I love all kind of airguns, and have owned over 15 guns. From pumpups, springers, all the ways to the super powerful pcp bigbores. My fascinations with airguns began in childhood when I was 11 years old. I was introduced to it by a childhood friend. He invited me over to his house and showed me his Daisy BB gun and let me shoot it. I was hooked from the start. I went and bought a Crossman 706 Pumpmaster with the little money I had at that time. I started practice shooting and hunting with that gun almost everyday. Later on I bought another one, it was the Crossman 2200, and found out it was a lot more effective for hunting. I really had my eyes set for the Benjamin pumpup gund at that time but couldn't afforded it. All my family, none of them was into guns and know nothing about guns, let alone hunting. So I had to learn everything by myself via reading. I loved to read hunting books and have learned a lot from them about guns and hunting. Later in life I graduated to firearms and have bought quiet a few of them and hunted biggames with them. I love firearms also and was impressed by their power and their effectiveness, but I haven't forgoten my root with airguns.

I 'm especially fascinated and intrigued by the powerful bigbores and their designs, all that power come from common air only have always fascinated me. I was 10 times more excited to received my 500 fpe bigbore than my .300 Weatherby magnum. I also love the high quality spring guns for their simplicity, selfcontained power and their mechanical wonder. The high quality smallbore pcp for their extreme accuracy. And also the pumpup Benjamin for nostalgia of childhood. I even like the different airguns from different countries just for the differences in the designs and builts. So I guess beside being a hunter, shooter, I'm also a collector and would like to own many different makes of guns, production or customs. I do have a soft heart for the custom guns. How about you guys?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2010 03:13AM by peter-n.

For my first airgun, I sold boxes of greeting cards. It was a thing you could do in the 50's and 60's. There were magazine adv. for the programs. A company would send you a case of card boxes. You'd then hound the local neighbors to sell them. As I recall, for the mere sale of a dozen boxes of cards, you could get a nice prize. I actually forget how many you had to see to get the BB gun ... but that was the first.

Always liked them.

Gary

My first gun was a Crosman 760. That was my one gift that Christmas. I shot that thing until the plastic forearm you pumped it with broke, then I made a wood forearm for it and shot it for a couple more years. I shot firearms, archery and black powder except during graduate work while in Indianapolis. I borrowed a springer for a while and loved the accuracy and ease of use. Of course, I had to have a heavy springer and that was so hold sensitive I couldn't get the accuracy. When I went to PCP I was back in the sweet spot, shooting accurate, quiet and without worrying about strays going too far down range. I've since begun collecting Gary's work as unique performance artwork, and perform it does.

Kent

Yeah, you've been collecting the top of the line Bigbores Kent he..he... I think every serious bigbore collector should have at least a Basrnes gun in their collection. Without it you would be missing out the best.

My first airgun was a daisy Model 1894, I was 9 years old. It was a well made replica of the winchester model 1894 lever action rifle. Nice wood stock, all dark blued metal, you loaded it through the side gate like the real deal. Wish I knew what happened to it. One of these days i'm going to search the attic at my parents house, my mom has a knack for storing childhood memories. My second airgun was the Crosman 760 pumpmaster, I was 10 I believe.Man I remember clacking that thing about a million times, hehe. Then when I was 11 going on 12 I got a Marlin 39D .22 rifle for Christmas. That was it for airguns for the next 30 plus years. Then quite by accident I was lookig at custom knives when I stumbled across an article about a master Knife Maker who had moved into making high end, high powered airguns. His name was, yep you guessed it, GL Barnes. Using the then new to me internet I found www.GLBarnes.Com. Then I found european high quality airguns while lurking around Gary's site and have been shooting airguns every since. I finally made the leap and got on the ledger as well. I enjoy shooting airguns going through the whole gambit of choices, springers, gas ram and pre-charge. Beeman, RWS, Theoben, Daystate, Air Arms, Webley, BSA, Customs, a Barnes, and some I can't remember.
Now i am down to just one, and patiently awaiting the arrival of the ultimate master piece.

