Jeep. First purchase was 2005. Gen 3 Glock 19. We were freshly married and poor. Managed to save $300. Then my lovely wife @Jeffininer got a bonus and surprised me with the other $200ish. Sounds boring, but still one of my favorites, though itā€™s been warmed over a bit...
 
1971 or 1972. I was just out of college, newly married, teaching school and living in Carthage, NC. I decided I needed a pistol so I went to the local Western Auto and bought a new High Standard Double Nine Convertible, Model 106 in .22 mag. Still have it and looks brand new. Sold it a few years back to a friend that needed a gun for CCW class, but bought it back from him later. I think I gave around $72 for it originally.
 
I work at a family gas station on weekends and after school.has

It was the early 70's and this older man came in and offered a WWII matching Mauser rifle for a tank of gas.

best ten dollars I spent.

still have it
 
My dad gave me a Marlin 99M1 when I was 13. Still have it & when I looked up the serial number a few years back, I found it was built in '69, my birth year.
 
Late 70's, teenager in high school. Bought a very nice Remington 1100 20 gauge. It is the model built on the 12 gauge receiver. Still looks new for a 40+ year-old gun. I took it to the dove field yesterday.
 
Ten years old around 1996. Worked on a dairy farm for $4 hr. Come paycheck time my mom or dad would take me paces pawn shop in Pickens sc. I'd pay on one gun until paid off, then pick another. Did that for years, but my first was a ruger single six with a 6" barrel. Killed quite a few hogs with that gun and the 22 mag cylinder.
 
Bought my first gun 30 years ago days after I reluctantly accepted a coworker's invitation to go the range for the first time. Wasn't really interested in guns at the time. Girls, cars and motorcycles had my attention at that time. Fully addicted from the first trigger pull. First gun was a Smith and Wesson Model 910. I shot so many rounds through that gun, the slide to frame fit wore out.
 
The first one I purchased 100% by myself, 5/16/1991 a Norinco SKS, still have it. Before that guns were either gifts, or $ I saved up and got my dad to buy for me. Bought an SKS the day I turned 18 and a Taurus 38 the day I turned 21.
 
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