Author Topic: How old were you when.. (Read 1687 times)

sonny · « **on:** February 21, 2017, 07:14:51 PM »

..you shot your first gun?

I'm not talking a cap gun or a BB gun but something with gunpowder in it.

I was 5 years old and my oldest brother helped me shoot his Marlin bolt action .22 rifle.Yup we lived on a farm then and he had a target set up in the field behind the house.
The first time I pulled the trigger and the gun went bang I was hooked..

We were shooting Whiz Bang .22 long not LR just long and I think a box of 50 cost 35 cents back then.

I'll never forget that day..

LeverAction · « **Reply #1 on:** February 21, 2017, 07:39:59 PM »

I think 4 or 5. Cooey 22, still have it. Short time after my uncle gave me his Cooey 410, still have it to. I ate a lot of chickens and wabbit using those two little guns. What a life growing up out in the country. I took my little 22 to school when I got a bit older, left it in the principal's office till I went hunting after school. My principal was a good family friend and a hunting buddy of my Dads so no big deal (back then). Swat and 3 more levels of law enforcement would be called today.

sonny · « **Reply #2 on:** February 21, 2017, 08:42:43 PM »

Yeah no kidding about Law enforcement. lol

I used to ride my bike with a single shot 20 gauge strapped to the handlebars and pedal my way through town to the duck pond after school.

Kids can't do that now.

coachman · « **Reply #3 on:** February 21, 2017, 10:51:18 PM »

I can remember walking down 90th av past 170st to shoot gophers with my cousin . Here in Hinton I would walk from town out to where Highway 40 north is now and then up another road about a mile to where my dad's friend made a range for sister and me to shoot. Maybe 10 years old, by the time I was 14 I was buying and selling guns. The good times?

greylynx · « **Reply #4 on:** February 22, 2017, 09:23:09 AM »

Coachman:

Was that still when Hwy 40 North was a goat trail, there was no real town of Grand Cache, and the Berland River gas well blow out had yet to occur?

My dad's friend owned the old Hinton Hotel that was on the east side of town. That was "quite the place" at one time.

Does anyone on here know the particulars behind that Berland blowout?

Thanks for the post Coachman

coachman · « **Reply #5 on:** February 22, 2017, 03:05:20 PM »

Yes it was call the FTR. The same road that starts down south by the states. They started to up grade it in the late 60's

I started to drink in the Hinton Hotel when I was 16. Sitting with my Dad and the Town police

Your dad's friend named Jack?

There has been a few blow outs up there. The worst one is when they burned the rig to the ground. Had pictures of that one.

greylynx · « **Reply #6 on:** February 22, 2017, 03:25:03 PM »

Thanks Coachman.

The last name for Jack would have been Kolodychuck or something close to the spelling.

So you would still remember some of those neat buildings in the Coal Branch area before the forestry department took them all out. That is one really interesting area where you guys live.

coachman · « **Reply #7 on:** February 22, 2017, 10:53:53 PM »

AFS is trying to hide history as fast as it can. They have burnt lots of history around here. Logging camp, gold camps Fur trading post, old post offices. We will never know? My parents move up to Entrance after the floods closed the mines.

I have stay in a lot of forestry cabins and boat house way back when.

I will check on the ownership of the Hinton Hotel. The Jack I was think of would have been Shwityk? Spelling not right.

W101 · « **Reply #8 on:** February 23, 2017, 06:37:47 AM »

First gun , 8 yrs old , Cooey single shot , seemed to have
A regular size stock . In those days ,you could hunt bunnies
from the front of our house on the east side of Winnipeg all
The way to Ontario . That was a sweet gun and till my buddy
shot me all was heaven . Fortunately in the arm but learned
an early lesson about ricochets . Gun went up in the closet
for a few months it was agony ! Can you imagine 8 yrs old
you give a kid a gun , my grandson is 8 ,I'm not sure I would
Give him a real gun . He can't stop shooting his sisters in the
face with one of those nerf guns . She's a different world !

greylynx · « **Reply #9 on:** February 23, 2017, 10:27:14 AM »

W101

I heard Winnipeg could be a pretty tough town to grow up in given the population dynamics.

Any truth to that assertion?

I have heard some pretty wild stories from our generation and before about that city.

