I just enjoy shooting....

We are forever seeing posts on here about carrying guns for defence against bears, wolves and cougars. Similarly on Facebook we see groups who want to carry for defence against two legged preditors. I'm not overly concerned with either problem in my area but I am one of those unfortunate few who started shooting in an older era and at a younger age.
There are pictures around of my buddy and I with our BB guns hunting sparrows in my grandparents chicken run. We were about eight years old. By the time we were ten we had met some older farm kids up the road who
let us shoot their Dads Whitney, Sheridan single shot and Beretta with a tip up barrel, as long as we could supply some ammo. Before we were twelve we had found my Dads hidden S&W tip up and his single shot bolt action pistol made from a cut down rifle. The blueprints for this were found in Popular Mechanics before the war. (During the seventies the RCMP declared an armistice on these, stamped them with serial numbers and registered these. A few years later they changed their mind and collected them).
We also "borrowed" a CZ mod 27 in 7.65 and an older S&W 32 that my uncle kept in his dresser. The CZ he liberated from a German officer and the revolver was one that had been seized by his friend on the Oshawa Police force.
With this background and the ability to spend most Saturdays out around Jackmans Creek (behind the dump) how no could we not develope a love for the sport or plinking.
When I got married and started target shooting one of my first purchases was a Ruger Convertible 22/22mag . This came with my first carrying permit so I could now legally hunt, target shoot or plink with it.
Im sure that there must be others with a similar background from that era....who just enjoyed shooting both big and small guns.

i remeber growing up (small town) carrying a .22 down the side of the road, heading for the bush i could hunt... remeber the local game warden pulling up beside us... all he asked was is the gun unloaded, and does your mother know where you are, with a quick answer of yes we were on our way... cripes now adays id be in juve and my mom be locked up in jail lol

we would go down to the rifle range at the high school two days a week and plink with the 22 rimfire target rifles the school had .there was 6 of them .and the shop teacher would be in charge and sell us the ammo .what a way to spend the lunch hour ,Dutch

Similar background Pat...I spent my summers on my uncle's farm....4 boys and lots of space....we started with sling shots. Used to pick off frogs in the pond. Got to be darn good at it. Then we moved to BB guns, pellet guns, then .22's...we always had something to shot and lots of targets to shot at. The running rats in the pig pens in the barn were a great place to learn about 'lead' shooting.

When I joined the military, the first day on the rifle range with the FNC1 7.62 they had us shot 5 rounds for confirmation. I put all 5 in a 2"grouping...the Sgt walked behind and yelled out.." we have a farm boy here". There were a few of us, all good shooters.

One of the first things I built here on my own farm, was a rifle range on the hay field. No better relief of life's bothers than spending time behind the sights of a good rifle plinking.

Yes, we are blessed to have grown up in those "good ole days"...those days are unfortunately long gone. We seemed to have survived OK !!

I just never understood why we elected a government that does not trust us anymore.....Oh yea, just remembered about Wynnes new 2% income tax so she can give us some money to live on in our old age....

I'm not from that generation but I'm a son of a man from that generation I was turned loose with a BB gun and a 22 unfortunately I had to wait for the weekend to do it at camp! But I also just like to shoot.

I always try to leave a block of wood up at the woodshed so i can have a backstop in case i want to test a gun and retrieve the slugs. Also like to keep a few empty 1 lb propane bottles for the grandkids to shoot. They can bounce them around the driveway or I can hang them from a branch.
For more serious stuff I head out back to the picnic table at the pond.

I don't have a background like that as I just started shooting this year, but I feel that I will be the same way. I have a Savage Model 64 .22 and I went through a box of 500 rounds in an afternoon on the dock shooting the targets we set up off shore.

I want to hunt and learn how to harvest meat and kill animals cleanly, but I am also an animal lover. I will never take joy in killing animals like some people do on this site (even if they are killing them for meat/pest control). I am teaching myself to do it out of necessity because I want to learn how to take care of my new family if the poop hits the fan one of these days.

There is just something so relaxing about lining up a target, letting off rounds and not having to worry about the "work" involved in harvesting meat/fur from the animal you killed.

I too am from that era and got my first 22 when I was 8. Spent my summers on my grandparents farm and got a couple boxes of shells every week as payment for helping out with the chores. The 22 I got was a Browning semi that only fired 22 shorts. Brought home dinner many a nites with that rifle. Always looked forward to my summers on the farm. I turned that sweet little gun over to my grandson 2 Christmas' ago and the apple didn't fall too far from the tree I tell you...

