What got you started with airguns in the first place?

[SteveP-52]

I moved back to New York from California in December of 2014. First spring home, father says keep an eye out, he spotted a racoon in the backyard and living in town, didn't want him trying to use his Savage 64F .22 to try taking it. After some surfing and not knowing much, I bought the first, a Hatsan Model 95 Vortex .25 which ended up doing the trick and started the interest.

Joined GTA in October of 2015 looking for trigger tweaks for an inexpensive Hatsan Edge. Fast forward to this post and I now have 30 break barrels, 3 PCP's, 4 pistols, a very pretty 1973 Silver Streak, a red Rider just because and a small fortune in pellets in 4 calibers, scopes and assorted other toys for the addi...I mean hobby.

[triggertreat]

Tom, I honestly believe that is the first time I have seen you list all your air guns.
Very nice.

+1 Thanks for your story TOM.  What an adventure so far!

[Pelletjunkie]

By the age of 10 every kid in my neighborhood had a pellet gun. We had small patches of woods here and there. The older kids hunted the Evergreen woods, us younger kids either did back yards or the Tenner street woods. The game changer for me was in 1983 while at a gun show with my dad, a guy had Beeman airguns. My dad found out where his shop was and took me there. I fell in love with a Webley Vulcan. Sold my Silver Streak and bmx bike to get it. I was the only kid with a brake barrel. Still have it and my TX200 can't shoot any better than it. Always shot airguns to keep me sharp with my real guns. They are so convenient. I almost have as many airguns as I do real guns. Airguns get much more use.

[Mole2017]

I remember some BB guns at summer camp and .22 rifle another summer, but another 30 years would pass before I got my own.

The specific occasion was squirrels in the attic. They were running around up there and we could hear them. Then I read about the risk of them chewing on a wire and setting the place on fire and it was war...

Actually, I started with flashing lights (worthless) and traps, followed by a 1377 pistol (not practical). It was then a long-simmering interest in pellet guns came to the surface and I borrowed a .22 Daisy multi-pump from a friend. After a while, he needed it back and I snagged a refurbished Gamo CFX (almost half price!). That did the job until about 2017 when the PCP bug bit me. I snagged another deal, a BSA R10 on eBay, and I'm still smacking the squirrels. And the chipmunks and ground hogs too.

I started the squirrel control efforts in 2011 (maybe even late 2010) and have taken 1033 squirrels since--all out of my 0.6 acre yard surrounded by other neighbors and trees--lots of trees. Over 900 of those have an entry in a spreadsheet I keep that shows weight, sex, and some information about the "hunt" for that squirrel. Fortunately, SC law permits me to do this all year round under a special depredation clause in the game laws and that's what I do.

[SpeedyBB]

I have never stopped shooting airguns since my first at age 13 in 2001. First airgun was a Crosman 760, and about a year later I got a Mendoza RM377. I also eventually got a red ryder (still love the red ryder to this day), marksman 1010 (hilariously inaccurate and fun), 1377, and walther ppk co2 pistol. Those were all my airguns as teen.
Even though I have the marauder now which can very reliably shoot the heads off of matches at 25 yards (something I enjoy doing), I still regularly enjoy plinking with a red ryder and daisy 880.

[gamo2hammerli]

When much much younger I used to shoot at my friend's basement....we would shoot the heck out of his plastic model airplanes and tanks.  Then school, work and life got in the way and I/we didn't touch our one and only air rifle (We each had and still have our Gamo Expotec air rifles).  Then about 10 years ago I found a secluded place where I can shoot that air rifle outdoors...stretched 10 yards out to 25ish yards.  That got me hooked and started back into airgunning....now I can hit targets out to 35 to 60 yards (With a scope), out to 100 yards on a good day with my PCPs.

[triggertreat]

When much much younger I used to shoot at my friend's basement....we would shoot the heck out of his plastic model airplanes and tanks.  Then school, work and life got in the way and I/we didn't touch our one and only air rifle (We each had and still have our Gamo Expotec air rifles).  Then about 10 years ago I found a secluded place where I can shoot that air rifle outdoors...stretched 10 yards out to 25ish yards.  That got me hooked and started back into airgunning....now I can hit targets out to 35 to 60 yards (With a scope), out to 100 yards on a good day with my PCPs.

I like the 50 to 100 yard ranges when plinking.  It is challenging and makes me concentrate a bunch, which takes away all other thoughts and is really relaxing in a weird sorta way.

[BackStop]

When I was about 6 or 7, my father gave my older brother and me, each, a Crosman push barrel v-350.  We loved them, but eventually broke our father's rules and killed birds with them.  We had killed birds from day one, so I really don't remember what my father got mad about, but he did take an axe and busted up both guns.  I do remember that whatever it was that was done that made him so mad, was done by my older brother, not me.  So I thought it really unfair that he also busted up MY gun along with my brother's gun.
One thing I liked, back then, about the v-350 was it was slow enough that I could follow the trajectory of the BB from muzzle to target!  I got really good with it because of that fact.

Anyway...
In my mid teens, I bought a Crosman 1377 pump pistol.  I would shoot carpenter bees off of our back porch, IN FLIGHT, with it pumped up to only 3 to 5 pumps.  The range was only up to about 10 feet, but my eyes were really good then and they did tend to hover quite a bit.  Dad did not complain.  They were burrowing holes in the wood and I was doing a service.  That 1377 was stolen recently along with nearly all of my powder burners when my home was burglarized. (heavy sigh)

Fast forward to my 50's...
I was living in an apartment and the Squirrels were rampant.  I bought a Crosman Fire/F4 break barrel, but was afraid to use it due to neighbors.  Management told me they did not care if I killed Squirrels, but I was worried about what neighbors would do.


