What got you into airguns ?

[Geezer]

When I was about 10, my dad got me a Webley Typhoon (youth Hurricane) for my birthday.

I had not wanted a gun. But I took to it like a duck to water and it started a life-long interest. Many more guns of all kinds followed. Comps, stalking, pests, collecting…

Oddly, my father was not a shooter. But my mother’s father (who died when I was very young) was, and his father and grandfather were respectively, a military armourer and a BSA gunsmith. Maybe it’s in the DNA?

[T 20]

In 1968 my dad had a MK2 Airsporter complete with NS 4X20 scope that he kept leaning up the wall in the cowshed to shoot pigeons off the roof of the old barn opposite the cowshed.
The bluing had long gone off the Airsporter's action, the butt was showing signs of rot from being on a wet floor and the whole gun had specs of dried cow shit all over it --- nice.
When my dad wasn't looking I used to Nick his Airsporter and go shooting with it even though as an eight year old I could only just cock it --- happy days.
That's what started my attachment to Airguns.

Fast forward to right now --- the wall where the Airsporter stood is about 60 feet from where I sit, and the old barn is now my home, and yes I still have my dad's Airsporter.




All the best Mick

[zephyr]

Perhaps a bizarre route. My Grandad died when I was seven, to ease the lose my sister and I were allowed a present. For reasons I can’t remember, or understand (no one I knew shot), I chose a gat gun. I had all sorts of restrictions put on me using it and the thing didn’t “group”, more like it randomly sprayed the darts I had.

[Mr.Fixit-Norm]

From the age of 9 I’d had my own allotments with my grandfather, it so happened that back in 1973 we were getting a lot of problems with coypu coming onto the allotments at night and destroying winter cabbages and other plants. The coypu control people gave as 3 big live traps but said we’d have to deal with any we caught and suggested drowning them in a water butt ( = old oil drum ).

We caught quite a few and having tried to put the trap in the butt upside down and drown them it wasn’t very pleasant, I also tried a big sharpened stick pushing it through the back of the neck while they were in the trap. This was violent and also not very pleasant either so my dad suggested I get an air rifle. I’d saved up a bit of money and went to Tilneys Gunshop in Beccles where we lived and bought a second hand 0.22 BSA Airsporter, complete with a plastic 4 x 20 Seagull brand scope

I found that if I put the barrel just inside the cage and aimed at the back of the head it finished them off very effectively. I must have sorted about a dozen like that !
The rest as they say is history

Norm

[VALE BOY]

Great that you still have your Dad’s old Airsporter, Mick.

When I was 5 my Nana used to take me down on the bus from Glasgow into rural Ayrshire where her younger sister, my Aunt Ida lived on a smallholding right in the middle of the village of Tarbolton (famous for it’s connections with the Poet, Robert Burns).
She had 3 sons who’d done National Service, in their early to mid-20s and were really keen shooters, so rabbits, pigeons and ducks were frequently served up for dinner. They had a designated gun room which had all kinds of stuff including centre-fire and rim-fire rifles and various kinds of shotguns 12 bore and 410s. I think there were revolvers as well like the Webley Service .44 and a few airguns including Webley Service Mk2s and Mk3 underlever and BSA’s as well. It was like an armoury!

As I thrived on televised westerns at the time and had my own cowboy cap gun, visiting Aunt Ida was a joy although obviously I never got the chance to fire any as I was so young…But the machinery and the smell of the oil and wood got me hooked, although I wasn’t allowed my first airgun till I left school at 16.
Like many others of our time, I loved it when the Fairground Shows visited with their airgun galleries with old Dianas and BSA Cadets with dubious barrels and sights, but it was still a thrill to get the chance tae win a coconut!

I got a Diana G2 pop-out, when I started my first job as a Bank Clerk, which I used to carry in my briefcase and used for target practice during my lunch-break, trying! to shoot tin cans on the ledge of the wall at the back of the Bank of Scotland on the High Street in Dumbarton, just 20 yards away down alley where folk would walk past behind me to get to the car park.
My bank colleagues would sometimes come out and have a go as well as the occasional passer-by who showed an interest.
Can you imagine doing that nowadays in the prevailing PC Woke culture??!..Jeecy Peeps there would be a SWAT Team and a helicopter round in a shot!… if you pardon the pun and they certainly widnae be wanting to have a go!

I sold the G2 to help fund the purchase of an ex-catalogue Relum Tornado underlever which was an absolute beast especially when we deliberately stuck a squirt of 3 in 1 down the loading turret and it went off like a Blunderbus!!.. I replaced the Relum with a brand new Haenel 302 in .177 which was incredibly accurate as I’ve related in previous posts on different threads and I’ve still got a couple of them, Relum and Haenel, although not the original ones, for old times sake.

[TonyL]

From about age nine I would go into the fields with my dad and his side-by-side and I'd carry the rabbits and pigeons home for him. So was interested in shooting from then.

The rest is a bit of a blur.......I can't quite remember if it was seeing airguns in the shop where dad bought his cartridges from that winked at me, having a go at fairgrounds or seeing some of the lads on the canal bank shooting rats (and all manner of other targets!) that got me smitten?

Once at senior school, two of my friends' had airguns - one a BSA Merlin and the other a Relum Telly Junior. I'd go round and have a go with them. The bug grew into an obsession but it still took a year or two of nagging to net my first.......a Relum 822 bought for a fiver from the neighbour's daughter who used to fish with us.

The rest is history and full of BOINGS!

[T 20]

Great that you still have your Dad’s old Airsporter, Mick.

Funny enough, the story doesn't quite end there.

In my Grandparents kitchen in the farmhouse was a big old dresser and the top right hand drawer was where important things were kept.
When I emptied the farmhouse in the late 1980s I tipped the contents of the drawer into a big biscuit tin as my brother was going to have the dresser.

A couple of years ago I came across the biscuit tin and had a look inside --- in with the spare Fordson Major keys and Tyre pressure gauges was the foresight hood for the Airsporter.




All the best Mick

[DM80]

My uncle was a keen airgunner he used to take me shooting with him in the early 70's I was hooked he bought me a webley falcon, i don't think my parents trusted me at the time, but they came round eventually as my old man bought me a new Bsa Mercury mk1 mid 70's happy memories.

Dave.