Red Ryder BB Gun

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Two Red Ryder BB Guns in box. These are a relatively recent reissue. The boxes promote the gun as being "just like the one your Dad had!"

The Red Ryder BB Gun is a BB gun made by Daisy Outdoor Products and introduced in 1938 that resembles the Winchester rifle of Western movies. Named for the comic strip cowboy character Red Ryder (who also appeared in numerous films between 1940 and 1950, and on television in 1956), the BB gun is still in production despite the fact that the comic strip was cancelled in 1963. It is arguably the most famous BB gun in American history.

[edit] Design and specifications

Red Ryder BB Gun is a lever-action, spring piston air gun with a smoothbore barrel, adjustable iron sights, and a gravity feed magazine with a 650 BB capacity. It differs from the standard Daisy lever action BB guns by the addition of an engraved stock, and a saddle ring with leather thong on the receiver. A youth model airgun, the BB gun produces velocities of about 280 feet per second (85 meters per second, or approximately 190.9 miles per hour), though on some newer models it says it is capable of shooting at 350 feet per second with standard steel BBs. This has been proven false, and newer models usually retain 280 fps velocity, able to break skin but unable to kill any birds besides small sparrows and hummingbirds. The effective range is fairly short, about 10 yards (9 m), after which the low velocity and inaccuracy of the smoothbore barrel makes hitting the target difficult. BB guns are shot competitively at distances of 5 yards (4.5 m), but the rudimentary open sights on the Red Ryder make it impractical for competition, and it is primarily a plinking airgun. It has been considered a good and reliable bb gun for its low price. The main complaint however is the plastic lever often breaks when you apply too much pressure to it.

[edit] Popular culture

• The Red Ryder BB gun was prominently featured in A Christmas Story, in which the main character requests one for Christmas, but is repeatedly rebuffed with the warning "You'll shoot your eye out". The movie's fictional BB gun, described as the "Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time", does not correspond to any model in existence nor even a prototype; the Red Ryder featured in the movie was specially made to match author Jean Shepherd's story (which may be artistic license, but was the configuration Shepard claimed to remember).^[1] However, the "Buck Jones" Daisy air rifle, immediately above the Red Ryder in the Daisy line, did have a compass and sundial in the stock,^[2] but no other features of the "Red Ryder" model. The guns and a stand-up advertisement featuring the Red Ryder character appeared in a Higbee's store window in the film, along with dolls, a train, and Radio Flyer wagons.

• In the Fallout video game series, Red Ryder guns are common toys for children, useless against all but the weakest enemies. In Fallout 1 and 2 there is a unique Red Ryder Limited Edition BB Gun, however, which is one of the best small guns available. In a possible reference to A Christmas Story, it is most effective when targeting an enemy's eyes. In Fallout 3 the player is given a Red Ryder gun as a birthday present in the childhood tutorial, but there is no Red Ryder LE.

• A character in the book The Short-Timers and the film based on the book Full Metal Jacket carries a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun in addition to his M-16 rifle.^[3]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Model 1938 Red Ryder, Daisy Outdoor Products