So I finally took a picture of my first gun.  I think I was around 11 when I got it.  It belonged to a friend of my dad who saw my interest in it and sold it to me for $10.  The front sight was broken so my dad got me a scope for Christmas and had it drilled, tapped and mounted for me as part of my gift.  My mom wasn't a fan but she got over it.  Dad died two years later so this little .22 means the world to me.

She's a Remington 514 .22Short/Long/Long Rifle.  The scope my father bought had broken decades ago and the gun had been unused since then but I recently replaced it and she now shoots just as well as it ever did.  Still using the same scope mounts my dad had mounted so long ago.

Sweet, love a gun with some history to it.  

Bought the Taurus 44 mag in '98.  It was my first gun and here is my "arsenal" until 2012

Very cool.





I still have my first firearm, an old Mossberg 152 .22lr semi-auto given to me by my Uncle a long time ago.  It's still in nice shape and is an excellent shooter.

 

Glad you got it back in shooting condition! It's a nice and simple .22...

I still have my first firearm as well, a Marlin 60. It was given to me by my Pops when I was about 10-11. Like yours it spent some time in an unusable state but one day I decided to see if I could fix it which led me to RimfireCentral.com and of course with the vast knowledge there I had it fixed in no time. I ended up rebuilding the majority of the action so it's as good as new with the exception of some minor cosmetic wear and tear....character I guess would be a better description.

It's the one firearm I'll never sell...I may part with it someday if I ever get around to having kids and have a son. I think that would be pretty cool to give my son his first firearm which happens to be my first firearm.

Nice post OP.

When I was 11, my first HP match (reduced) was shot with a 514 with either Lyman or Williams aperture sights and a 10/22. Then that 514 was part of the county/club's 4H smallbore program for several years.

That is a great story.  Hopefully, one day you can pass it along to your kids.

That is awesome. My 1st gun was the Remington 514 also, mine does not have a scope on it. My father won it as a door prize at a hardware store in 1966. I was 5 years old. I would "kill" plastic army men from across a road up in North Georgia with my grandfather. I did not shoot it for years since it is a single shot and I had a 10/22 and a Browning Auto 22. But when I discovered CCI CB shorts, (which made less noise than my air rifle) I have killed about 80 squirrels over the last several years with it. That is very cool to me ..I get to use my 1st rifle again!!!!!!

Mine is a 10/22 for Christmas when I was 13. Family tradition. My older brother got his, at 13, my dad got one, though not a 10/22 at 13, as did my 3 girls.

I just started to put it back to factory condition after many years with a heavy barrel and scope.  need to strip some paint off it too.

The original scope my dad bought me for Christmas was a 4X Bushnell Sportview, I still have it for sentimental sake but the wire crosshairs are broken inside the tube.  I need to see if Bushnell could fix it although I doubt they use that style reticle anymore and if I shipped it to them and for some reason it didn't make it back I would be sick.

I've never tried CCI CB shorts, if I run across some I'll try them.

Sweet, nice looking gun. My first was a Remington 511T that was my dads. Unfortunately it was stolen some time ago.

Very cool. Always cool to hear the backstory of a gun. Thanks for sharing

Great story.  Thanks for sharing.

The 514 was my first rifle, too. My Dad bought it from a coworker who got it from a closing Boy Scout camp. It is one of my most prized possessions. They are really accurate for being so cheaply made.
Every time I find one for a decent price, I buy it.

You guys won't believe it but, I too was introduced into the "real" shooting fraternity (upgraded from BB guns) by my dad who bought me a used Remington 514. I was 11-12 years old.  I'm 64 now.  It was my first real gun.  It was in good shape and I used it for many years and put it away in favor of "better" semi-auto or lever 22s.  But, I kept it.   Later, in my mid teens I had it drilled and tapped for scope mounts and mounted a cheap Tasco 4x scope in Weaver mounts.   Just this year, I dug it out of the back of my gun safe and decided to do a restoration of the rifle.  I just finished it, all original, including Weaver rings and mounts and the Tasco scope, which still functions.

