Tuesday 18 February 2014

Boys Toys.



I have two air pistols in the house. The top one above, a beautiful old Webley, is rarely used; the one below, a cheap German job, is used by my grandchildren in the summer for shooting at tin cans.

The old Webley is almost an antique. It dates from the late 50's/early 60's, and came into my possession in about 1980. I bought it at an isolated petrol station in Wales, from the owner who seemed to specialise in selling such things (other than petrol). It shoots .22 slugs, is very heavy, and extremely accurate. 

The German job is total rubbish. I bought it new in about 1990 as a diversion for our summer visitors. It fires .177 slugs which can be seen exiting the barrel before falling onto the ground a few feet off. Even if clamped to a vice its bullet will not follow the same trajectory more than once in every 100 shots. It's perfect for a bit of fun persecuting tin cans, whilst, at the same time, teaching the users the essentials of gun safety. 

Yes, they are definitely 'boys toys', and we have a lot of fun with them. Otherwise they just sit at the back of a drawer waiting for certain boys I know to come visit their Grumpy.


13 comments:

  1. Grumpy....that's cute! I bet you have a lot of fun with the guns. Id like to take a shot myself,

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  2. My grandson is absolutely gun mad -- he would give up his pocket money to have you for his grandfather!

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  3. Looks like a Webley Senior, I had one as a boy. Naturally mine was the bee's knees and I was the best shot in the world.

    I admire your patience, firing 100 shots out of a German pistol clamped in a vice...

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  4. Not fond of guns of any sort and would never let my kids have anything to do with them..... not that they asked !

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  5. As a woman, I wish that all guns would disappear from the face of the earth.

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    1. As a man, I mostly agree. These two are just for fun.

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  6. I had an air rifle as a teenager...before Dad passed away I noticed that he still had it.

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  7. For years I yelled and screamed about the dangers of guns. Then I picked one up. Then shot it. Now hooked. I Own a rifle and a nice 9mm Rueger semi. I target practice with my three sons which is great because after young boys are old enough to crawl off their mama's laps there are not often hobbies the two can share. The well educated gun owner is a safe gun owner. Loved seeing those two pieces.

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  8. Now that I know their name for you is Grumpy I shall think of you in a completely different light Cro.

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  9. I have the Crosman 130, a pump up version of the same idea. You can vary the power of the 22 pellet according to the number of pumps. About 25 strokes will get you through and through a full 1 qt tomato tin. Three or four will just sting the squirrels in the but so they learn to keep away from the bird feeder. I do need to rebuild it as the leather seal on the piston dried up on me this winter with the heat in the house. Might be a god subject for a post.

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  10. Can't say I feel comfortable with guns. But know that, as a child, I would have loved to have a grandfather who let me shoot at cans.

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  11. The gun laws must be so much lighter there,no way could you have them in a drawer over here,although there seems to be shootings every day we all gave our guns in m many years ago, even farmers are checked out twice a year and if they are not all in locked cabinets huge fines are inflicted and this includes starting guns.

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