Average age of shooters

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Caliber 22

Caliber 22

Member
Nov 29, 2023
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SA
In SA, when I started to shoot air rifles in the '60's through '70's, it was mostly boys shooting it. I cannot remember adults being regular air rifle shooters. The same was true for motorcycle riding, it was mostly young men riding it. Now it is the opposite, it is adults and mostly older men shooting air rifles and riding motorcycles. With get-together's motorcycle riders of 40 - 45 and older are the majority.

What is your experience where you live?
 
I'm quickly coming up on 74 years old.

Only been shooting air rifles since I retired about 6 years ago. I never thought I'd have the money to get into another expensive hobby like this, but it seems that retirement has been good to me.

Motorcycle wise, I bought my first bike in the summer of 1986. I used the bikes for daily travel, and fast trips into the mountains on weekends, and to and from work, even in the rain, unless it was coming down too hard. I've got over 400,000 miles on bikes on the SoCal Freeways, and mountain roads. But, slowly, also since retirement, I've been on the bikes less and less, so I decided to let the license and insurance lapse on both of my bikes.

I've replaced that adrenalin rush with a 10 second (quarter mile wise), street hot rod, that I've been updating. Luckily so far, the local police have looked the other way, exhaust sound wise !!!

Mike
 
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Back in late 70's and through 80's I race sportbikes and rally cars also parachuting. In early 90's when my first son was born all stopped because my mother in law convinced my mother and wife she didn't want to get her doughter back as a young widow :) .
Since 2001 I was competing in archery FITA and Field through about 2018 when I had a shoulder blade and lung surgery (after several roadbike accidents). Some year later after I recovered fully I abandoned the archery and started with PCP airguns, again with long range rings competition in mind. And actually never competed again. Still gravel biking as much I can.
At 65 today I am just heading out to my gunclub to re-tune my Impact MK2 from .25 to .22.
What else to do, wife is cooking and the weather is about to crack a rain at 28C :)
 
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I,m 79 years young . When I was a boy I wanted a BB gun like most kids. My father would not let me own
one. His reason he thought I may be careless & shoot some kid in the eye. Finally when I was about 10 years
of age he bought me a 22 cal pump. He said the reason he let me have that he knew I would not be careless
with it knowing the power it was capable of.I already has a 410 shotgun I would go rabbit hunting with him.
I would say that what got Me into this. I went from that to brake barrels to pcps of today. I still shoot my
brake barrels often as well as to PCPs.

🪰 Fly
 
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Everything is getting so expensive these days that it seems everything is run from the 40 and over age groups.....I still play hockey and am finding less than under 30 crowd no longer can or want to play?
Every time I say this is my last year playing, I get a small group of guys say come on grandpa, we're in need of a power forward just one more year! :ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
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Stories sort of parallel me PB's forever, MC's at various times, some not so swell accidents, quality time in the ER's and OR's, long distance car rallies in there somewhere, got into airguns 'cause I needed something quieter for squirrels at a permission, wasn't the neighbors, it was a darn dog. Pushing 7.7 decades really hard, got lucky and I can afford the toys, guess my lack of edukation hasn't hurt me none. hat tip to Simon and Garfunkel.
 
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I'm 31. Shot airguns as a kid until I got my first .410 at I think 11 or 12 then I didn't really get back into airguns until I was 22. I know a few guys in there 30s that have them with some being relatives I got into it. A few 50+. But got my cousins kids in it and I think 5 of them have PCPs now and there from 10-13. My nephew is going through hunters safety at 9 and my BIL wanted to have me help teach him and we shot my Taipan Short yesterday and he did great. I think airguns are such great tools for kids to learn how to shoot with. Quiet and essentially recoiless they can really focus on the basics without fear of the recoil and noise of firearms. Then again my BIL really only has a .300 Win mag and 7mm mag so alittle big for a 70lb 9yr old lol. But yeah so far I've got 9 people into airguns with 7 being young so I'm doing my part getting young blood into the sport
 
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ABOVE: 44 1/2

In the 60's and 70's kiddies were shooting air guns and grownups shot RF or bigger practically anywhere, any time. When I started shooting adult airguns in the early 80's very few were interested in an airgun that cost as much or more than a high end .22. "You could have bought a Kimber for that". And there was no legal airgun hunting.
Urban sprawl changed everything when the city boys moved in and changed local ordinances making it illegal to shoot in "their" townships. Adult airguns gained popularity.
Single mothers typically don't want little Johnny to have an airgun because most often she has practically no authority over him. She gave that up when she neglected to have (or keep) a husband. So the number of youngsters that shoot has gone way down as the number of irresponsible parents with no spouse goes way up. And of course this is always somebody else's fault. And not their own.
All Johnny has to do is tell Momma that Dad won't let me play video games and Mommy vies for his affection by letting him sit around and play a brain dead game. And is afraid to say no to him. Now Johnny goes to Dad's place and pulls the same stunt on dum dum (dad). And now, see who has the authority here.
So, be a real man and be a husband, and then have your children. Have authority over your children like you're supposed to. Then kids can all have air guns again! IF, IF, you're man enough to stay married and maintain authority over your household. Keep yours legitimate. This is what a man does. Elementary, lads.
 
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I think in most cases if someone was into pellet/BB guns as a kid, they are back now. Or never left. The one kid I sell some of my gun to is 26 years old. But out of 3 boys in that family, he was the only little fella getting a new Walmart springer every year for Christmas. The other boys didn’t shoot airguns and still don’t give a crap about them. Another buddy who’s in his 40’s and buys my guns was also running around with a pumper and springer when I first met him when he was 15. I’m almost 56 so you can plug that into the average age equation.

What I like about what seems to me to be a middle age and up dominated hobby is how we interact. Guys like me all the way up to a 74 like MikeVV are direct and say what we think. No need to carry a bag of sugar to every conversation. And we don’t get our panties in a wad very easily. Even when we are wrong. Young guys can sometimes really stand out on a forum. But that doesn’t mean they annoy me, for the most part. A little shocked Dairyboy is 31. Figured he was a +40. That was a compliment.
 
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