I’m sure this has been asked before, but damned if the search function was any help.
So, the gun that Ralphie was Jonesing for in A Christmas Story: the Official Red Rider, Carbine Action, 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle - was it a real gun that was manufactured by some toy company back in The Day? Or was it made up for the film?
Absolutely. They were and are made by the Daisy air rifle company. They sell them at K-mart five minutes from here. I had one when I was younger.
It’s a bb-gun / air-rifle. Not a real gun.
Now this is the BB-Gun that little kids ought to wish for Christmas in modern times. http://www.eaacorp.com/airguns/drozd/index.shtml
It turns out on further research that things are slightly more complicated than they first seemed. Apparently, the Red Rider BB Guns around the time of movie’s setting did not have a compass in the stock or a sundial. The writers confused aspects of the Red Rider with 107 Buck Jones model which did have these features. However, Daisy realized the marketing value of the movie and manufactured a Red Rider version with the features seen in the movie in 1983 and was released as a 20th anniversary addition in 2003. It can still be purchased today.
Very nice, but it would need a bit of black spray paint first. Why would anyone ruin a bb gun like that with that garish yellow?
I’m assuming it’s because it looks a lot like a real gun, and (IIRC) there have been actual incidents of kids getting shot by cops because they wouldn’t drop their toy/BB gun. (Alternately, because you could probably use it to hold up a store if it weren’t given the “toy” painting.)
Good article about the Daisy Company and the popularity of the Red Ryder rifle. According to the article, the Plymouth Iron Windmill Company made windmills and gave away air rifles as a promotional item. When air rifles proved more popular than windmills, they began selling them instead.
I’ve seen a Russian review site (with video) with an all black gun, but don’t know if it was factory. It’s probably a CYA move for the American/Canada market to be yelow. (Is this thing even legal in Canada?)
Why wouldn’t it be legal in Canada? Ever see Bowling for Columbine? They have more guns than Americans, they just kill each other less.
I really have no idea about the legality of BB-guns in Canada but why would they be illegal if you can easily buy rifles and shot-guns? Maybe a Canuck will come by and explain.
Not having looked for one for many years, I can’t comment on how legal BB guns are in Canada now, but they were perfectly legal when I was younger. In fact (addressing the OP here), a friend of mine had the same Red Ryder BB gun that Ralphie wanted, so they did exist.
At the website, it says the DROZD has a Muzzle Velocity of just 330 fps. Would this be sufficient to kill squirrels at close range?
I plunk squirrels from my den window with a Benjamin Sheridan 397 pellet gun. Pump it 6-7 times for a muzzle velocity of ~800fps, and it often drops the rodents in their tracks. I’ve also knocked off racoons from my den window.
A great white hunter and author, Peter Capstick, I think, tells in one of his books how he came into CO2-powered BB gun that worked like a machine gun. He took it out by a pond and laughing away, drilled frogs like he had an assault rifle. (I’m ashamed to admit that I laughed, too. I mean this guy shoots elephants, rhinos, lions, etc., and here he is having a high old time, fragging frogs with a kid’s gun.)
By the way, if you like safari yarns, you’ll like Capstick’s books - even if it’s another prof hunter who did the BB gun thing…
The airgun is full auto. Much different than you run of the mill airgun. Canada regulates their firearms in a much more draconian manner than the US in most instances. They might do the same with airguns. I don’t know.
Got some other statistic about the number of guns in Canada besides the extremely radical, far leftwing propagandist Moore? Besides Canadian ownership and transfer of rifles and shotguns is far more regulated than in the US. Not “easy.”
I doubt it. I tried to kill birds many, many times with my Red Rider after I got it. I was getting pissed because I could see a couple of poofs of feathers fly often enough but they would just fly off. One day, to my amazement, one finally did fall. It was a larger species of sparrow and the BB had gone exactly through its little eye socket and lodged in the brain replacing its eye. I kid you not. I got a much bigger air rifle after that and had much more successful results. I probably could have killed a cat with that one if I wanted to.
