Your first

[J-BAR #18287]

I was given a JC Higgins bolt action .22 at age 14, and a High Standard Sport King semiautomatic pistol at 16.  The first gun I bought with my lawn mowing money was a Remington 513T for competition on the high school ROTC rifle team.  All gone, actually no regrets.  I love the ones I have now, hope my heirs enjoy them.

[Bad Bascomb, SASS # 47,494]

  First long gun a Remington single-shot .22, age 14 and cost me $15 of paper route money.  Walked in to Caldwell's Trading Post in our town and saw it, bought it and carried it home.  No one cared (1956).

 

First handgun a .32 Colt revolver, $18 from a paper route customer, a year later.  I forget now how I got rid of that thing.....  something was drastically wrong with it.

Walked up to a 24" diameter tree and from 6 feet couldn't hit it.  In retrospect, to be as bad as it was it must have had the barrel cross-threaded . 

[watab kid]

the first i bought [was not gifted] was a 1915 winchester 1890 pump gallery gun in 22 short , i bought it from a neighbor kid in the early 60s for $15 and was his uncles [he was killed in the war] i refinished it by restoring the stock to an oiled finish and had one of my fathers friends reblue it - looked great but was not original , i did get a real nice price for it tho in the 80s , well over 200% profit at that time , but that was never my intent and i wish i had it back , enough so that i found another in the last 25 years to replace it , 

[bgavin]

I grew up in an Idaho gun family, so never bought one until long after I was grown.

 

The first gun I ever bought was on August 23, 1992 in Colorado Springs.
Bill Clinton was the nations' best gun salesman at that time.

I walked into Longs Drugs and headed to the camera counter.
I asked the sales guy for a roll of film, a pack of condoms and a GP100 357 magnum.

He asked me if I was gonna hurt anybody with that gun.
I said "no" so he took my money and I walked out with the GP100.

Film is shot, condoms long gone, still have the GP100.

 

I liked the transaction so much, I bought an SP101 in 22LR on the same purchase.
Still have that one, also.

 

Edited February 11 by bgavin

[Wrangler Rich SASS #42157]

I was 13 in 1963, I had just graduated from the 8th grade. I lived with my Grandparents, since my Mother had passed away from getting burned when  I was 8 months old. They hosted a graduation party for me in which I recieved $23. 

 

Montgomery Ward's had a .22 youth model rifle at close to that amount. I asked my Grandma if she would help me out with the taxes and shipping, and she said "Yes"!  I waited for the mailman every day until, he stopped and said, " Is this what you're waiting for?"

 

I spent that summer as a "hired gun" .  Our neighbor was plagued with a pasture full of gophers. He paid me 50 cents a carcass.  

 

I still have it, and looks as good now as it did back in June of 1963.  In November of that year receiving firearms through the U.S. Mail ceased.

Edited February 12 by Wrangler Rich SASS #42157

[Three Foot Johnson]

Mine would have been a Colt Frontier Scout .22 revolver when I was 12. It was bought new with money I made from selling Christmas and greeting cards, remember that?  The serial number puts the date of manufacture in 1967, but it was sometime in 1968 when I got it, maybe in the fall after GCA '68 took effect, as my dad had to be the one to actually hand over the money... or maybe that was just store policy. Since dad actually bought it, maybe that one doesn't count, in which case it would have been either an Italian Griswold & Gunnison .36 cal percussion revolver, a Thompson Center .54 cal percussion Hawken, or a Colt Series 70 1911 when I got out of the Navy in '78. I still have the Frontier Scout, the Hawken, and the Colt 1911, but sold the G&G four years ago.

[Whitey James]

*UPDATE*

I realize I was too vague in the original post.

The first gun bought for me with money I earned was a Ruger Mark II. I was a teenager and not old enough to buy it myself so my dad bought it for me using my employee discount at Sports Unlimited. Let that one get away after a few years because it was a PIA to disassemble and re-assemble. I have a new Mark IV now that is a push button takedown.