What was it that got everyone into Air rifles?

I can remember going to the indoor gun range with my dad & using a 9mm pistol under supervision of his friend so perhaps late 70s or early 80s.
I progressed to sea fishing,ferreting & air rifles/pistols around 13 yr old.
As they say "The rest is History"🤗
 
Range and Country said:
Just curious as to what introduced everyone into the world of air rifles.
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Absolutely no idea, or rather no idea how it happened I got into air guns and shooting in general.

Both parents were very anti guns, anti hunting and shooting.

I grew up basically feral in the Essex countryside and my first real job was working on a fruit farm, Saturdays were work till lunch and then spend a few hours potting starlings (they were on the GL back then) in the orchard with a borrowed air rifle and it just sort of grew from there.
 
Moved from Nottingham to North Wales & purchased a small holding 30 years ago.
Massively overrun with rabbits & rats. Made the biggest mistake by buying the cheapest setup. Chinese lion underlever & 4x20 scope. A lot as changed since then 😁 forgot the squirrels which was the biggest pest, chewing threw rubber gas bottle pipes & TV aerial cables
 
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Not my father as an influencer

I genuinely cannot remember what got me into shooting. I do remember taking a my handgun that shot lead pellets or lead caps into school at around 5 years old, got confiscated and my mum was hauled in for questioning. It wasn't powerful (otherwise I wouldn't have been able to cock it) but it did hold and fired power and it did come with lead pellets or caps of sorts that was propelled out.

Ever since, I found my own way. Made my own and fired all sorts from spud guns, elastic band guns to cap powered. I must have shot thousands of flies around the bins by the time I was 10.

No one else in the family of 6 liked guns or shooting. I took every opportunity to shoot whenever there was a shooting arcade at the fairground.

Maybe John Wayne, maybe Clint Eastwood influenced along the way.

As for airgun, my very first genuine experience was around 13 when my brother for some strange reason brought home a BSA Meteor with a tin of Wasps.

After sighting in the 4x pencil scope, I took aim at a tiny Sparrow that just landed. It must have been 15m away (which was then really really far), half uncomitted and expecting to miss, it struck home with a thud and that was that. Racked with guilt to this day, I have never shot another sparrow or aimed at anything that I dont fully intend to shoot.

That humble Meteor showed me what air rifles can do. So bought my first springer rifle (Webley Tracker) when I was doing A levels and my first pcp (Falcon FN12) after my degree.

Tbh, like most interests and hobbies, you must be pretty good at it to maintain your interest to continue.
 
Dad gave me his Diana mod 27 for passing the 11plus and going to Grammar school. Still got it and use it 70 years later.
 
The Air Arms s200 via a spontaneous trip to a local airgun club courtesy of my Dad when I was 14 years old.

That’s where it all started! I can still remember my first magazine of pellets through the gun like it was yesterday! Hooked for life.
 
My Dad, from the age of eight I used his old Original Model 50 0.22 while he used his Webley mk3 , it was as much as I could do to cock the damn thing back then, I still own both of those rifles 🙌
 
My neighbour gave my father an unused
Diana b/b air rifle when i was 8 yrs old, i was
then living on a farm and had land of 300 acres
to roam and shoot on , this was in the early 1950,s
and rabbits by the thousands.
the airgun was a.177 b/b with open sights,
i used wasp .177 pellets, and killed 100, s of rabbits
with that airgun, i was hooked on airgunning,
my next obsession was motorcycling at the age of 17
in the army, so airguns and motorbikes are still my main hobbies.
atb brian
 
AS a kid in NZ my babysitter's brothers had a range in their attic. I remember them firing darts at a dartboard, but I don't think they let me have a go. Later on, I lived in China for a few years, and I remember a shooting booth on a pavement by a river. I cannot remember what the gun was, but it was great fun! I also remember meeting some local teenage lads near Peking and they were plinking with B2s or Lions, or whatever, and they let me have a go. We also were in Shanghai, and my father borrowed a Lion sidelever; we took some shots at a frozen lake.
 
Range and Country said:
Just curious as to what introduced everyone into the world of air rifles.
Click to expand...
Cheaper than rimfire.

I'd been shooting since 13 smallbore and full bore but once I was an adult and had to pay for these things myself , I discovered a tin of pellets is cheaper.

I'll not lie my main love is .22 rimfire but I'll enter a couple of air rifle comps instead smallbore just to keep costs down.
 
mates had air rifles when i was a teenager and got me into it.
bought an old Relum tornado from a second hand store. my mates had weihrauch rifles.
 
Parents needed manure to break up the clay in the back garden, lots of it, they were introduced to a farmer, they ended up helping with turkeys at Christmas and hay making in summer, bob’s your uncle, it would have been rude of me not to get a rifle to do my bit aged 10
 
An Uncle who was into all kinds of country sports, that was 65plus years ago. Then did not touch one from age of twenty til a few years ago when the Wife decided we should take up Air Rifle shooting and join our Local club. Should not have listened as found it addictive and expensive as no longer the less than 15 pound one I first bought back in the early 1960's
 
My dad bought me one when i was young. I was a nob back then so caused chaos shooting everything in range. We had a disused railway behind my house so perfect target range. Always had guns since but just crappy break barrels. Found out about PCP recently so rekindled the hobby
 
Grew up with westerns and war films, always had cap and spud guns.

Then I shot my first airgun at the fairground and just loved it, spent all my money on the airguns, sod the rides.
 
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