My first "gun" was purchased when I was about 11 or so, 60 years ago. I used my once a week paper route money to buy it. It was a lever action Daisy BB gun, without a fore-grip. You rotated the muzzle knurl to expose a hole in the side of the barrel skirt and poured in around 200 BBs. I paid about $2 for it. A few days ago I saw the exact same gun hanging on a hook at Walmart for $22.99.
I bought my first real gun when I was 16. I took a bus to downtown Denver, walked into the Dave Cook sporting goods store and plunked down enough money to buy two surplus M1-Garands. I didn't need a permit or to show an ID. I got back on the next bus to Englewood and took them home. I also bought a Pacifica press and reloaded my own rounds. I removed a lot of the wood on the fore-arm, sanded the finish down and then hand rubbed Linseed oil on them until they shined like a glass. The finish was hard as a rock and scratch proof. I did a lot of shooting with them. The day before I left for college I fired 400 hand loaded rounds through them. I had a bruise on my shoulder that took a month to disappear. I also bought a Winchester Model 94 30-30 for deer hunting. That rifle kicked harder than the M1s. I also bought an old antique 1877 Stephens hexagonal barrel falling block .22 rifle, and an old British cap muzzle loading musket with the Royal Armory stamp on it, but I never fired that one. The rifle I fired the most was a Western Field .22 caliber bolt action rifle with a 4X scope on it. I could knock pheasant out of the air with that one. It was accurate beyond 100 yrds and I could cover a 5 shot group at 100 yrds with a 50c piece. I noticed in my browsing yesterday that the Michigan Millitia has a shooting standard of 8 out of 10 shots into a nine inch paper plate at 100 yrds, off hand, no seat or rest.
While I was in college my step brother sold them all. After college I purchased a Ruger .22 semi-auto, which I sold a couple months ago, and a Mossberg 12 gauge pump shotgun. During the 1970s I used the shotgun a lot to put food on the table, until the chamber cracked. I guess I made the loads too hot.