Ill pipe in. I am from the city and had no mentors growing up. Joined the military cadets at 6 started shooting converted 22s at the armories. Became good enough to be picked to go to the competitions in bisely England at 8. Walked into the hard ware store at ten and bought my first 22 a cooy ten shot with money I saved and with out adult supervision it was sold to me. Still do and love shooting for accuracy..

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Originally Posted by fishy steve

i remeber growing up (small town) carrying a .22 down the side of the road, heading for the bush i could hunt... remeber the local game warden pulling up beside us... all he asked was is the gun unloaded, and does your mother know where you are, with a quick answer of yes we were on our way... cripes now adays id be in juve and my mom be locked up in jail lol

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Born and raised in Loring and the local CO knew all us young guys were carrying guns and hunting at age of 12 or 13.When we turned 15 he even put the gun course on for us in the local legion.

LOL loring is also where i was born and raised and the area in my post... obviosly the same CO LOL

Grew up on Niagara. At that time in the 70s there was always a farmer that would be more than happy to let you shoot birds in the vinyards and fruit orchards since they were eating the crops.
Now my son is 10 and I take him onto farms owned by friends. He shot his first raccoon last year. Mrs. Raccoon and her kit had made a home in the loft of the barn. The young fella dropped the kit with a Henry Mini-Bolt 32 g CCI Stinger. You can't replace the look on his face that day when he had bragging rights with his buds that he had helped a farmer get rid of a pest.

Looking back it seems as if every kid in the area had, at least, a BB gun or pellet rifle. Most of us had .22's. No one batted an eye at seeing a couple of kids walking along with their guns. Our high school had a rifle range on the 3rd floor.

Most of our fathers were ex-military and most of our male teachers too. Most young boys joined one branch of the cadets or another. Maybe that had something to do with it.

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Originally Posted by sk8r

1956 - 10th birthday present from my Dad - still have it - take it out & shoot it once a year, on my ol' Dad's birthday, just to remember.


https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8242/...3b88e20b53.jpg


I took that gun everywhere wandering around the family farm - the terror of the prairie dogs...... :)

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My dad got a model 39 from his father as well. An absolute tack driver that he learned to shoot with. He still has it. :)

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Originally Posted by sk8r

1956 - 10th birthday present from my Dad - still have it - take it out & shoot it once a year, on my ol' Dad's birthday, just to remember.


https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8242/...3b88e20b53.jpg


I took that gun everywhere wandering around the family farm - the terror of the prairie dogs...... :)

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Im of a more recent mint but I have 2 identical to that, my dads and uncles that they got for christmas around that same year. I have the box from one with a $22 price tag on it.....they were shocked as $44 dollars was alot of money for grandad at the time.

I grew up on a farm and was out shooting very young. All my earned money went to ammo and gas and fishing stuff.

I can't believe I am not deaf.

They are some of my fondest memories of childhood. My folks trusted me with firearms.

Oh yea...! Grew up on a farm in northern Sask. Carried a .22 single shot everywhere [except when we went into town]. Most farm kids became dead shots in those days.

Remember the same as well.

Sad these day's are mostly gone now.

They are gone because we let things slide. Except for the GTA the bush is still there, the country kids are still interested in hunting/guns. We still have room to shoot and plenty of opportunity to do so if people didn't tend to call the police when they heard shots. We have to ask on this forum if we can take ten yr olds hunting with us, or if we can target shoot on Crown Land. Police take the "safe" route and tell us that we should NOT do certain things because they are unsure of the legality.
We also tend to find toy guns at Can Tire that look just like military stuff so us old farts get excited when we see scruffy kids carrying them.

Boy...does this thread bring back fond memories... I'm in my mid-forties for reference.

As a kid, I spent my summers with a slingshot and fishing rod in my hands almost every day. I graduated to a pellet rifle I found in my late grandfather's closet....hidden among actual firearms wrapped in flannel bed sheets. I used to do chores to earn pellets, dad would drive me to the local Canadian Tire once a week to buy me a tin of 500. Seemed like allot the first time, but they were gone in a single, good day of shooting. Frogs were the quarry, but after zapping lots of them, curiosity got the better of me...and I put a dead frog on a hook and lobbed it into a rocky spot on Georgian Bay in front of our cottage. Turns-out SM Bass like dead frogs! For you younger fellas, this was pre-internet days...and I didn't know books or magazines on fishing even existed. Pure trial and error~how sweet it was.

