Your first toy gun as a kid...

I have photos of myself in the fifties, wearing a cowboy hat and shirt, double holsters and cowboy boots/neckerchief.
I don't remember the cap guns, but I still have one set of boots from when I was probably no more than five.(circa 1957)
I do remember owning the same little DICK auto as the OP.
I also remember owning something that looked like an 1842 Aston. Wood stock with a metal tube barrel. At a little older age, I would try to chuck a firecracker down the tube, and anything that I could find, as a projectile.
And a Mattel Winchester, which remained here until I peddled it on ebay. Also had a Mattel snubnose .38, which fired plastic bullets from its spring loaded cartridges.(I tried to make that more accurate, by taping on a piece of plastic "pipe" from my Lionel rail car.)
Even though I've sold off my gun collection and no longer shoot, perhaps those early formative years are why I'm still tempted to buy a Colt SAA that I know about.
 

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delta-419 said:
Does anyone remember a six shooter cap gun that came with 6 bullets that fit in a cartridge case where you pulled out the "bullet", placed a round cap under the "bullet", and you only had six shots. You had to reload like a real gun. I think I had one when I was in the 5th grade? Playing cowboy was the neighborhood sport of the times in the early '50s.
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I had one of those when I was kid The brand was Nichols I think. Saw one new in the box on the Antiques Road show. Was worth some bucks.
 
PALADIN85020 said:
Perhaps you have had a similar experience and/or pictures. It might be interesting to wander down memory lane and revisit your first toy gun.
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I'm pretty sure I've told the story before, but the only "toy gun" I remember playing with as a child was a genuine, honest-to-God Smith & Wesson revolver. :eek: Nope, not a joke. :)

Having two great uncles that worked at the mothership their entire adult lives (back when Smith & Wesson was still owned by the Wesson family), it's not really all that surprising that they put together a 100% non-functional S&W revolver from mismatched junk parts for me to play with. :)

No, you could never get away with that today. :D Can you even imagine the horror? ;) A little kid running around with a "real" S&W revolver? :p My parents and I would be on the front page of the newspaper when the cops found out from the neighbors! :D

But it was a different time. :) A VERY different time. :) It was just another nifty toy in my little kid's toy box. :D

Funny thing is that I never found out what happened to that gun after I grew up and went away to college. :confused: From time to time I ask my very elderly mother what happened to it, but she doesn't know. :confused: I'm guessing that the old man threw it away once there were no kids left at home to play with it. :)
 
I can't remember if this was the first one, but it's the one I always remember:

640px-Johnny_Seven_OMA_toy_gun.jpg
 
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You gun

I don't remember my first toy gun but the ones that I remember were the Johnny Eagle from the mid 60's. My brother and I had the Red River set. Six Shooter and lever rifle. They fired those plastic bullets that were spring loaded onto the "brass" (also plastic). I believe the other sets were the Lieutenant (M14 and 1911) and the Megumba (Bolt rifle and what looked like an auto-mag). We loved them. I see them on EBay but the prices put me off.
 
I think mine was a silver Hop-a-long Cassidy cap shooter. I wore it along with my Davy Crockett coonskin cap.
 
My 5th Christmas and I'll never for get this one. It was at once one of the best and one of the worst.

I got a complete Hoppalong Cassidy outfit: hat, boots, fringe shirt, fringe cuffs, neckerchief and double gun and holster set. Hoppy was my favorite cowboy back then and my joy was complete...almost.

But I was sicker'n 3 dogs. 103 deg.F fever. sore throat, tonsillitis. It was about 34 deg.F outside and windy and none of the other kids was outside playing with their new stuff.

My mother let me sit out on the front steps for a few minutes and then made me come in. I laid down under the Christmas tree and fell asleep.

But I got plenty of use out of it over the next couple of years. All my friends had to call me Hoppy when we were playing cowboys and Indians.
 
My very first play gun was somewhat like the previous story of a real gun. It was a heavily rusted H&R solid frame revolver (don't remember the caliber, just that it was an H&R and not a top break) that the neighbor across the street from us dug up in his back yard and gave it to me as a plaything. I was probably no older than six or seven at the time. I always wondered how it got there in his back yard. No idea of whatever happened to it, my mom probably threw it away.

I remember that in early grade school, many of the boys brought cap guns to school to play "Cowboy" during recess. (Bang! Bang! You're dead. No I'm not, you missed.) I can't imagine that game is allowed in grade schools today.
 
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timjake said:
I can't remember if this was the first one, but it's the one I always remember:

640px-Johnny_Seven_OMA_toy_gun.jpg
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The old Johnny Seven - Seven Guns in One! My brother and I both got one for Christmas one year. We ruled the neighborhood war games with these. My first were probably those in this picture from about 1957.
 

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Don't remember if it was a SA cap gun or my air rifle. Loved shooting that cap gun. We used to shove the muzzle of the rifle in the lawn and put a perfect sod plug in the barrel. Cock that lever and shoot "sod bullets" at each other. Nobody lost an eye, and our parents didn't have to sign waivers.
 
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FIRST TOY GUN

If I recall, it was a '03 training rifle my Mom got somewhere. Bolt and trigger worked and it was bigger than I was for awhile. :D First handgun was a copy of the the gun Alan Ladd used in 'SHANE' carried it everywhere, caps at the ready. One day I decided to take it apart to see how it worked.:rolleyes: I am still doing that :D
 
J. R. WEEMS said:
If I recall, it was a '03 training rifle my Mom got somewhere. Bolt and trigger worked and it was bigger than I was for awhile. :D First handgun was a copy of the the gun Alan Ladd used in 'SHANE' carried it everywhere, caps at the ready. One day I decided to take it apart to see how it worked.:rolleyes: I am still doing that :D
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If it was a toy '03, I may have had that same one. Wood stock and a bolt that could be operated. The interesting thing about it, was that while definitely a kid's toy gun, it did have a real M1 carbine sight,(fitted into a stamped steel part which attached to the gun with one wood screw) as well as a real GI surplus sling.
 
We were not allowed toy guns as children as my parents believed that pointing toy guns at others would lead us to pointing real guns at others. I started shooting a 22 bolt at age 5 under controlled conditions and was allowed cap pistols at age 8 as noisemakers.
My Father, who served as a Marine in WWII was dead set against handguns. He believed their only use was in killing people.
He was tolerant of my fascination with them and somewhat respectful of what I would do accuracy wise with one. He never wanted to shoot one.
 
DWalt said:
It wasn't my first cap gun (I had many of them when I was a kid), but the one that stands out in my mind was different from most, and I have never seen another. It was a "Pirate" pistol that resembled an 18th Century flintlock pistol, except it had a double O/U barrel. The stock was brown plastic. You put a single cap in where the hammer could hit it. At that time you could get caps in perforated sheets, and could tear them off one at a time, like the way postage stamps used to be sold. My favorite way to use it would be to put a 1-1/2" firecracker in the muzzle and light the fuse. Just like shooting a real gun. That was back when firecrackers were more powerful. The barrel never blew up after hundreds of firecrackers had been used in it. Great fun.

Back in my old southern Ohio home town there once had been, back around the early part of the 20th Century, a factory that made toy cap guns and caps. There was an explosion in the cap manufacturing area which destroyed much of the building and killed several women workers, actually young girls.
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Sounds like an O/U flintlock I had. I saw a similar pistol in a movie set duuring the French and Indian War.
 
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