Recently bought a house.  Literally HUNDREDS of Squirrels due to the Oak and Pecan trees.  I guestimate about ~500 in a 1500 foot diameter circle around my house.  That is NOT an exaggeration! Nearly broke an ankle due to holes they dug for acorns more than a few times.  Not to mention, they had pulled up the roofing at one corner and entered the attic.  Also, not to mention the Chipmunks that were already in the crawlspace.

Naturally, this means WAR!

For about ~1.5 years in my house, I used the Crosman Fire/F4 to battle these rodents.  I had killed about 130 Squirrels, give or take and about 12 Chipmunks using the Fire/F4.

I recently purchased the Nova Freedom.  9 Chipmunks and 5 Squirrels in that short time!  I really don't get many shots at Squirrels lately, but I am even more happy with the Chipmunk kills. I think I have thinned the herd of Squirrels enough that most know not to come into my backyard/kill zone.  The Chippers were very hard to hit with the Fire/F4.  With the Freedom and a Leupold 3-9x33, they are relatively easy head shots out to 25-30 yards.

Anyway... if I had more money, I would dive into more PCP rifles, but I am not rich and I am more than economical.
Yep... I am cheap. (grin)

[Madd Hatter]

My parents gave me a Daisy BB gun at the age of 4 which would've been in 1956 or 1957. Been hooked out shooting ever since.

[Seanh]

For me it started when I was about 5.  I'd go to my grandparents sometimes when I'd go visit dad...this was in mid 70's.  We'd go in the back yard and shoot his old.pellet.gun. a daisy 220.  For a special treat, he would.bring out the Benjamin pistol. 

[bhdevil]

got started with bb guns when i was a kid. harvested many a squirrel with one till i got my rim fire. bounced back and forth over the yrs. then i got the pcp bug i own almost as my pcp's as i do break barrels now i like the fact i can keep up my shooting skills in my back yard. Being a reloader for my PB's I settled on the FX Crown because of its interchangabilty(good thing i never claimed i could spell) with pellets and calibers.

[flaircraft]

I had my first gun at about 8 years old (I'm not counting cap guns, remember those things?  I burned my thumb by manually setting off one of the charges with my thumbnail, so I'll never forget cap guns lol.)  It was a multi-pump BB pistol, but I don't remember what kind it was.  We lived on a small ranch out in the sticks so I could run around with my friends out in the wilderness and shoot imaginary bad guys.  One day when I had run out of BBs, my friend told me that I didn't need BBs because you could just load small rocks into the gun.  That worked fine until I loaded a rock (can you really call it a rock when it's that small?) into the breech that was *just* a little too big.  Nothing I did could get it back out again, so I was without any guns for several years.

Fast forward about 8 years, now I'm 16 or so.  My high school friends both had dads that were into shooting, so both friends had air rifles, and one of them had several actual firearms.  The other one had a pretty powerful pellet rifle (for the time), a Daisy with one of those new-fangled spring-air actions.  It could shoot an advertised 800 fps which was way faster than any other air rifle we'd ever encountered.  It also shot with the exact same power every time, and all you had to do was cock it once!  No more pump, pump, pump, hope that you got the same fps as last time.  The disadvantage was that it didn't have an internal magazine full of BBs and it would only shoot pellets.  My friend sold it to me before we graduated and I still own it to this day.  Its main use over the years was to rid my parents property of magpies.

Fast forward again by about 12 years.  I’m at WalMart and see a spring-air gun (A Daisy Powerline 1000s) that is advertised as being 1000 fps capable… for only $90!  And it includes a decent (for an inexpensive airgun) scope for that price!  I brought it home and started playing with it.  The first few times I tried to pull the trigger I thought that the safety was still engaged somehow, even though I had pushed it to the “off” position.  I eventually realized that the trigger pull was just stupid heavy.  When firing the gun, the trigger pull was so heavy that my whole hand literally shook from the effort.  Naturally with a trigger pull that heavy, the shot grouping was less than acceptable.  I did some research and found that the trigger mechanism had dual sear springs, one of which purpose was only to make the trigger pull very heavy.  The forums said that the second spring was mandated by the lawyers to prevent any lawsuits related to negligent discharges.  Happily, the forums also had directions on how to remove the offending spring.  After doing so, the trigger pull lightened up noticeably, but still is heavier than ideal.  Add in the difficulty with getting good groups on a springer, and the accuracy just isn’t what I had hoped for.

Fast forward another 12 years or so to the present.  I recently used my Powerline to help my parents with their ground squirrel infestation.  Although the Powerline is the right power level for this task, it’s not possible to reliably hit a 2 inch target at 25 yards with it.  Sure, I may be able to experiment to come up with an artillery hold that works, or put together a sliding/rolling bench rest for it that would help, or bed the action with vibration damping material.  But, I’d prefer to have something that doesn’t have the inherent accuracy difficulty in the first place.  Besides, I could always use another toy right?  So, after doing a lot of research I decided to put together my first custom build based on the Crosman 13xx/22xx platform.  I’ll detail that in a different post.

I also recently did a re-seal job on my dad’s Sheridan model EB pistol.  He’s had it since May 7, 1979 (I know because he still has the receipt in the original box!).  He bought it to help with the ground squirrel problem, when I was just a lil guy.  It's my earliest memory of an airgun, or any gun for that matter.  It has been very lightly used; I can verify this because he also still has the original box of Sheridan pellets he bought with the gun and it’s still half full of pellets!

[GreyBeard1851]

60 years ago, a Daisy.  I think it was a Mod. 106.  My best Christmas ever.  My Dad bought it at a small town hardware store, on credit.  He was laid off.  He later told me it cost $4.70.  Times were hard then.

[Bicycleman]

Joe, thanks for reviving this thread.  And thanks for your story - That Sheridan EB Pistol is an handsome air gun.