Where It All Began

[PeskyWabbits 464]

Just curious how you all got into this sport.

 

For me, I had always been in to guns, cars, military aeroplanes and anything WWII

 

I bought a BSA Meteor .22 off my best pal at school for £15. He sold it to buy a BSA Airsporter. Then he later sold that to get an Ensign Elite (they later became Saxby & Palmer Galaxys)

 

My Mum wasn't best pleased and ransacked my bedroom trying to find it. But didn't look between the mattress and the bed.

 

We then moved to my Grand parents house in the sticks and it wasn't such a crime to own a gun but I still had to wait till she was out.

 

I then ummed and ahhed over what to get as a real gun. Pondered for ages over a Webley Victor then got a full 12fp ASI (Gamo) Magnum .22 from Streatham Armoury (mail order). But I hated it. Twangy, jumped around on recoil, poor finish - tool marks on the breech, gaps in the stain and varnish. Urgh. Years later I sold it at a car boot sale.

 

A Webley Vulcan Custom .22 (JS Ramsbottom mail order) replaced that but it was too nice to use. Too nice for me but my brother had a school friend visiting and they snuck it out and wrecked it.

 

At college I bought an old Weihrauch HW35 .22 off the welding teacher for £15 though he had only had it two weeks. He got it to shoot rats next to his barge moorings but the council sorted them for him.

 

Since then I have had all sorts but the HW35 still is the gun I take rabbiting. Still the gun I stalk with in the rain and my first choice.

 

Pesky

 

 

[villaman 9,982]

1973 with BSA Meteor .22 , just could not put that gun down, until girls ,larger and nightclubs came a long

Should of stuck to shooting ,would of been far better of in more ways than one

[bigmac 97kt 13,816]

My dad and my uncle a lot of years back feck me was it that long im getting old lol

 

out with my dad and uncle shooting single barrel hammer action shot gun my dad set up an old bin lid gave me the gun told me to shoot the bin lid

 

i took aim squeezed the trigger a loud bang i went back the gun went another way .

 

i did not no what to hold first my shoulder or my ass lol

 

O and my dad and uncle well when they eventually got off the ground after laughing

 

My dad say,d ill get you an air rifle tomorrow

 

and he did a bsa buccaneer 22

 

and it just went from there

 

atvbmac :thumbs:

[PeskyWabbits 464]

Wow, a Buccaneer! That's a Scorpion pistol with a thumbhole stock.

[bigmac 97kt 13,816]

Yep

[secretagentmole 1,701]

It started in 1973 with a rogue gamekeeper who started selling some of the feed he had to a chicken farmer, the birds, used to their food being at certain points and regularly provided started to make ways into the gardens of properties that backed onto the estate. My father, having spent a small fortune on vegetable seeds, was somewhat perturbed to see them disappearing down the throats of these impressively coloured foragers. The policeman next door was also upset at them shredding his borders and attacking his flowers, so my father made through the Kays Catalogue and ordered a BSA Super Meteor, telescopic sight and tin of pellets combo.

 

Having received his weaponry he then lay in wait in the bedroom, the gun and him hiding from plain sight. The coloured crop munchers came in, attacked the veg patch again and suddenly fell on the floor. This kept on and on until somehow the gamekeeper either noticed the lack of birds or got told about it as my father started handing them out to grateful house owners up and down the road.

 

Gamekeeper arrives with shotgun, claiming my father had been poaching and telling him what he was going to do to him. Cue arrival of brick outhouse from next door who got the shotgun from him, slapped him in cuffs and took him away. Employer summonsed to police station, employer very curious to know where all the feed he had been buying was going if the pheasants were attacking the gardens, further enquiries led to what was going on, gamekeeper told he was no longer required.

 

Gun then lays in state for 10 years, being taken out occasionally, fired, put back in wardrobe. Cue 1983 and one of my father's friends purchased a property on an unmade road between Heacham and Hunstanton. Rabbits were burrowing under the piling and needed removing, my father explains what to do to me, then I was given the gun, some pellets and told to get on my bike (literally). Then a job (worked part time in an arcade from when I was 14 till when I was 18), university, work etc got in the way until I drifted back into airgunning having spotted a B2 in a shop in Wells....