W101 · « **Reply #10 on:** February 23, 2017, 04:32:05 PM »

Ya Grey , it's a great town , I left when I was 45 , seems to me
It was a 44 year beef . If you wanted something when I was growing
Up , you just stole it ! East side was railroad , packing plants , high water
gravel streets very scenic .
I quit going back 8 years ago , can't stand the urban rot .
Great burgers lmao .

coachman · « **Reply #11 on:** February 23, 2017, 09:41:29 PM »

How about Karlowich for your dad's friend Graylynx?

greylynx · « **Reply #12 on:** February 24, 2017, 06:05:56 PM »

Hi Coachman

I just sent some emails to his relatives in B.C.

I will get back to you on this issue.

I think we are talking about the same Jack.

Died on the Island in Parksville?

greylynx · « **Reply #13 on:** February 25, 2017, 05:22:25 PM »

Hi Coachman

The name was Frank Kolody.

I got a hold of his nephew who is retired and living in Phoenix. We had a really great chat.

Thanks for starting this string Coachman.

JIMMY 808 · « **Reply #14 on:** February 28, 2017, 07:11:54 PM »

Can't really remember.

My kids have shot from a very early age 3 or 4

They haven't got a clue what's going on just like loading the little shells and seeing the water balloons pop I would hold a rilfe from the hip and they would pull the trigger.

Shot shotgun since I was around ten will start my boy close to there depending on how big he is and maturity.

LeverAction · « **Reply #15 on:** February 28, 2017, 07:22:11 PM »

My kids where about the same age when they started pulling the trigger also. They tell me that their kids will do two things that I did with them when they where young. Shoot a gun, and learn to ride a horse. Makes me feel warm all over.

Walleyes · « **Reply #16 on:** March 01, 2017, 09:30:35 AM »

I can't really remember how old I was when I started using a gun. Received my first .177 cal air rifle around 1st grade and started packing a .22 regularly probably by grade 3. I was raised in different enviroment than most. We were raised on a sawmill site 35 miles from town in the middle of two Indian settlements life for us was guns and outdoors, it's just all we had to do. No chores to speak of really. We either worked around the mill or planer on weekends and shut downs or we were out in the bush shooting, fishing, trapping stuff, that's all there was.

OL_JR · « **Reply #17 on:** March 02, 2017, 08:51:06 PM »

I can't really remember for sure when I shot my first real gun but I know it wasn't much earlier than seven or eight. My dad was never much into hunting and I believe my first experience with a real gun was target shooting at a friends farm with a .22.
Goose hunting was big where I grew up and some of my buddies dads would take us youngins out to fetch birds and wring necks and following the hunt we would usually get a crack at firing the shotguns. Fond memories of those hunts, don't think I ever slept a wink waiting for morning to come.
My old man did have a cooey .22 repeater which his dad had and I still have today but it wasn't until I was 10 or 11 until I could pack it unsupervised. With that said it has killed a pile of small game and it is a very valuable gun to me. That thing never got cleaned and never misfired, misfed or failed to extract once. Well that is until I gave it to my senile dipshit wanna be gunsmith neighbour to refinish. He forgot it was mine and parted it out. Once I ahemm "sternly" reminded him that my gun was still in his possession he put it back together with some parts from who knows where and it's never been the same since. Bugger had the nerve to hand me a bill for it to. Long story short I never let it go and he and his wife decided to move and are no longer our neighbours.
Still managed to kill a pile of grouse, ducks and geese with my old CZ pelet gun in my youngest years and it's still in my safe. Wanting to hunt without any real firepower made for some good practice looking for that head shot. I've accumulated a few guns since then but it still feels like home when shouldering that old CZ.

sonny · « **Reply #18 on:** March 02, 2017, 09:55:25 PM »

Love it JR..

Hammer spur · « **Reply #19 on:** March 08, 2017, 09:03:29 PM »

O jeez I don't know exactly but probably around 7 or 8 when I was let loose on my own with a pellet gun and shooting a 22 supervised and 10 or so on my own with a 22.
Young enough to make most bleeding hearts cringe I'm sure.
Of course I'm sure they would also object to letting a seven year old go hard on a lawn tractor which was "normal" then.
Unfortunatly I was raised in the suburbs so spent many summers at the grandparent farm eradicating pigeons,beaver e.t.c
Those where some good days.