your first gun shop

[biglever]

What was your very first gun shop like.
Were was it.
What was it in.
In the old days , gun shops could be in a old gas station , or in the back of a hardware store. Or a General store. Western auto store. Etc.
And that brings me to my first gun.
My Mother bought me my first gun from a western auto store that my family bought a lot of items from. My first 3 speed bike etc.
Any how I loved that store.., I tryed to talk my mom into getting me the clip fed repeater.
But she got me the reverlation 100. The single shot.
Every time we went in that store I was looking at all the guns and ammo.

 

[Scoop]

I had to think way back. Right now I think it was the hardware store on the SW corner of the city square in Urbana, OH. About 1959. Before that I lived in MD, but I don't remember guns in stores that I went to.

 

[biglever]

Scoop, thanks
That western auto was on central avenue in Albany ny.
Iam guessing around 1960.
I also remember going in the old Montgomery Wards. If I remember.
The sporting goods were up on. The second floor.
When I got out of the service and got married?, that's were I took my wife and bought her a new 243. Her first gun.

 

[Scoop]

The first gun I bought in a store was at a pawn shop in Lawton, OK. I was based at Ft. Sill in '65 and even as a PFC I had a lot of money. I bought a motorcycle for $100, 1911A1, $45, and a .22 conversion for the auto, $25. Big spender!

 

[biglever]

Yup. The first vehicle I had on the road was a little red motorcycle too. Every body had
A little Honda. If you had the BIG
305. , you were. King of the road.

 

[CaddmannQ]

I had a little Yamaha in '72, but my first honda was the XL350.
Every gun I knew of came from Sears or Wards in those days, because that's where my parents shopped.

 

[biglever]

One of the first gun shops I use to due a lot of business with was a very large building , it used to be an old shirt factory,
The upstairs still had all the sewing machines , and all driven
By a jackshaft that ran down tru the hole building, and had flat belts running off of that,
The old wooden floors would creek as you walk in , and the smell of oil from bearing cups
Was strong. The gun shop is long gone .but will always be
My favorite.

 

[Rossignol]

I don't remember exactly the first gun shop I was ever in. I remember the first time I ever shot a gun, I remember the guns too.

I know places like Kmart and Walmart sold guns and certainly I saw them there but never went and just looked at the guns.

One of the first times I can recall really looking at guns was at a range/gun shop. At the time it was the largest in the area. I never as a kid went to any of the smaller local gun shops or hardware stores just to look at guns and when we were at hardware stores it was more like "oh look, they have guns too".

The first time I really looked at guns like it was a love affair was when I saw a Mossberg 500 mariner but it was the shiny finish everyone thought was stainless. This was in the eighties and I knew then what I always wanted was Mossberg 500 12 ga Persuader.

The next time I went purposely looking for a shotgun I was maybe 20 or 21, I can't remember if my wife and I were married yet. It seems we were in which case I would have been 21. I went to Walmart. I looked at a Winchester 1300 defender 18-1/2". The guy told me at ten feet the shot would cover the wall virtually disintegrating an assailant and that's what I wanted in a shotgun to defend my home. No Bovine Scatology, that's what the guy told me.

Ultimately, I didn't buy the $200 shotgun. It was an investment that a kid like me couldn't afford starting a new family. I didn't get that Mossberg Persuader until sometime after my third child was born and I traded a dog for it. I had so much to learn, and I'm still learning. Though I do know now that a shotgun, while it hits like a hammer, can be used a precision instrument.