[Rez 4,961]

My old man used to shoot for the county of Leicestershire, 22 rimfire and bought me a Chinese B2 in 177 when I was about 7. Used it for targets, starlings and that was that. Got my first PCP when I was 12-13 I think and it was one of the first S300's in .22 serial number 069 from AA back in the day when you send them a check and it comes through the post. Been shooting since.

[jocky 198]

i started when i was about 6 [54 now] with my dad. he used to take me a walk down the lane at the back of are house and over the fields, shooting rabbits duck ect. any think we could eat. my dad had a bsa air sporter 22. and i had a bsa cadet 177. he used to unscrew a bottle top and stand it on top of the bottle. then get me to shoot it of the top without breaking the bottle. i got there in the end . when i sorted my breathing out. happy days then. the police used to just drive past a put there hand up.

[The one 8,522]

My uncle who was a well known poacher had dogs and ferrets I took to ferreting and got a shot of a farmers gun then got my own shotgun certain at 15 then got air guns a Wembley osprey I seem to rember

[Rez 4,961]

  On 03/01/2016 at 20:45, The one said:

My uncle who was a well known poacher had dogs and ferrets I took to ferreting and got a shot of a farmers gun then got my own shotgun certain at 15 then got air guns a Wembley osprey I seem to rember

You had a drink?

[bigmac 97kt 13,816]

  On 03/01/2016 at 13:47, jocky said:

i started when i was about 6 [54 now] with my dad. he used to take me a walk down the lane at the back of are house and over the fields, shooting rabbits duck ect. any think we could eat. my dad had a bsa air sporter 22. and i had a bsa cadet 177. he used to unscrew a bottle top and stand it on top of the bottle. then get me to shoot it of the top without breaking the bottle. i got there in the end . when i sorted my breathing out. happy days then. the police used to just drive past a put there hand up.

Ha, ha, them days are well gone

 

was mint mind you could walk out the door with your rifle on your shoulder and if the police did turn up they spent half there time putting half a tin of pellets in your rifle having a go of it lol

 

them were the days

 

atvbmac :thumbs:

[charlie caller 3,654]

First air rifle was a way too big for me Webley mk3 when I was about 8, I remember me and the old man walking down the main road,him carrying the rifle, no bag,just on his shoulder, we used to go and shoot in this wood down the road, I never hit a bloody thing,but the old man shot a few squirrels I remember, then came a Crosman medalist .22 pump pistol, that I am convinced was way over powered, shot my first rabbit with it when I was 13, I can remember it like it was yesterday the old man had a shotgun, and I used to go with him, naturally I wanted a shotgun, and was taken to a gunshop in Bakewell (of pudding fame) and was bought a Cogswell and Harrison single barrel hammer gun, and bloody hell could I shoot with that old gun,a few air rifles came and went,BSA mercury's and the awesome tuned BSF b55 Bavaria, then they brought out the HW80 and I bought a brand new .177, and very quickly became the envy of my mates, with meteors and air sporters and vulcans, the ranges I shot stuff with that rifle used to amaze and sicken them in those far off days, we used to pretty much go where we wanted, the thing is we never did any harm, so apart from a raised eyebrow or two nobody bothered us, I was never interested in sport like football and rugby etc,all I was interested in was hunting, in fact the hunting instinct was so strong in me as a lad, I was never in the house and practically lived down the woods, I have said this before, but I reckon I come from the last generation, to have known the freedom we did,wandering for miles with an air rifle,ferrets and nets, happy carefree days that I will never forget, I feel sorry for lads now,never knowing the freedom I experienced, and I think that is part of the reason I have kept my love of air rifles, I have shotguns,rimfire, and fullbore rifles, but a day out with an air rifle gives me as much pleasure as a days stalking,or a nights foxing,there will always be that something about air rifles