‘chine gun

[kBob]

Any one remember the Freon powered BB machine guns advertised everywhere in the late 1960’s?

Any one had one?

Did you yourself take a huge hunk out of the ozone layer?

Anyone Still got one?

How do you power it now?

kBob

 

[1066]

No - But I have the guts of a Feldman "shooting star" fair ground compressed air Thompson sub machine gun.
The "gun" came to me, around 30 years ago, in a poor state, it had been salvaged from a fairground fire with the plastic stock and other parts melted. I eventually stripped the mechanism out and dumped the body.. I still have the complete action although I have not seen it for a few years - I understand they are now quite collectable.

 

[jeepnik]

Yes, but I mostly used it connected to compressed air. I worked at a shipyard and we had a pigeon problem. We also had a cat and rat problem. The cause of all of our problems were the employees who would feed the cats and pigeons. So they didn't hunt either rats or pigeons.

At any rate a couple of us who worked graveyards took to bringing in various pellet and BB guns. We were happily killing pigeons and making sure we didn't leave any dead ones lying around. I saw an add for the auto BB gun and ordered one. The first night with freon we cleaned off an entire I beam of sleeping pigeons before they woke up. But freon was a bit expensive so being good shipyard workers we retrofitted it to use compressed air.

We were joyfully eliminating pigeons in large numbers we one shift we missed a couple of dead ones. The pigeon feeders found them and screamed bloody murder to the yard boss. Thus ended the pigeon safaris, although the yard boss was sad to see them end.

That first auto BB gun is long gone. But a while ago I came across an add for this and just had to have it.



It uses CO2 and is a hoot. The only problem is that it only holds ten BB's in the magazine. Sure would be nice if they made a big ole drum mag for it.

 

[MedWheeler]

^^ I have one of the MP40 replicas. It holds about 50 BBs in the removable stick magazine, which also holds the two 12-gram CO2 capsules required. It can be fired in both FA and SA, and is quite fun in hand.

 

[Ascot500]

They were called the LARC
I had one that I think I bought in the 1980's. At that time Freon 12 was relatively cheap and I probably used about 5 cans before I got tired of the pressure drop from shooting long bursts.
To solve that, I got one of the compressed air adapters, but then you had to be tethered. Eventually I sold it at a decent profit.
Years later I made my own version from pvc pipe - I probably still have it somewhere.
The current crop of CO2 subguns from Umarex and Crosman are the way to go if you want to scratch the full auto itch.

FYI, there are a couple LARCs on ebay right now.

 

[jmorris]

We made and used them with compressed air. Basically a chamber you could fill with BB’s and a tube that goes to the bottom of the chamber and out the end (that’s your barrel). As the air flows out the end bb’s go with it.

Like this except we used aluminum because we ran too much pressure for plastic and used steel bb’s. Same concept though.

 

[WestKentucky]

^^ I have one of the MP40 replicas. It holds about 50 BBs in the removable stick magazine, which also holds the two 12-gram CO2 capsules required. It can be fired in both FA and SA, and is quite fun in hand.

I have seen those and always thought they were neat. I just don’t have disposable funds for 16000 of the co2 capsules laying around.

 

[Remington1911]

Yup I remember them, I think the ad's where in every comic book.

 

[HowieG]

Back a few years ago, maybe 2014, I was out at a small desert airport working on a helicopter. The airport staff, all two of them, were out on the ramp with one shooting up plastic milk jugs. Don't know if they were using freon, or canned air. Probably air.

 

[tactikel]

I had an “Annihlator” auto BB gun in the ‘60s, i saw an ad in Guns& Ammo. It was an absolute hoot to shoot. It used a canister of Freon to strip BBs from a hopper. The velocity depended on the temperature of the Freon, but they were easy to see in flight. You could see 6-10 BBs in flight at a 50 foot target. I gave it to a friend when I left for university.

 

[kBob]

Thanks guys

kBob