Simple BB guns don’t have the muzzle velocity to do that much damage to a small animal and BB’s are not nearly as effective as pellets in shape or weight anyway.
Yes, you can buy BB / Pellet guns in Canada. Their availability is limited by the muzzle velocity of the gun. The Criminal Code defines anything with a muzzle velocity exceeding 500 fps as a “firearm” and subjects it to the same restrictions as a centrefire or rimfire rifle.
Acquisition of a “firearm” in Canada requires that you pass a course in the safe handling and usage of firearms, which tne entitles you to a “firearms acquisition certificate”. Any gun that you purchase with that certificate must be registered with the Federal government.
I’ve got a Crossman .177 caliber pellet gun pistol that looks pretty much like a SIG P220. Buying one is as simple as walking into a store and plunking down the money and walking out with it. They are pretty much unregulated as long as they don’t exceed the muzzle velocity limit.
Back during the Truman Administration and the early years of Eisenhower’s there was nothing I wanted as much as a Red Ryder/Daisy BB gun. It had to be safe and wholesome, the thing was advertised in (I think) Boys Life, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts. My mother would not stand for it on the basis of the standard argument and anxiety about vision – you’ll put your eye out, kid. Things were not improved when I came home one evening with a pellet imbedded in my back from a friendly neighborhood game of “war.”
Because of my mother’s opposition I never got a BB gun. She nearly had a fit when my father got me a .22 cal, single shot, bolt action rifle for my twelfth birthday. Apparently she had not been consulted. The final compromise was that I could have the rifle but I was only to have ammunition when I was in my father’s physical presence.
The poor woman had no understanding of just how easy it was to get a box of .22 long rifle cartridges in rural Ohio. Better that she had allowed the BB gun.
i did not have the red ryder model, but, alaong with every other kid in the neighborhood, i had a daisy bb gun. our usual targets were each other. those bb’s stung, but almost never broke skin.
Pardon the hijack but this is a pet peeve of mine. BB-guns are most certainly real guns. They are not firearms as defined and regulated by the GCA in the US but that is a very narrow definition. BB and pellet guns, either spring piston or compressed gas, do not use an explosive charge. A flamethower is oddly enough, not a firearm because it has no projectile. Cap and ball black powder guns are not regulated by the GCA either because they do not use fixed ammunition.
A gun shop clerk once told me that he would not need to to fill out a form 4473 becuase the Colt Walker reproduction pistol I was buying wasn’t “a real gun.” The original walker was probably the most powerful production handgun in the world for almost 90 years until the .357 magnum was introduced in 1935. I offered to demonstrate that… on him, so that we could later discuss how it wasn’t a “real gun.” 
All in good fun of course but I needed to set this kid straight.
Anyway, if you don’t think a BB gun is a real gun just try taking one in your carry on luggage next time you fly. BB guns require the exact same safety procedures as any firearm.
Santa left a Daisy lever action BB gun under my tree when I was a boy and I have fond memories of it. It wasn’t a Red Ryder model, it had a beefier stock and foreend but was essentially the same. My dad took me to an arroyo to learn to shoot it and though he didn’t use Jeff Cooper’s four rules* he taught me to be safe with it. <wistful sigh> What happened to my Lincoln Logs/Oh where did they go?/Mama did you throw them out/Oh I want to know
*1. Every gun is loaded
2. Never allow your muzzle to cover anything you do not wish to destroy
3. Keep your finger out of the trigger guard until you are on target and ready to fire
4. Know your target and what is beyond
Spavined Gelding, you poor kid. I spent my summers as a boy on my grandfather’s ranch in Montana. I remember arriving one summer when my grandmother bought a brick of .22 ammo at the farmer’s union co-op then giving me a rifle and pickup truck and telling me my job for the summer was to shoot prairie dogs. I was nine.