Man - all these nice things said. I wish there were three or four of me. Thanks Guys.

Gary

It's interesting to see how everyone got started with airguns and love them. I wish more readers would joined in.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well, Peter....
Aside from shooting a friend's low-powered springer as a kid (I shot a little bird with it and was mortified, and didn't want to shoot airguns anymore), I re-started later in life, around 2000 at age 44, with a .177 Gamo. The idea was to do something about the rabbits around the property. The thrill of shooting my first rabbit with it (I obviously toughened up over the years!) told me I wanted to be a hunter. After a couple of years I felt the need for a more powerful gun to deal with possums. Along came the Falcon and I never looked back, until a couple of years ago my pal Don showed me a SamYang 909 twin tube. I was fascinated by the size of the hole in the end of it, and eventually bought it. Then another big bore, and another, and another.....now firmly hooked.
Cheers

Neil

Yeah Neil, I'm kinda like you, when I looked at the humongous hole in a big bore and hold the big slug in my hand, there was something about its deadliness that made you hook on the big bore. I guess it's your instinct telling you that big hole means lethalness and can kill for food or whatever in our human primal hunter's instinct he..he..

I like airguns because they are a quiet, inexpensive alternative to powder burners....

You don't need all that "stuff" either, as with firearms.

hehe

Gary

Inexpensive? I certainly hope that was a joke seeing which forum this comment is on. I suppose they could be cheaper if you went with one of the break barrels or a pumper, but how many of us red blooded American GUYS (men? or little boy that got bigger?) can stay with the small stuff? I'm sure there are some out there, but I'm not one of them.

Oh, and Gary, no knock on your forum or on you yourself. I just wouldn't lump your guns into the economy section of any gun discussion.

Griffin, you did see the rolling on the floor laughing picture right?

No Jerry, I totally missed it. Just showing yet again how aware I am!

No offense taken.

You see ... I have to shoot the Simmons scopes. When I grow up ... I want a Nikko Sterling.

Gary

Peter,

My first gun was an old Daisy 880. I had to hide it in the garage because my father was adamantly opposed to guns of any type.

I've always had a multi-faceted interest in guns. I like the looks, the feel and the ability to project power at distance. Guns are interesting machines. Air guns in particular offer more opportunity to shoot until you get above ~100 fpe.

Lon

My first air gun has been made by my own hands. It was at 1982, when I was 13. It was "real bigbore"...32-.38 smooth bored (alumin pipe ).
The compressor was made of aluminium velo pump. It was a spring piston , more likely "rubber spring and wooden piston" design. I shot with a rounded piece of putty (sometimes with one #2-#1 shot inside). It took me allmost one week to fabricate. If somebody want's, i would send the
drawings ....for free.
14 years later I've started to repair the airguns and firearms as the main activity but air guns get me much more pleasure.

Hi Alex,

An interesting story. Sure - we need pics.

I made some copper pipe guns that are still in the shop. One with an adapted cheap "foot pump" that probably Ames used to sell for bicycles. I made up a sort of "trombone slide" firing valve that still holds air. Fun stuff.

Gary

Hi Gary
I'l gonna buy a camera in short time and I'll send some fotos of my shop and lovely mashines, air rifles, CNC etc.
I dreamed 10 year to contact with your community but I was not ready enough theoretically and practically.

Hi Alex,

Where are you?

Sure thing. When you are ready, post some pics.

Gary

I'm still at my shop now (in Ukraine, Europe). Sorry, my English is not perfect enough , typewriting too slow, I have to make kharakiri
At the present time I investigating the ballistic of smoothbored 0.410 airgun useing bolt insted pellet at low muzzle velocityes- 300-400fp,
and low pressure -600psi.It's multi-pump airgun. Second topic is controlled dieseling in spring air gun.
And the lust...I want to sleep it's 22:03 o'clock here.
I

Great to hear from you Alex. This is the best part of the www. The fact that it is truly world wide. I love to hear the ideas and different ways of doing different things from different parts of the world. Thanks Alex.

You could make a lot of energy shooting a bolt at 300-400 fps. Sounds like a fun project.

