The Top 40

I received a Colt Colteer 22 rifle from a great uncle for Christmas when I was 12. Some years later, my uncle suggested that I could trade that rifle to help me get something better. I wouldn't trade that rifle for anything and have had it for 40 years. It will become my son's in the future, along with a couple others.

I got a Daisy on my 7th Christmas and gave the exact same one to my son on his 7th and he gave it back to me about 15 years ago and it's sitting in one of my gun cabinets right now waiting for my grand daughter to turn 7.

It still functions perfectly after probably 10,000 BB's shot through it. It's the old skool version, circa 1962, where you twist the end of the barrel revealing the hole on the side.

If you try to pour the BB's in they go all over the place. So the best way to load it is to fill your mouth with the BB's then put your mouth on the hole and blow em in there.

I was a skinny brat at 7 and lacked the arm strength to cock the thing so my dad showed me how to skrunch my toes up in my shoe, put the end of the barrel on the end of the shoe and use my hand to leverage the lever down to cock it.

What my dad DIDN'T tell me, and I learned the hard way was, that you can't fire the Daisy with the lever in the down position like a 'sheen gun.

I did and almost broke all the fingers in my right hand as the lever came back up HARD. Yeah, I cried like a gurl baby. LOL

My dad gave me a .22 rifle for my 12th birthday. For my 14th he gave me a Browning Light Twelve semi-auto shotgun, 12-gauge. He and I and my older brother went hunting with him until we each went off to college.

My dad is now 89, nearly blind, facing serious and worsening mobility problems. When I asked him in September what he wanted for his upcoming birthday, he said, "Oh, just give me something you want to inherit."

So I said, "One Beretta 686E Over-Under coming right up!" He laughed at that!

I received a Daisy BB gun for Christmas when I was about 7 or 8. Wish I still had it. Gave a Daisy 22 to my grandson when he turned ten. When I turned 10 my grand mother gave me her youth era 22 single shot. It was a Winchester youth model made in the mid-late 1800's. I still have it and treasure it. I treasure my memories of her too. She was a fantastic shot with any rifle including using a mirror and shooting backwards over her shoulder at targets.