My wife and I were watching an old show of the 1970’s (not that the era affects my question). In one scene, a boy pops off several shots with a BB gun without reloading. While he did cock the gun between each and every shot, I’ve never known a BB gun to hold multiple rounds (BBs). Is this an aberration of TV magic, or can some BB guns hold a handful of BBs? …How about two BBs?
I had a BB gun in the 1970s; it was a “Winchester” style of BB gun. It would hold at least 10 and possibly more BBs. (I don’t remember how many it held.) The “round” would be chambered by pulling down the lever under the trigger, just like a real Winchester.
The BB gun I got a few years ago for my birthday holds about 50 BBs. It also shoots pellets, but those have to be loaded/fired one at a time.
I had a number of them. All of them in fact.
Your memories are woefully wrong. Every BB gun I’ve ever seen has a multi-shot capacity.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Daisy-Youth-Air-Rifle-Red-Ryder-1938/19341879
Capacity of 650 bb’s.
There were various BB rifles that were CO2-powered, and could fire off shots as fast as you could pull the trigger, and continue until the CO2 ran out (or got too cold to work well). The rifles had a capacity of several hundred BBs, and were a hassle to load (think: BBs everywhere!)
Higher end BB guns get to be called ‘air rifles’. Many of them are single-shot, such as this Benjamin. In addition, I have a couple of Crosman air pistols that are single-shot.
ETA: Around 1980 I saw a short on Showtime. I think it was called Louisiana BB Warriors, but I’m not finding anything by that name. It’s basically a documentary of kids playing paintball, but with BB guns because they didn’t have paintball in the '70s. One kid stood on a mound with a BB machine gun with a coiled hose connecting it to a large cylinder of compressed air.
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Do you ever watch A Christmas Story? At the end after (SPOILER ALERT) he gets his Red Ryder BB Gun, you can see him load it with the tube filled with BBs.
That’s not a BB gun though, it’s a pellet gun.
There was also one model that fired from a compressed-air hose, and was essentially fully-automatic. (My friends and I pooled our money to buy one…to find they’re illegal in California.)
See the link in post #6 ETA. 
BB gun - multi shot loaded. A single BB loaded in chamber with each cock.
Pellet gun - a single shot rifle, manually loaded into the chamber.
Thanks for posting that link.
It provided what I needed to look up the mythical BB machine gun that every kid dreamed about in the 1970’s. Unlike all of the other crap in the back of comic books, this one turns out to be real.
Here’s a cool article written by a LARC owner.
Here’s a video of one in use.
Oops; sorry. Skimmed too fast. Lovely pic of the darn thing!
I love the specific ‘Don’t shoot your eye out’ stickers. 
The BB/pellet gun distinction given above is new to me. But checking around I see that it is common.
The distinction we always made:
BB gun: fires BBs. (!) Very small, round usually copper clad shot.
Pellet gun: fires pellets. (!) Small, waisted (flared on on end) usually steel shot. Not as cheap as BBs.
BBs didn’t do as much damage and were nowhere near as accurate as pellets.
Pump/air cylinder propulsion didn’t matter.
Interesting.
BBs were .177" caliber. Pellets were available in the same .177 caliber and also in a larger caliber; IIRC .22.
Some .177 BB guns could fire .177 pellets too. It all depends on the magazine design.
I recall the Crosman 760 pump rifle that had a ~30 magazine compartment for BBs but was bolt-operated to feed each BB akin to a bolt action rifle. As an alternative to loading the mag with BBs then picking one up with each cycle of the manual bolt, you could instead insert a pellet directly into the open bolt channel for each shot, then close the bolt to chamber it. In either case you then pumped the forestock a dozen or so times to pressurize the tank, then pulled the trigger to discharge.
OTOH the Daisy 101 was styled like a Winchester 1894 and had an internal magazine compartment that held ~200 BBs. With no provision for pellets.
Pellets were a mostly-lead alloy in my era.
Back in the 1950’s I had a Crossman™ pellet rifle that used two CO2 cartridges. My younger brother got one that used a single CO2 cartridge. Both .22 caliber with the lead pellets. One shot at a time loaded by hand in front of the bolt.
First few shots were about like a .22 short in ranges and killing power.
We started with Daisey .177 BB guns of the western style which held a lot of BB’s in the barrel around the actual tube that shot the BB’s. Strictly spring powered. They were faster than the pump rifles but did not have the power. When we got the pellet guns, we were the best armed of out local gang… who were stuck with the pump-up BB guns. Bawahahaha
First coule of
I’ve had two pellet guns that also fired BBs. Pretty scary velocities, too.
I’m no expert, but I think the 4 main types of air rifles are:
[ol]
[li]Ones that require multiple pumps between shots. Generally the cheapest and least powerful/shortest range type, often both pellet and BB.[/li][li]Ones where the barrel breaks, cocking a spring. Single pellets (I don’t think these typically shoot BBs)[/li][li]Ones that use CO2 cartridges, more popular with pistols.[/li][li]Ones that can precharged with air (as from a scuba tank)[/li][li]I guess the one that needs to be constantly connected to a hose, I just learned about that here.[/li][/ol]
Some containers nowadays have a handy pour spout.
Not quite. My cheap ass Crosman can hold many (hundreds) of BBs, or can fire pellets with 5 shot clips. It still requires a manual push to move the clip, so it’s not as efficient as a regular bolt action.
I remember reading a news story years ago about some grandma who, upon hearing someone breaking into her house, grabbed her grandson’s M-19, with attached freon can, and hosing down the miscreant. He luckily threw his arms in front of his face, so he didn’t lose an eye. But the doctors at the ER spent a few hours plucking 100s of BBs out of his arms, neck and torso before the cops hauled him off to gaol.