Firearms came first when I learned our high school had a trap and skeet club, headed-up by a fantastic guy. (my geography teacher) I convinced my grandmother to relinquish the old 12ga. semi still stashed away in her closet, and so it began. Mostly with rimfires (have had every modern caliber offering over the years) but more shotgun...and now centerfire varmint guns in the mix. Funny...nearly 40 years after I started shooting at the family cottage with slinghots..I like nothing more than walking around with a rifle, shooting varmints. I leave the frogs alone, but almost 40 years of practice means the groundhogs are bound to have a bad day when I pull-up on the edge of a hay or soybean field.

Many young folks don't have the opportunity to learn to shoot simply because their parents don't partake.

It is a shame.

Well, I just plain like shooting, which is why I look at all this "I want to carry a gun to save myself from bears" and laugh.

You do realize that "to save myself from bears" is secondary to "I want to carry a gun," right? The desire to carry a gun motivates the effort to find reasons for doing so. People who admit they just like to shoot are being a lot more honest about it.

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Originally Posted by dutchhunter

we would go down to the rifle range at the high school two days a week and plink with the 22 rimfire target rifles the school had .there was 6 of them .and the shop teacher would be in charge and sell us the ammo .what a way to spend the lunch hour ,Dutch

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Did the same in Kenora, with Mr Paulsen, the math teacher, in charge. He was an avid fisherman, hunter and canoeist, and thought all kids should have these skills.

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Originally Posted by welsh

Well, I just plain like shooting, which is why I look at all this "I want to carry a gun to save myself from bears" and laugh.

You do realize that "to save myself from bears" is secondary to "I want to carry a gun," right? The desire to carry a gun motivates the effort to find reasons for doing so. People who admit they just like to shoot are being a lot more honest about it.

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Exactly! And if it is safe to shoot a rifle into the side of the hill, and we have been checked out, even if it's to a higher standard than the regular PALs, then I don't see why we are no longer allowed to do so with a handgun, especially one of those super dangerous prohibited S&W 32s from 1938....or little 22 revolver with a 3.5" barrel

I love shooting! And now with my 160 acres just outside of Sudbury, it's a safe place to plink away. No matter the caliber.
In fact, I shot yesterday. Now, I want my Restricted permit for a handgun.

In shop class we made a lead shot machine, at lunch we reloaded shells. Our shop teacher took us out to shoot trap & skeet a couple times. There was a .22 range in the basement of the highschool as well, it's gone now.

Dad started all 3 of us off shooting behind grandpas old barn. My sister was the best shot at the time, I don't know if she remembers but she was about 4. I was 5 and my brother 7 and we would go through pack after pack of 22LR.

We shot lots of pellet guns, grandma had squirrels and chipmunks ripping up her flowers so that took up most of my summers.

Once my brother got a 22 (BSA Supersport Five, I own it now :)) we would shoot in the backyard of grandma and grandpas all day in the summer. We started shooting pop cans but that was too easy at the 25 yard range that we had so I started shooting empty shotgun shells with grandpas old Cooey 82 single shot and irons, when that was too easy I would shoot just the brass off the shells to see them fly. I wish I spent that much time shooting now, I would be a lot better shot, shooting is definitely one of those if you don't use it you lose it type of situations.

Now on my 2 acres I can setup an archery range and pellet gun range. I am not sure that I will setup the rifles there because even though I can we have close neighbours and I don't want the noise to bother them, I don't want to be "that guy" but there is a pit down the road so I should be able to have some fun after work this coming summer.

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Originally Posted by welsh

Well, I just plain like shooting, which is why I look at all this "I want to carry a gun to save myself from bears" and laugh.

You do realize that "to save myself from bears" is secondary to "I want to carry a gun," right? The desire to carry a gun motivates the effort to find reasons for doing so. People who admit they just like to shoot are being a lot more honest about it.

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Yes. But I have been in a few situations where bears were a very real problem. While inland camping in Algonquin one summer we had one that was such a problem we packed up and left and trust me nobody slept that night and a couple times while moose hunting the only thing that solved the problem was a bear hanging on the game pole. So, it is a real concern even if not common. If legally allowed nobody would even know I had one while camping or fishing remote lakes.
When I used to bowhunt alot and bears specifically many times at sunset walking out in the dark armed with a 60lb compound bow didn't really give me the warm and fuzzies.
A couple winters ago the coyotes followed my dog and I out of the County Forest right to the truck, another scenario where I would have solved that problem if allowed to carry. Again, if allowed to conceal carry none of the tree huggers would know I even had one. My feeling is if one takes the mandated courses and tests and has gone through the vigorous background checks by police that are mandatory then to allow approved people to actually use a pistol seems only logical.