Good luck.

Gary

My first airgun was a crossman 1377. I got it for Christmas when I was maybe 10 or 12. I loved that thing. Funny things is, it's also a big part of what got me back into airguns and I'm now 30. My dad was looking for a way to get rid of critters in his garden in a fairly quiet manner and ended up on airgundepot.com and came across some stuff and so I started checking out what they had. The internet is a dangerous place for some of us. I thought the small bore stuff was neat and then I found the dragonslayer. Well there goes my savings account. I still haven't picked up a DS, but I probably will some day just because it was the single gun that really made me check out the big bore air gun world. But back to my whopper of a 1377. It wasn't long after this that I found the old 1377 in a box in the garage and stared plinking with it again. My in-laws had been having a rat problem in one of their barns (they were bold enough to run over people's feet to get to the chicken food they were eating) and now that I had a small gun (probably not good to go chasing rats around a barn with horses with my .44 mag rifle or something like that) I figured I could help with that problem. Well over the course of a couple of weeks of wandering out to the barn whenever I went to visit, I took 2 mature rats (one being a mother with a youngish litter) and 2 large pups. I haven't seen another rat since. Simple, cheap, effective. And I'm hooked. Again. Not sure I'll go back to powder burners. I've still got a few, and I like them a lot. But there's a romance involved with an air gun and how they work that has me trapped. Don't know why. And not sure I care.

I really envy you,Griffin, about your childhood. When I was 10-12 I lived in Evil Empire, you know what I mean, and it was impossible to buy ANY
air gun. It was just one possibility to shot with low energy air springers at shooting gallery, made from worked out bus (aprox. 5 cents per shot).
My first pump-up Crossman (2100) I've got at 1997 when I was 28, to make for lost, I guess. That Crossman, sometimes, helped me to
feed myself with pigeons (6-10 per day). That's why my romance with air gun was the question of survival.

Thanks guys for the posts! Welcome to the forum Alex!

Welcome Alex, Good to have you join in. Your perspective on airgunning will be eye opening for us who need to remain thankful for our situation.

Kent

Kent,
I so sorry. It was not EVIL EMPIRE as mr.Reagan said but just "evil empire", I did not want to be understood in such a dramatic sense as
it ,probably, sounded in my previos message. It's a fault of my poor language. "survival" meant only not to ask smb for money.
Been in Canada at 1999 I've got from my colleges, the canadian railroad engineers, Air Gun Digest, the old one. I'm still grateful them
very much. One year later I've found Gary's site in internet, he has helped me decide to stop working for someone and to start do things
I love (air guns)...

With regards ,
Alex

We're very glad you found us. Consider yourself at home. We'll put a peg on the wall for your coat.

Gary

I finally bought a camera and try to use it.
That's my air gun (not finished yet: trig guard, scope mount etc.) 37in. long with 16 fpe,generally, nothing special.
Just 64 percents efficiency instead common 30-35percents, thanks to controlled combustion. I have another (the same principal) with 23 fpe in .177cal but this one I like much more.

Good job Alex. The pic is just fine. Glad you have a camera now.

The gun looks interesting. I forget - sorry ... did you say you modified it ... or made it? Also ... what's this about the controlled combustion. Are you speaking of intentional dieseling, or something else?

Thanks for the post.

Gary

If you are not real familiar with digital cameras, most will have a "Macro" setting that allows real tight close-ups. It's usually shown by a small "flower" icon. If you want tight detail of stuff - try that. Of course ... I just saw your slug picture ... that was great ... so maybe you already have all this figured out.

Nice and interesting looking gun Alex. Is it a pcp, or spring gun? 21fpe for a .177 is good energy.

Hi Gary, hi Peter
I started that gun just to prove my theory of intentional dieseling (absolutely correct definition) to get the uniform process from shot
to shot, and determine the minimum working volume enough to dieseling.
The result was very good, therefore I've decided to finish it. I've got maximum energy in a small size as for spring gun .
I started with chinese gun, but for now just barrel (shortened-12inches), trig guard and some small parts are original.
Alex