Do they still make (and sell) cap-guns?

Factual Questions
1

When I was a little critter, mid to late 80’s, whenever I went with my mom to the pharmacy there would always be those little cap-guns in the toy aisle. My reward for being a good little boy (pat on the head) would be a new pack of those rings that you put in the gun. Those red rings with 8 or ten charges, c’mon you know what I’m talking about… or did I dream that too? Anyway, I havn’t seen them recently and was wondering if they’re no longer available. While I’m on the subject of wierd gun-related toys you can buy from a drug store, I havn’t seen those plastic pellet guns in a while either. I had many a fun day tormenting the dog with little yellow pellets.

Is any of this stuff still for sale, I have a kid on the way and want to get him off on the right foot. Kindergarten can be a rough place, and he may need to take a little protection if someone tries to steal his cookies during snack time.

2

yes, they are still out there

3

I sure haven’t seen any in a while.

The whole PC/kinder-gentler age we live in doesn’t allow that kind of thing anymore, it seems. The only “guns” are clear-plastic ray-gun things with lights and noisemakers.

I remember the day of those cap-ring guns. I remember one from way back, that was almost all-metal, no orange muzzle-cap, semi-realistic swing-out cylinder, etc.

I also remember a line of Japanese imported cap-pistols that used strips of plastic caps, much like the one on the “rings”. The strips were loaded into “magazine” type things, and fed up into the mechanism. One model even had a hidden blade that cut the used cap off the strip so it’d fall away like an ejecting shell.

Ever see those die-cast “bombs” you put a cap into, and it’d go off when thrown and lands?

How about those guns that shot the little plastic discs that spun like tiny frisbees? I distinctly remember having one that worked great, accidentally breaking it a while later, and buying a new one- same brand, same gun- that was shoddy and jammed constantly.

Except for LEGOs, kid’s toys these days are junk. Heck, they don’t even make Erector Sets anymore… do they?

Everything in the toy aisle is either a shoddy movie/cartoon tie-in (GI Joes, Star Wars stuff, super hero action playsets, etc) or some soft/fluffy/padded gadget that either has a bunch of electronic noisemakers embedded in it so the kid isn’t required to use his or her own imagination or it’s built so poorly it breaks within eight minutes.

What happened to real-live STEEL “Tonka” trucks? Where are the real-wood Lincoln Logs?

… Sorry, I think I just hijacked the thread. :smiley:

4

I remember scratching the paper off of those plastic ring caps to uncover the charge. I stuffed some cotton balls in a short length of plastic tubing, inserted one or two charges and another cotton ball. When I lit the cotton, the charges exploded and blew all the cotton out of the tubing. Boy, was I surprised. I remember the pistols (gold or metallic blue) that shot the little yellow pellets. What fun. Anyone here old enough to remember the rolls of paper caps?

5

Leave us not forget those wonderful water rockets.

You recall, the 6, 8, or 10 inch long barrels that one added several ounces of water to, then pumped up the device, and squeezed a trigger to launch. Disappeared about the time that those cursed lawn-darts did.

Ah, memories!

6

Greenie Stick’um Caps

Remember them. As I recall, the “gun” loaded brass shells with a plastic bullet. The caps has pressure sensative adhesive, and were stuck to the back of each individual shell.

Also, with the roll caps, you could just lay the roll on the sidewalk and bash it with a brick until all the charges had been expended.

7

They definitely carry these at WalMart - I just saw them there about two weeks ago. I was shopping for a birthday present for my friend’s 4 year old and there they were! They also carry air rifles.

I settled on the whiffle bat and ball.

8

They’re only for adults now. It’s called “Viagra.”

9

Such memories…I miss being a kid. Smashing a roll of caps was good for a couple of hourse worth of fun. Remember trying to see just how many caps you could fold up for a huge boom?
:slight_smile:

10

Hey, I remember them and I’m not that old!!!
[sub]Oh yeah, I am that old…[/sub]

They have cap guns at our neighborhood’s convenience store, right next to the “Pop-Pop” snappers (the gunpowder-covered flints wrapped in tissue things.) Come to think about it, they may have paper roll cap guns too. Hm, I may just need to get one for my son.

11

While cap guns and such are still sold, I wouldn’t buy them for any child I cared about. Not because they’re (gasp!) guns, but because they can be extremely dangerous to your child. The cap gun itself is pretty harmless, and the caps only a little more hazardous. What’s dangerous is the fact that your child will be carrying a device that, at a reasonable distance, looks like a real gun.

