Toy Guns of the 1950's - 1960's

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PAC 762 said:
I'm only 27, but I had a few cool toys. I had an entertech water gun that looked like an RPG-7. I also had a 1:1 copy of an MP5SD. It had a removeable magazine, retractable stock, and working safety. You could load caps in the mag and it would eject the spent caps like spent brass. I wish I could find those.

ETA- I found a pic of the RPG: http://www.virtualtoychest.com/entertechsquirtguns/entertechbazookac.jpg
Click to expand...

I'm 29 and had VERY strict rules about all toy guns:point one at anyone and it was my a$$ but did manage to talk my dad into getting me the awesome Rambo CAR-15 squirtgun whose reservoir what looked like an M-249 box mag.Pretty close to lifesized,made a great sound and would brutalize ants all day long.I didn't really have too many toy guns growing up but the Crossman 760 I got on my 7th birthday sorta made up for it and none of the other kids I knew were allowed to have BB guns until I was already long since .22 approved so maybe I didn't miss out on too much.
 
Child of the 80's here...grew up in an AFB town, CFB Comox in BC Canada...Had a park behind the house, mud, trees, gulleys, and a creek + toy guns what more did us boys need for hours of fun??

I had an Entertech battery operated uzi like this one:
http://www.i-mockery.com/minimocks/water-guns/entertech-uzi.jpg

And the WaterHawk
http://www.virtualtoychest.com/entertechsquirtguns/entertechuzic.jpg

I'm not sure of the manufacturer, but I had a bunch of really great cap guns. These were all very relistic 1:1 copies of the real thing, they all took the 13 shot "Strip Caps" that lock together...I used to use my Grandfathers CANEX card to get the caps guns at the AFB CANEX.

  • Beretta pistol
  • Colt M16
  • Ak-47
  • Uzi carbine...
 
Strolling down memory lane....

The 50's definitely were different WRT guns....

My favorite was a replica of a Browining water-cooled .30 my dad bought me at FAO Swartz. It had a metal slide that would hold a dozen or two wooden, 1/4" or so dowels, and when you cranked the handle on the side, a cam-action spring would wack the lowest one in the feed tray. Range was a good 40+ feet. With rapid fire, it was a formidable weapon in neighborhood skirmishes - until all the 'bullets' got lost in the bushes. For some reason, making new ones never occurred to me at the time, though for a while, pencils around the house started disappearing. :(

Cheers
 
Found this on the "Mouseguns" site. Though I'd ask a question, maybe somone here has seen one.

When I was a kid in the 60's I had a replica of what we called then a "German Luger." It was made of solid cast metal, (aluminum? Zinc? I don't know.) had been painted black at one time, but most of the paint was worn away. The barrel was bored (cast?) out about 1/2 inch or so. Other than that it was solid. Whatever it was for originally it looked like it was cast from a mold of a real Luger. It was full sized, it fit right into an surplus GI holster.

I never thought it was made to be a "toy" but we kids used to almost fight to be the one to play with it. At one time or another it stayed at all our houses, I don't even think anyone ever really knew who it belonged to.

Anybody ever seen anything like that?
 
Yep! Back in the late '50s there were a few circulating in our little SE MO town. Seemed to be pretty evenly divided between the P-08 and the 1911-A1, IIRC. I traded an old "Doughboy" style helmet to an older kid in my neighborhood for one of the GMs when I was nine or ten.

Don't know exactly what the alloy it was cast from, but the thing was so much more "lifelike" than our cap pistols that the allure was overwhelming.

I seem to recall ads in some of the "adventure" and outdoor magazines for them at the time for the like, often being touted as display models. Can't even guess what the prices ran anymore after almost half a century. Sheesh! Anything over a buck or so seemed to be an unobtainable sum to most of us then and there.

A lot of the ones in our area got modified by the JHS-aged aspiring Hooligans into "firecracker" guns. The barrel was bored back a ways and a somewhat generous "touch hole" drilled in at the rear. The idea being to drop a firecracker down the bore, fish the fuse out the touch hole, ram some newspaper or the like down for wadding, add a ball bearing or some BBs, cram some more paper on top of that, point it at something and light the fuse.

It's a real miracle that there weren't a bunch of Darwin Awards handed out there. Looking back, it sure couldn't have been for the lack of trying :rolleyes:
 
When I was about eight years old I hit the jackpot at Christmas--got seven toy guns all at once. Instant arsenal. I date my interest in guns from then.

Cajunbass, I remember those aluminum replicas. I got one of the Walker Colts and did a little aging work on it, plus making a walnut grip panel for one side. A neighbor mounted it on green felt in a dark walnut case for wall display; I still have it some forty years later. It's a little smaller than the genuine article but looks very good nonetheless.

Those were the days before nice Uberti replicas.
 
I had the Johnny Seven and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. briefcase. This camera gun looks familiar to. Either I had it or one of my brothers did. That kid on the J7 box looks EXACTLY like me in 1966 or so, waiting for my dad to step through the door after work.


My neighbor had 2 Johnnny Sevens in her garage sale a few years ago for $7 each. I didn't have the cash on me so I walked home and went back 20 minutes later and thye were gone. I REALLY kicked myself for not asking her to hold them.
 