I'll take some photos and post them up, hopefully tomorrow.

The 514 must have been the beginner rifle for entire generations of young people.  How nice, OP, for sharing this with us.  I have very fond memories.  I have a grand daughter who may end up with mine.  Of course, it is not worth very much on the open market, but is priceless to me, and maybe to her if she knew that it went all the way back to my father, her great grand dad.

Keep an eye out for Aguila Super Colibri as well. IIRC, they aren't quite as powerful as the CCI CB Shorts, but are also very quiet. And Aguila's 60gr SSS is kinda fun to shoot as well.



 

A similar 514  was the first gun I ever shot .
My father borrowed it from my uncle and we went down to the gravel pit behind the house . Guess I was about 8 .

Years later when I was about 35 my uncle was having health issues and he sold me a browning shotgun , S&W 34 chiefs special and the Remington. All had been stored in a damp basement and were in real rough shape.
The revolver and the shotgun were so messed up they hardly functioned so I traded them off to somebody who wanted a project .

I took some time with the Remington and cleaned up the metal and touched up the blue some and after I re did the stock it actually looked pretty good.

My uncle passed about the time I was cleaning up the gun so I pretty much decided to hang on to it .

Years later my cousins son was having a birthday (he was about 25) and his girlfriend was throwing a big family party for him. Most of my family except for this kid and his mother and step father are rabid anti-gun and most of the girl friends family except for the girl and her mother and stepfather were also anti gun .

So of course I wrapped up the gun and gave it to my cousins kid . Now this is a huge guy and his thing is ARs and M1As so while I could see he king of liked that he had got a gun you could see he was a bit confused as to why I had got him this fairly small thing.
I was getting the dagger eyes from most all the anti gun folks and when one of my snotty relatives asked out loud why I would give such a terrible thing to the kid I let loose the fact that it had belonged to his Grandfather . This kid had been real close to his Grandfather so it ment lots to him and I got a big kick out of the whole deal .

All the gun types present passed it around and made a big deal about it and talking about family guns and how much such things ment to them

Barring any bore issues I suspect that old Remington will out-shoot many new factory rifles and even hold it's own with a CZ.

They made good barrels back in that era.

The restoration. OP, if you want to try a restoration, I can offer some tips off line.  These are great little rifles and can be returned to close to original condition for next to nothing and a little elbow grease.  What scope did you chose?  Nikon?  No doubt better than my old Tasco.

Looks great!  Congrats!!!  I think I'll keep mine as is though.  It looks exactly like it did when I first picked it up as a child, minus the scope of course (I went with the Nikon Prostaff Rimfire 4X32) but if I can ever get the original Bushnell Sportview fixed I'll put it back on.

good story and those old guns were basic and very sound.  Look how well they last.  Can't say that with the new stuff, the quality isn't great when new and they use crappy castings and plastic now.  

The old guns rule!  Thanks for sharing the story and your pics.

I thought about leaving mine like it was, too.   Only clean it up a bit, but I was curious about how it might turn out and had developed some skill in doing that sort of thing.  If you look closely at the stock toward the back you can see a "ding" I deliberately left in to remind me of something stupid I did as a kid!   All other blems were filled in with a combination of hardwood sawdust and epoxy then sanded, stained and finished.

I'll bet you could probably find a period Bushnell Sportview fixed power scope on ebay for cheap, if you wanted to make it authentic.  Thanks again, for sharing.

Yeah but if I were going to put an old scope on it, it would have to be the actual original scope.  Putting a look a like on it when I have the original just feels wrong.  I'll contact Bushnell one of these days and see if it's possible for my original to be repaired once I can afford it, currently I'm buried in medical bills I can't pay as it is.

It's amazing how many people started out with a Remington 514.  They were considered "bargain" guns even in that period but as we see now they not only were made extremely well but also, at least from my experience, very accurate.