My father didn't teach me to shoot. While he was in college, he and some friends were hunting deer when a bullet hit a tree nearby and he gave up hunting/shooting altogether untill after I picked it up from some friends. The first non air rifle I ever shot was a 20 ga single shot. My first gun was an FIE single shot 12 ga. Seeings as I sell guns for a living I am constantly talking people down in power except with .410's. I do my best to steer people away from this gun as a starter. If you can't hit squat, it's no fun. If it's no fun you won't continue. I constantly hear "that's what my father started me on" in resistance but when I proclaim a .410 to be an experts gun they usually remember years of frustration! I don't tell my customers this but my dad used to let me drink a bit of beer with him while we were eating popcorn watching football. That wasn't necessarily right either but it's what we did!

My dad's winchester model 37 single shot in 20 gauge. I was old enough recoil wasn't an issue though, I was in high school.

I started with a borrowed, break-open .410. I killed exactly one squirrel with it, putting exactly one shot pellet in his head. That lucky pellet was the beginning of my lifelong hunting career. We soon learned that the pattern on that particular gun was marginal at best, scattering lead from here to Christmas with each shot. As a squirrel gun it left much to be desired.

Dad then graduated me up to an Ithaca 37 in 20 gauge, on permanent loan from my uncle. With its full choke, I soon learned that one DID have to aim with a shotgun, and many squirrels met their fate off the end of that barrel.

As I grew comfortable with it, I unconsciously began to cycle the action faster and faster, until I developed the regrettable habit of occasionally firing a second shot by closing the action while the trigger was still depressed (this gun had no trigger disconnect). I worked through that, and then developed the opposite (and equally regrettable) habit of ejecting the fired shell, but not closing the action afterwards.

In summary, I learned a great deal from that old Ithaca 20 gauge, and I look forward to passing those lessons on to my son when he is of appropriate age and stature.

I started my kids, girlfriends, and SO’s on light .22’s at targets.

Shotgunning was started with a 28-ga 1100 skeet gun at skeet station #1 and #7. If the new shooters are concentrating on a moving clay target, they don’t notice recoil. However, the main problem with a shotgun is the weight vs. strength of a woman and/or young boy. The shotgun weight has these poor folks leaning backwards to support the gun. Managing the recoil in this situation is like leaning I into a left hook with a good counter puncher.

I found shooting targets is quickly addicting even if a person has no interest in hunting.

My dad started teaching me with a Daisy air rifle, and then moved up to his first gun, a single shot .22. He's always been an enterprising guy, wanting to teach people stuff (he's a college professor), so he actually organized an airgun camp that drew about 100 kids over a week for 2-3 summers. In high school I shot 4-position small-bore, where I really learned to shot well. Dad coached the last year. My first gun is a lever-action .22. First time fired a shotgun was a 12-gauge after completing hunter's safety trainin at 10 years old. I wouldn't touch another shotgun until my granddad died an left me his single shot 16 ga. when I was 13.

My dad started me with a Savage Model 24 in .22WMR over .410. It was dandy for snowshoe hare and ruffed grouse.

Phil
Dad started me with a single shot break action .410 which was always good for a coup d'grace on a flopping around pheasant, not much else. Fortunately there was only one .410 in the family gun closet and my brother needed it a year after I did so I hunted with a 20 gauge pump from the time I was 12 to 14 when my brother graduated to that gun and I went to a 12 gauge and never looked back.
I burned most of my allowance at scout camp shooting .22s on the rifle range.
SA

My upbringing was inauspicious, gunwise. Dad was a non-outdoorsman professor and Mom had a lifelong phobia about guns. Somehow I latched onto "The Rod and Gun Club of the Air" on radio in the late 1940s (anybody out there remember it?), and subscribed to Field and Stream for a vivid fantasy life, but not much else. Dad died; 5 years later Mom remarried, to a guy who had grown up hunting and fishing in Michigan, but was now a NY lawyer who worked so damn hard to raise us kids that his hunting went out the door. However, he still had his guns; my first from him was a Stevens Armory Model falling-block .22 from the late 19th century. What a tack-driver. Then I got his .35 Remington pump, his Model 94 30-30, and his Model 12 shotgun (damn right this guy knew a good gun when he saw it). All pre-1950, all working just fine, thank you. My own progress was fitful, and mostly self-taught, and I'm still not much of a woodsman, but I can pretty much hit whatever I can see. And I still rely on F&S for tips and for my fantasy life. Many thanks.

A Marlin model 99 M1. I still have it.

My first gun was a Stevens single shot 20, nice and light for a kid. Also in my youth, my first gun I learned to stay away from was a shotgun my uncle didn't want anymore (smart man). He gave my dad a 12ga bolt action JC Higgins. Ugly as sin and it literally knocked the snot out of me. With a high brass loads I'd lay money it kicked harder than any 338 or better. Don't know what happened to that gun and don't care, I'm sure it didn't get stolen the theives would have brought it back.

Dr. R
Concerning your Daisy, that was my gun but apparently you had a lemon. Mine was bad ass. I'd dry fire about 10 times or until it'd shoot an air hole in a broad leaf weed. Then I was ready. Had that gun for a lot of sparrow kills till I shot my sister in the tongue. Being grounded from hunting for three months was eternity for a 3rd grader.

I started with an old Stevens .22/.410 at around 10/11. Moved up from that to a Browning Auto-5 in 20 gauge, and occasionally a Stevens 311, also in 20 gauge at around 12 or 13. After that I started using my father's Winchester Model 12 12 gauge.

For rifles, I pretty much went straight from the .22/.410 to a Sako Finnwolf chambered in .308 Win. for deer hunting at age 12. I also used a Ruger M77 chambered for .280 Remington.