The Beginners Battery: Choosing Guns for Beginning Shooters

Shooting is an exciting sport and pastime. But, the beginning shooter takes on the awesome responsibility of gun ownership and a significant financial investment with each firearms purchase. You can analyze and agonize for weeks or months over each firearms purchase in your battery of firearms. It's impossible to provide a generic gun list that will fit the needs of ever shooter. However, there are some basic categories and calibers of firearms that every new shooter should contemplate. If you were to build up a collection of five firearms, these are the types of firearms to consider:

1. A .22 Rifle. If you are interested in shooting rifles, you should probably start out with a .22-caliber rifle. There are many entry-level .22 rifles to choose from and most perform quite well. If you are looking for an accurate, inexpensive, starting point, the Marlin Model 60 is a classic, tube fed, semi-automatic .22 caliber rifle. If you think you might want to customize or accurize your rifle, then the Ruger 10/22 semi-automatic rifle is probably your best choice. The Ruger 10/22 can be outfitted with a myriad of accessories and custom parts to support anything from precision target shooting to SWAT team practice weapon. The icons in this rimfire rifle category are the Marlin Model 60 and the Ruger 10/22, but there are lots of good alternatives. You might check out Mossberg Plinksters, the Winchester Wildcat, and the Remington Model 597. For more guidance, check out this three part buyers guide to choosing a .22 rifle on Associated Content: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

2. A .22 Pistol. If you want to shoot pistols and hone your shooting skills with lots of inexpensive target practice, you'll need to get a .22 caliber pistol. The icons in this category are made by Ruger. The many variants of the venerable Ruger Mk II and the current Ruger Mk III are the quintessential American target pistols. If you are interested in plinking informally with cowboy style, you can't go wrong with a Ruger Single-Six revolver or Ruger Bearcat revolver. Of course, there are plenty of great .22-caliber pistols in the marketplace. Beyond these iconic pistols, target shooters will find the Beretta Neos, Smith & Wesson Models 21 and 41, and Browning Buckmark. While the cowboy-style icons are great single-action revolvers, Smith and Wesson and Taurus make excellent double-action revolvers.

3. A .38 Revolver. A .38-caliber revolver is simple to operate and has mild recoil. The skills you learn with a .38-caliber revolver with a standard 4-inch barrel will transfer to many other revolvers. The iconic .38-caliber revolver is the Smith and Wesson Model 10. However, there are lots of worthy alternatives from Ruger, Charter Arms, and Taurus. If you think that you might want a more powerful handgun, you might try a .357 magnum revolver. For practice, the .357 Magnum can be used to shoot .38 Special. If you have weak wrists, arthritis, or other special needs, you might try a .32 caliber revolver.

4. A Center-fire Rifle. As you get serious about rifle shooting or hunting, you may want to invest in a rifle that fires a centerfire cartridge. Centerfire cartridges are more reliable and boast more power for longer range shooting and hunting. There are many iconic rifles in this category and it depends on your shooting interests. If you are into history, you may want to shoot an iconic rifle like a Mauser, an M1 Garand, or a Winchester Model 94. If you are into a hunter, you may want to look at rifles like the Marlin Model 336 or a Remington 700.

5. A Shotgun. If you want something for skeet shooting, duck hunting, or home defense, you might try a basic, no-frills, shotgun like the iconic Remington 870 Express. A basic, well-made, reputable-brand, pump-action 12-gauge shotgun should be usable for many purposes without draining your bank account.

The firearms marketplace is saturated with all kinds of interesting choices. As a beginner, the key is to think through your purchases and buy firearms that are versatile and will grow with your shooting needs. You'll want to be careful about buying specialized firearms that shoot expensive ammunition or won't be allowed at your local shooting range. For example, large .50-caliber sniper rifles are generating a lot of excitement in the shooting world. However, ammunition is expensive and they really require an extreme long distance shooting range to reach their maximum potential. Their high-power rounds are almost certain to penetrate or damage the backstop at your local range. Unless you live in the wide-open expanses of the desert Southwest, you may want to pick something a little more practical. Fortunately, there is a lot to choose for gun enthusiasts.