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Did anyone else have a Carbide Cannon?
Click to expand...
Nope, no cannon, couldn't afford it. (about 3 or 4 bucks back then, I think.;) ) But we could afford carbide, which was about 50 cents a ton when I was a kid. Used to use coffee cans. Punched about 3 or 4 holes in the bottom about an inch from the base rim the size of a quarter. Layed the can down at an angle in the dug out earth so the open end was pointing slightly skyward. Put about 2 or so ounces of water in the can and drop a couple carbide pellets in. Wait for the magic gas to appear and put the plastic lid on. Hold a lighted match to the holes and ............BOOM! Cheap fun for sure.:D
 
Thanks to Rembrandt and his thread I have just bid on 5 cap guns from my first childhood.
I may need help if I ever grow up !
I'll post pictures if I win.
 
Majic said:
I had the Johnny Seven OMA. IIRC the pistol grip was a pistol that detached.
Click to expand...
Still have mine along with a couple of other spinoff's. As kid I use to have this real neat deringer that used very realistic bullets, you pulled the bullet out of a brass case put the cap in the bottom and replaced the bullet, it looked like a short JHP, don't remember what happened to that one though.:confused: Also still have this neat battery powered squirt gun, put water in the clip attach and ratatatat. looked real too.
 
On the talk of the water guns, my friend had this kind of M79 replica that had four plastic "shells" that held quite a squirt of water.

When the trigger was pulled, it compressed the shell, squeezing the water out.

Still haven't been able to find pics.
 
I had a whole lot of them. A bunch of SAA looking cap pistols, a pair of Remington looking long barreled revolvers from Parris as well as one of their lever actions, one of their double barreled shotguns, one of their Kentucky rifles, one of their 1903A3s, and two of their "freedom pistols". I also had a couple of their derringers, one blued and one nickel. Untold M-16 knock offs, including one that had a pull slide that you cocked and could then get about twenty full auto shots from. I used to stick empty 22 shells in the track that the slide ran in and then rattle them off, watching the brass eject all over the yard.:evil: I also had a battery powered minigun and a pump action sawed off shotgun. My usual ensemble was a Daisy AK-47 and two Daisy SAA knock offs that would fire single or double action.
My personal favorite was a SIG P-225 made out of all cast metal with plastic grips that I found in a department store in Germany. It felt like a real gun and I used to scare the hell out of my friends back on base. My First Sergeant ordered me to keep in my wall locker. :D I should have kept it but I gave it to a friend's kid instead. Now he can find this post in 10 years and respond to it. :D

It should also be noted that I grew up in the 80's and 90's. Well, I guess "grew up" is a relative term.
 
I remember wearing this to school one day right after Santa left at
the tree..Sure wish I had it now. Remember how you make your
stomach push on the back of the buckle and the derringer would
pivot out ? Pretty cool, I thought.
derringer.jpg

Mattel Shootin' Shell Buckle Gun
 
I had one of those!

Also the Winchester that loaded through the gate and ejected out the top, just like the real one. My sister got the "scout rifle," which was probably a Rolling Block Remington - all I remember was that hers was single-shot. I also had a "Maverick" - style Derringer.

Later I got a super Thompson cap gun; pull the bolt back and it would eat about 1/4 of a roll of caps each time. Cutts compensator and ribbed barrel, too. Had the original Mattel "Fanner-Fifty" Colt SAA copy that took the "Greenie Stik-Em Caps" ($$$$$) and fired the plastic bullets, as well as one called "Thunder Gun" because it took a DOUBLE roll of caps.

In junior high I learned to zig-zag a roll of caps onto long hat pins (women still had them then), then CAREFULLY pull the pin out after taping the product very tightly w/2 paper matches at the end. This was back when one could learn such useful skills in public schools. :uhoh:

After having one go off in my hand during this delicate manouever, I came up with the brilliant idea of making booby traps by just tying a string to the pin. I tied the other end to the bumper of my mother's car and waited for her to back out of the driveway.

It worked.

Later I tried making firecrackers out of tightly rolled paper and Red Dot. :eek:
 
Tory said:
Later I tried making firecrackers out of tightly rolled paper and Red Dot. :eek:
Click to expand...
Yah I tried that too, didn't work but it made a neat little rocket engine. Back then if you were carefull you could scrape the little dot of those big red caps and pile them into a home made firecracker, a little JetX 50 fuse and you were in business, the down side it took a whole box of caps and a whole day to make just one.:D
 
aaronrkelly,
Go for it !
Bought 4 for the Grandkids and one for me.
Dont know about the kids but I show mine off to my friends all the time.
Best toy gun I've ever had,
 
A few questions......

Let me date myself right away. I was born in 1947.

Does anyone remember a toy gun manufacturer by the name of 'Nichols'? My brother had an 1860 army pistol that was a dead ringer for the real thing.
Does anyone remember a series of rifles made by a company called 'K' something. These were made with wooden stocks and I believe were copies of '03 springfields. They also made long guns modeled after percussion rifles.

And last of all, why were we allowed to play with toy guns without a worry in the world as to what they would do to our delicate psyches? You might argue that TV or movies have changed things, but we watched war movies and westerns as a steady diet, and there was killing aplenty in those. We knew it was only the movies.

I think that the most important thing was that we grew up in a time where kids were familiar with firearms, and that keeping kids away from them and the knowledge of what they're capable of is our worst problem today. Teach a kid respect for firearms and you've solved most of your problems.
 
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