Don’t forget, most air rifles in the 50’s were Daisy Red Ryder type spring loaded “rifles” shooting at 350 fps max. Most modern multipump or barrel break pellet guns can shoot at over 1000 fps, about the speed of a .22 short. Of course BBs on steel bounce like superballs
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Another great BB gun target: the lid of a can suspended from a tree by a length of fishing line. Amazing how much fun you can get out of that.
This article is not very good, and I’m sorry I read it.
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Needs more glitter!
I used to do that in the back yard from 20 feet at night so I could not use the sights. The only light was from a streetlight. I could get that sucker spinning and swinging and hit it time after time in the dark. A famous trick shot artist said that you learn to shoot by getting a BB gun and filing off the sights.
If you want the feel of a Red Ryder in .44 magnum
“You’ll put your eye out!”
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Teach the kids with power tools, first. First the low-injury-severity ones, like power screwdrivers and soldering irons, to learn the respect to the devices that have power of their own, possibly the hard way (hence limiting its hardness). Then graduate to bigger ones, and then, once they prove that they can handle dangerous things, guns.
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That’s a good way to do it, but one should never underestimate the power of kids wanting to imitate and do something their elders do. When I was a kid there were clear gradations of responsibility with guns, starting with merely carrying the pellet gun around. And every step of the way, it was super clear that if I screwed up, or if I was ever caught playing with them or pointing them carelessly, I would never, ever again be allowed to shoot, and that was enough to keep me in line and learn safety and responsibility (combined with a hunter safety course). And I’m pretty sure I worked my way up to firing a shotgun before I ever used a tool more dangerous than a screwdriver (non-sonic).
Nah, I think it did. This has been the reaction to pretty much every Maker Mayhem so far. It’s possible that he was surprised the first couple of times, but by #16 I can’t imagine this is anything but intentional trolling.
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I had a friend with something like this in the 2000s. In London.
Well, it was standard competitive-shooting targets you wound in and out with a repurposed hand drill, plus one of those boxes from a shooting gallery with the vertical metal targets that fell down when shot. My friend’s dad had been a target shooting champion when he was younger, and really liked making things.
Even the snark is wrong in this one. It had not been nearly a century since a president was shot when this article was published. McKinley was assassinated in 1901 by a gunman. If you are going to take a trolling high and mighty tone, at least make sure your basic facts are straight.
I’m old enough to have gotten a bb rifle as a kid- it would never have occurred to me to play with it indoors. I managed to somehow shoot myself in the ass when I fired at a flat target, looked away, and caught the ricochet in my rear. Even without the over the top deionizing of firearms, this project does seem like a bad idea.
Actually, my favorite low moment in how to history was a computer project in the pages of Compute! magazine. BAIT was a very simple computer language written in BASIC. The whole project spanned four issues, and the author later claimed it as a low moment. No one would have been injured by this project, unless you count carpal tunnel. It’s the gadgetry for its own sake that makes for a truly low moment, not necessarily the safety or ethical hazards involved. (I suppose a recipe for homemade candy cigarettes would be worth it on the ethical hazard scale)
A close second would be the ZOOM! DO! feature that showed how to build enormous Styrofoam water shoes from venetian blinds and insulation. I would love to hear from someone who actually tried to make these things.
Yeah, I thought I had a sense of deja-vu while reading this, along with the rising feeling of “sod this article” as the author dug himself deeper and deeper into his little hole of cynicism…
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What ethical hazard? When I was a kid, and helped with making christmas sweets, I personally made some candy cigarettes. The design was some sort of dough, baked to shape of rods; the natural yellowish color was used for the filter, paper was a white sugar icing, and the tobacco end was a dib of chocolate.
Also, no gadgetry is truly for its own sake. Usually the training, familiarizing with tech, practicing, or other self-education is involved, albeit often not explicitly listed.
This continues to be my least favorite feature on BoingBoing. For a site that champions the “Maker” movement, the tone is insulting and the step by step mockery of building elaborate projects feels more like Buzzfeed than BoingBoing.
Plus, as others have said, there’s no big deal about air rifles and BB guns. Saying that playing with one will make you a sadistic and violent person is no different than the arguments that playing video games will do the same thing.
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Bloody hell, that’s why every time I see a “BB shooting accident” from the US I see through-and-throughs and some pretty nasty damage…
In the UK (AFAICR, s’been a long time since I’ve shot an air rifle/pistol) air guns are limited to 12.5ft/lb - anything more is considered a firearm, and needs the correct firearms licence, which will involve having a locked gun cabinet, a reason for use, and police checks…
You could of course drill out the air hole directly behind the pellet and install a stronger spring or gas ram, but I wouldn’t cough cough know anything about that.
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