I guess it pretty much depends on the neighborhood you live in, but that’s a really, really good way to get your child shot for real, depending on how old he/she is. The gun hysteria is so intense right now, and the average age of school shooters and lower-end gang members so low, that giving a child even a play gun is way too likely to cause the child injury, possibly fatal (through other people’s reactions, not through the toy itself).

Note that this isn’t a condemnation of guns in general, and my opinion is that children whose parents have guns in the house should be taught the proper care, handling, and operation of said guns (after a certain age…before that, they should be taught that the gun is not a toy and to have proper respect for what it can do). But giving a child a toy gun to go out into the neighborhood and play bang-bang is, depending on your neighborhood and your neighborhood’s surrounding neighborhoods, probably a really bad idea.

12

They still make cap guns, but they’re not the same. When I Was a Boy, I had many realistic cap guns, including a fully automatic Mac-10 with removable silencer, stock and clip. Why I wasn’t shot, I’ll never know.

In the early 90’s, remeber those electric water guns that looked like sub-machine guns, painted in funky colors. Some guy in Philadelphia painted a real smg to look like the water gun, I remember it on the news.

13

I agree with you 100%, jayjay.

I’m a very dedicated supporter of our individual right to keep and bear arms. And I played with cap guns when I was a kid. But I won’t let our children play with toy guns. Why? Because I plan on teaching them how to handle and fire a real gun in a few years, and I don’t want them to pick up any bad habits. Guns are to be respected, and if I let them play with toy guns, I’ll have to “un-teach” all the bad habits they learn.

14

I remember the cap guns. My favorite took the cap “pellets.” I can’t tell you how many games of War and Army we played. Of course, it was just as much fun to unroll the paper caps on the curb and smash them with rocks. Ahhh, the simple joys of childhood . . .

15

jayjay, Crafter_Man, very good points. Add to them that the connotations brought forth by a kid playing with a cap gun have probably changed. They don’t show Westerns on TV anymore, and the gun might be seen by my son or by the neighbors as a symbol of vengeance instead of as a symbol of justice or simply as something that goes bang.

Mods, sorry for bringing this thread back up over a tangent, but I felt that this deserved a response.

16

I remember doing that with a hammer. Great fun.

Does anybody remember “Throwdowns”? That was the name in Australia, it may be different if they are, or were ever, available in the USA. Back in the good old days (wow! 30, and already a codger), when we still had “Cracker Night”, and fireworks were legal, you could buy these little cylindrical paper things full of saltpetre or something (little white rocks). They were about 1cm in diameter, and 1.5cm tall. They came in a matchbox-sized packet. No fuse; they exploded on impact with a hard surface, hence the name “Throwdowns”. They were great fun!

17

TheLoadedDog,, I think your Throwdowns are basically the same thing as the Pop-Pop snappers cornflakes mentions-- I haven’t seen them recently here but I’m sure they’re still around. For a while, I remember being able to get them from those toy & candy machines you often see at supermarkets.

Btw, I remember roll caps (I somehow managed to inflict a minor injury on my thumb with one once) and haven’t seen them in years. Nor have I seen cap guns or ring caps for sale. I guess it depends on where you live and who’s stocking the stores; as far as I know, for example, the Kay Bee Toys in the mall back home doesn’t stock the stuff, but I bet the Walmart up the road from there does.

18

Those are called “snap pops” in the U.S. and still very available. I had dozens thrown at my feet from 5 year olds last sunday at a flee market. Very poplular with the kiddies. I remember taping them to the inside of door jams in my house as a kid so that when some one closed the door they would go off and scare them. Great fun. If your brave you can squeeze them in your fingers.

A friend and I would also spend hours with rolls of caps hitting them with rocks or hammers. Occasionally, though not often as it wasted most of your caps and we paid for them ourselves, we would hit a whole roll with a hammer. Great fun.

All of my guns as a kid looked like real guns.

19

Why I called them Pop-Pops.

I couldn’t remember the exact name, but Rickie Lee Jones copied the typical box layout for a CD cover. I think they’re commonly called snappers over here, but I’m pretty sure the words “Pop Pop” were on some boxes at one time or another.

20

…And if Whammo calls them “snap pops”, they must be called that over here too. They aren’t marketed and I doubt the distributors have any trademarks, so who knows how many names there are for these things.