The First Rifle I Ever Shot

[Patient957]

Here's kind of a cool story, and quite special to me. When I was a kid I used to go "hunting" with my grandfather. We usually ended up shooting at tree stumps but I can remember him getting a grey fox once. He had it stuffed and placed it in his office. This is the rifle I used, a Remington Speedmaster 552. I learned to shoot with this rifle and was taught the basics of gun safety as well. This was maybe at the age of 6 or so. I just remember having always done this. By 8 I roamed the property freely carrying this weapon and missing crows that my grandmother wanted removed. It was part of childhood for me.

My grandfather recently passed away at the age of 82. An incredibly tough thing to go through considering the impact he had in my life and in others. When these things happen, you tend to go through "stuff" afterwards and I happened to find this same rifle in the barn. So, I now have the same rifle that I grew up with. I have a lot of weapons, but this rifle and I have some history. She was a little rusty but I cleaned it the best I could and gave the internals a good cleaning as well. I went to the range last weekend and amazingly after all this time, she shoots wonderfully. 1" low at 50 yards. I couldn't be happier. Upon researching the weapon a bit I found something that struck me as odd. It was built (judging by Remington date codes) the same month and year I was born! So I guess this partiucular rifle and I were just meant for eachother.

I plan on teaching my son one day (he's 3) how to shoot using this same rifle that my grandfather taught me with. I just wanted to share what is to me a very sentimental rifle and know that some of you can most probably relate to this in some way or another.

[bunkysdad]

Very nice that you found it and was able to keep it. I can totally relate, as my first experience shooting a rifle was a identical 552 Speedmaster. And like you, it was my grandfather that owned it and let us shoot it when we visited. We would shoot soup cans and pop cans off of a fence post. It was my favorite thing to do when we visited.