First Airgun.

[Lumberjack]

ASI Sniper?? break barrel. 0.22. Second half of the 70's sometime? Straight out of the catalogue. Too poor to afford the ASI Statical on the same page.

That was a good Christmas. Many a plastic airfix soldier never made it home that year. We tried firing everything out that barrel (as you do). Steel darts, screws, wooden plugs, nails. Makes me cringe to think about it now.

[silva]

MY first one was I was about 8 and swapped some action man bits for a Milbro Mk.IV Air Pistol, with a bent over nail as the barrel axis pin. It would fire the early fibre rawl plugs but not pellets. I sort of viewed it as a toy. I hate to say we used to fire it cocked with the over lever up - so it would slam down....i took it to bits one day and painted it silver.....and it never got reassembled.....still have most of it in a tin in the garage.
We used to roam around the terraced streets and railway lines and industrial estates in gangs of kids....a couple of the older lads had gat guns from the pet shop at the top of the road.....sometimes us little un's would get a shot.....nobody seemed to mind or ever called the police on us. There was a junk shop nearby that had airguns in the window, which we would stare at in awe. My mate had a crosman bb gun and we used to sit on the roof of his dads shed and happily plink at everything in range. One day he shot at an aerosol can which covered him and the gun in yellow paint. We just painted the whole gun black there and then....waited til it was sticky dry and kept on pumping and shooting. There were these mystical things called ballistic darts...but he shot them all one day when i wasn't there...I was gutted.
Fast forward another 4 or 5 years....I moved to the country at 9 years old.....and still shooting other peoples airguns......at 13, I saved up some dinner money and bought a battered Diana SP50, which fired about six inches low and the same to the right and learnt about hold over and windage. Eventually my parents got me a second hand Meteor with a telescopic sight - then i was shooting proper

[DM80]

Slavia 627 .177 great little gun wasn't that powerfull but was accurate was fitted with a milbro 4x20 scope.

Dave.

[daveh]

First one was a non working Tell 2 pistol when I was about 10 (1948) and then a proper Wembley Junior rifle when I was 12. I still shoot a Junior,408fps and the smoothest letoff in my collection .Regards Daveh

[micky2]

Diana 16 new boxed with pellets and darts for Christmas, l can't remember quite how old l was must have been about 10. l really abused it at the time shooting all sorts of things through it.

[mallyally]

Big Chief air rifle

[brucieboy]

Hy-score .22 pistol,1966 Christmas £9.19.6d,which was quite expensive then. Had 1000s of pellets through it with no maintenance, never did manage to get the camera shutter like breech apart to service it.

[Benelli B76]

This is the only pic I have of the first rifle I had in 1961. A BSA that cost me 3 quid.

Baz

[IMG][/IMG]

[I. J.]

Milbro Diana G34. I paid 10 bob for it (50p). I shot thousands of Marksman pellets through it and Eley Wasp when it was Christmas or my birthday.
A lot of the odd shaped clay pots, made by the pupils, used to disappear from the school art room. Quite a coincidence that!

30 years later I saw a G34 in the corner of Jeans Military 'Mamories' so I bough it for nostalgia reasons.

[Josie & John]

30 years later I saw a G34 in the corner of Jeans Military 'Mamories' so I bough it for nostalgia reasons.

Now that is a much missed shop. I never visited but bought plenty in the days when shops were allowed to post airguns to their customers. A boxed Webley Mark 3, a Hakim and boxed Webley Premier being just 3 that spring to mind.

I used to love browsing Jean's adverts in Gun Mart every month. Prices were very realistic too.

John

[I. J.]

Now that is a much missed shop. I never visited but bought plenty in the days when shops were allowed to post airguns to their customers. A boxed Webley Mark 3, a Hakim and boxed Webley Premier being just 3 that spring to mind.

I used to love browsing Jean's adverts in Gun Mart every month. Prices were very realistic too.

John

I bought a few rifles of Jean including an early BSF54. You never knew what you would find in the shop as the stock was always changing.

[mallyally]

I bought a few rifles of Jean including an early BSF54. You never knew what you would find in the shop as the stock was always changing.

You had to Shout when you came out of the Toilet Because the "Test range was down that corridor
Great shop though we used to have a laugh going in there and as I.J. says there was always something new

That's where I got my best ever FWB Sport for £80 Still have it !

[Lakey]

Now that is a much missed shop. I never visited but bought plenty in the days when shops were allowed to post airguns to their customers. A boxed Webley Mark 3, a Hakim and boxed Webley Premier being just 3 that spring to mind.

I used to love browsing Jean's adverts in Gun Mart every month. Prices were very realistic too.

John

I used to love browsing those adverts too. Opened my eyes to just how many different sorts of vintage air rifles there were. Her ads were the only ones that consistently listed vintage airguns week after week. I remember she had some fully engraved BSA air rifles at eye watering ( for me anyway) prices. They were there for sometime, and in the end if you bought both the guns on offer, the glass cabinet was thrown in too. Happy Days!

Oh, and my first air rifle that was mine and mine alone was a .22 ASI Sniper. It was good, but not as good as my best mates BSA Meteor.

[mallyally]

I used to love browsing Jean's adverts in Gun Mart every month. Prices were very realistic too.

John

Yeah and Dennis Hillers Too ! his adverts were Cool ! bought lots of guns off him in the day

[Benelli B76]

Does anyone remember the gun shop in Praed Street London. Was also getting the train down from Luton to pick up something interesting.

Baz