When I was eleven or twelve, 1962-1963, I bought a Daisy model 94 BB rifle from a Western Auto store with grass cutting money. I think $12.95. Now restored they're $150 to $200.
That was the last air gun I had until 2011 when I bought a Beeman RS2 dual cal. at Walmart to learn to shoot left hand a few years after I blew a vein on my right eye retina. There's a blank spot right where I focused on the sights or retical. Then I was hooked.
In the mid-50s, the kid next door and I were in the backyard assessing the fun to be had with a shiny new Daisy RR. For some reason, we decided a great test would be to shoot it straight into the air. One BB flew in a perfect parabolic arch over the roof, the front yard and the street, before plummeting earthward and through the window of the house immediately across from us.
We were unaware of our very first effort at juvenile delinquency until about five minutes later when my mom called me inside with her no nonsense voice in high shrill. I was marched across the street in to the living room of a lady who actually seemed a lot nicer than my mom. She pointed to a neat hole through a front window pane and then to a nice light colored rug where there was a sparkle of gold. Oh, oh.
The rifle disappeared along with my slingshot and anything else capable of firing a projectile until I could prove myself "responsible" enough to be trusted with dangerous instrumentalities.
Today, some 65 + years later, my wife still has some doubts as to whether this threshold has been met. Well, yeah, there are two holes (small, barely worth mentioning) in the kitchen ceiling but ....
I didn't really own an airgun when I was a kid, although my father owned a Crosman CO2 bulk fill gun (had the small tank)... don't recall the exact model number, but may have been a Model 115 or similar.
I had a lot of fun shooting it in our basement at an electric shooting gallery with rotating ducks... don't recall who made that either, but it sure was a lot of fun.
My father was into archery, so that's pretty much what I did too... had a nice target range in our back yard that had a couple of acres of old apple trees... We also made our own arrows using wood cedar shafts, custom painting the shafts, doing the feather fletchings, shaped with an electric wire burner, and cut to the appropriate lengths.
Loved going to archery shoots with my Dad... good times and memories.
Two of my younger brothers each had a Sheridan Blue Streak... I never really shot them at the time.
Bought my first spring-piston air rifle in 1989 (at the age of 35) to deal with squirrels on my bird feeders after getting married and building a house on a 15 acre wooded lot... it was a .177 Beeman FX-2 Spanish import... I developed airgunitis just from browsing through the Beeman Airgun Guides, and re-visting the local gun shop that was a 5 star Beeman dealer... bought firearms there too; really loved going there and browsing around, always at least buying some pellets.
It has been a fun airgun journey over the years !
I wore out my Daisy model 25 around 10 or so years old and dad gave me his Remington single shot .22, a model 4. Still have the .22. My granddad got it for my dad in 1917 I believe and it's still a straight shooter. Also somewhere back in my youth I had a Daisy RR as well. However the model 25 was the hardest hitting of the two. Anyhow that how I remember it:)
I had a Daisy Powerline 822 that I got when I was about 8 or so. Shot it for many years. Still have it, though my dad had the bright idea about 20 years ago that he could take it all the way apart and restore some of the power. The box of parts is still waiting to be reassembled!! 🙂
Dave
.22 Crosman pump. My grandfather was a gunsmith and gave me the Crosman, he took it in on trade for something or other.
Lived in the foothills of SoCal so killed a rabbit or 10, would dress them and Mom would cook them. Used to go out with a couple of friends who had Sheridans, we’d shoot whatever moved. Now I just shoot Rats on the Run on my property in NC. With a PCP.
My youth airguns... first was a daisy 99 from about 1974 or so... then a HW50M from air rifle headquarters a couple years later that I bought with lawn mowing money after dad found ARH.... in college I thought I better ger a Sheridan for some "power" ... I still have all three 🙂 they served me well into the 2000's when I found air rifle stuff on the net and a local estate sale that caused a plummet into the darkness...
My first airgun was a Crosman M1 with wood stock. Loved it, and found it was a very effective sparrow killer and bottle buster if you juiced it with enuff of mom's sewing machine oil... Ended up selling it to a neighbor kid for waaaaaay too little $$.
Santa brought an early tootsie-roll Benjamin 347 in 1968. Instant obsession, basically shot the rifling out of the barrel as a high-schooler, but still have it and it still shoots great after a factory rebuild about 35 years ago! Couple years later the kid brother got a Sheridan, so shot that one a lot too (it also still works perfectly and has never been apart).
My first Euro springer was a Slavia ZVP pistol, bought with lawn-mowing money from a Herter's catalog. I remember thinking it was a weak shooter compared to a friend's BSF S20, but still shot the daylights out of it. It was eventually stolen.
Changed jobs in the mid-80's, ended up with a bunch of gun nuts and found Beeman ads in the magazines lying about the office. All downhill from there.
I still marvel at the fact that I never "discovered" ARH, which was in its heyday in those years. Man if I'd had something like a Diana 27 or Webley Premier when I was 15, I woulda been in heaven, but news just didn't reach small east Tennessee towns in those days like now! Which in a way is OK...I'm still busy hunting down the stuff I woulda bought then, LOL.
Crosman 760 POWERMASTER. ...
^^^^ What he said!!!! Also circa 1968. Mine was the first variant of the series.
My friends and I hiked all over the (then, still wild) SF Bay Area hills with those. There was a hidden benefit: Getting so good at hiking the steep bay rolling hills, and my knowledge of the local wilderness, allowed me to impress all the hippy chicks from Berkeley. And, in fact, I ended up marrying one! Now, before you start thinking "Berkeley pacifistic", my girl was out-shooting me at the Oktoberfest's airgun event called the "Schützenfest". ?
My first was a Crosman 114 somewhere in the late 60's. My grandmother told me that my father and grandfather bought it the week after I was born, 1956.
I still have it. Back in the day, most of my friends were shooting the 760's. I loved the fact that I didn't have to pump anything, just aim and squeeze.. 🙂