American Air Guns

Recent reproduction of the Daisy Model 25

The best known American air guns brands are Daisy, Crosman, Benjamin, and Sheridan.  Way back when I was a kid those were the only air rifles readily available.  I was/am a gun nut and I was in my late teens before I learned of the more sophisticated European pre-charged pneumatic and spring air guns. Today there are many more air gun fans and far more sophisticated guns made by these companies and others.

My friends and I once called them all BB guns. But then we also said we were going to get a Coke which could indicate any kind of soft drink. Almost every boy and girl has some experience with a BB gun of some sort. I think experience is underrated by most adults.  On my Basic Whitetail Hunting Blog I've written about my experiences, BB Gun Education.

That BB gun taught me about safety, responsibility, and hunting to name a few.  Many had less happy experiences where they or someone misused a BB gun shooting a person, animal, property...

Probably all kids heard an adult say, "Be careful, that thing can shoot your eye out." or something similar.  While many may laugh, an ordinary BB gun could do eye damage and some of the more powerful air guns can take big game, but this is on American air guns, especially the early ones.

For many years there were only two types of American air guns.  The simple low power spring air BB guns and the somewhat more powerful pump-up pneumatic pellet guns.  I owned one of each and they were probably among the most powerful examples for their day.

The Daisy model 25 was the more important gun to me, as mentioned it taught me a lot about life. It would shoot a BB slightly faster/harder than the more common Daisy Red Rider.  It would kill a lizard, snake, or sparrow if close enough.

Benjamin, Crosman, and eventually Daisy made pump-up or multi-pump pneumatic air guns in both .177 and .22 caliber.  I however chose the .20 caliber Sheridan. The Sheridan was a little more expensive, nicer finished, maybe a slightly higher quality gun.

Sheridan promoted the .20 caliber as the best pellet size with more velocity than the .22 pellets and more impact than the .177 caliber.  I think the real reason was to sell more pellets; the only .20 caliber pellets you could find were Sheridan pellets.

I don't know that the Sheridan was actually any more powerful than the other guns, but Sheridan pellets were harder and would penetrate deeper.  For that reason this was/is a somewhat dangerous air rifle.  I'll write more about pump-ups in another post.