Daisy Outdoor Products

Daisy BB gun with CO₂ and BBs

Daisy Outdoor Products (known primarily as Daisy) was formed in 1888 to manufacture windmills. As a sales promotion, they started providing air guns with the purchase of each windmill. With the popularity of the air guns, they began producing them for sale. In the 21st century, Daisy is known as a company that makes and sells entry and novice level BB guns and other air guns. Their Red Ryder BB Gun is perhaps their best known and longest production item which has been featured in many TV shows and movies since its introduction in the 1930s.

History

Daisy factory wall

Daisy was started in 1882 as Plymouth Iron Windmill Company in Plymouth, Michigan. In 1886 the company started to give away BB guns with purchases of windmills. The gun was so popular the company started to sell guns instead of windmills. The gun received its name when General Manager Lewis Cass Hough fired one and enthusiastically said "It's a Daisy!'^[1] In 1958, the company moved the corporate offices and manufacturing facilities from Plymouth to Rogers, Arkansas.

In 1993, Daisy was acquired by the private equity firm Charter Oak Partners.^[2] The Plymouth factory was demolished in 2005 and replaced with a condominium complex called Daisy Square. One wall of the factory building remained in front of the complex until its demolition on November 18, 2013. The wall had been free-standing^[3] since the factory was torn down, and was supposed to be built into an apartment building, but the wall was not included in the completed building. The Daisy Administration building, on Main Street, is still standing and has become an office complex and restaurant. In 2016, Daisy was sold by Charter Oak to another private equity firm, Bruckmann, Rosser, Sherrill & Co., who combined it with Gamo Outdoor.^[4]

Production

Daisy is best known for their inexpensive youth BB guns, modeled after lever-action rifles. Perhaps the most famous of these is the Red Ryder model, which is still in production today, despite the fact that the Red Ryder comic strip was canceled in 1963. These simple smoothbore, spring-air BB guns fire at low velocities, and are marketed to children ages 10 and over. In addition to the spring air BB guns, Daisy also markets a line of multi-pump pneumatic rifles capable of firing pellets or BBs to the same age group.

Production of the Daisy Model 25 was restarted in 2009. Featuring a spring feed mechanism and modeled after a pump-action shotgun with pumped cocking, the Model 25 dominated the low-price, higher-performance airgun market for over 50 years (1914–1978).

The Powerline models are Daisy's more powerful, more accurate line of airguns, marketed to ages 16 and up. The Powerline rifles include multi-pump pneumatics and spring-piston break barrels, have rifled barrels designed for shooting pellets, and are capable of greater velocities than Daisy's Youth Rifles. Powerline pistols are multishot double-action designs, powered by CO₂ powerlets. BB models are smoothbore, while pellet models have rifled barrels. These are styled to resemble firearms, and are often used by adults in place of firearms for inexpensive training and practice, or in jurisdictions where firearms are heavily restricted or prohibited.

The Avanti line consists of Daisy's target guns. Some of the Avanti line are pellet guns, either single-stroke pneumatic or CO₂-powered, with high-quality sights and built to much higher standards. Some models use barrels from Lothar Walther, a top European barrel maker. Even the least expensive Avanti model, the 717 pistol, has been used by world championship 10 m Air Pistol shooter Don Nygord to shoot a medal-winning round in a California state championship. The Canadian Forces adopted the Daisy/ Avanti model 853C target rifle for their cadet program's marksmanship training program, as well as competitive 10m target shooting.

Daisy also makes, as part of the Avanti line, the Model 499B Champion, billed as the "world's most accurate BB gun". This is a true competition BB gun, with a micrometer adjustable rear peep sight, a sling, and a precision smoothbore barrel. It is to be used with Daisy's precision-ground steel BBs that are made for the 499. The 499 is unusual in that it is a single-shot, muzzleloading spring airgun. The 499 is most commonly used in 5-meter (16 ft) BB gun competitions by youth groups such as 4H and Boy Scouts.

During the Vietnam War Daisy BB guns were used in Quick Kill training for soldiers in basic training.

Winchester licensed products

Daisy also sells a line of spring-air rifles marketed under the Winchester brand name. These are moderately priced break-barrel and semi-automatic CO2-based designs with wood or composite stocks, with velocities ranging from 500 ft/s (150 m/s) to 1,000 ft/s (300 m/s). For a time, Daisy also imported and marketed an Umarex made, Winchester branded copy of the Winchester 1894 rifle. This is a multi-shot CO₂ pellet rifle using the standard Umarex revolver action. This model is now marketed under the Walther name.

Red Ryder BB Gun

Red Ryder BB Gun
Daisy air rifle ad in a '40s era comic book
Type	Air rifle
Place of origin	United States
Production history
Manufacturer	Daisy Outdoor Products
Produced	since 1940
Specifications
Weight	1 kg (2.2 lb)
Length	76 cm (30 in)
Cartridge	BB
Caliber	.177
Barrels	smooth bore
Action	lever action pneumatic stroke
Rate of fire	5-10 RPM
Muzzle velocity	73 metres per second (240 ft/s)
Effective firing range	9 metres (9.8 yd)
Feed system	gravity
Sights	rear notch, fixed front blade

Two Red Ryder BB Guns in box. These are a relatively recent reissue. The boxes promote the gun as being "just like the one your Dad had!"

The Red Ryder BB Gun is a BB gun made by Daisy Outdoor Products and introduced in the spring of 1940 that resembles the Winchester rifle of Western movies.^[5] Named for the comic strip cowboy character Red Ryder (created in 1938, and who appeared in numerous films between 1940 and 1950, and on television in 1956), the BB gun is still in production, though the comic strip was cancelled in 1963.

Design and specifications

The Red Ryder BB Gun is a lever-action, spring piston air gun with a smooth bore barrel. Current production (ca. 2017) has a rear iron sight adjustable for elevation only and a post front sight. It uses a gravity feed magazine with a 650 BB capacity. It has an engraved wooden stock and a saddle ring with leather thong on the receiver. A youth model airgun, the Model 1938B Red Ryder produces an actual muzzle velocity of about 270 feet per second (82 m/s), although the specification on the Daisy states the Model 1938B Red Ryder has a "Max. Muzzle Velocity" of 350 feet per second (110 m/s) with a nominal .177 caliber, 5.1 grain steel BB. The effective range is fairly short, about 10 yards (9 m), after which the low velocity and inaccuracy of the smoothbore barrel makes hitting the target difficult. BB guns are shot competitively at distances of 5-meter (16 ft), but the Red Ryder's open sight, which is also hampered by having no windage adjustment, makes it impractical for competition so it is primarily a plinking airgun.

Popular culture

• The Red Ryder BB gun was prominently featured in A Christmas Story, in which Ralphie Parker requests one for Christmas, but is repeatedly rebuffed with the warning "You'll shoot your eye out." The movie's fictional BB gun, described as the "Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time," does not correspond to any model in existence nor even a prototype; the Red Ryder featured in the movie was specially made to match author Jean Shepherd's story (which may be artistic license, but was the configuration Shepherd claimed to remember).^[6] However, the "Buck Jones" Daisy air rifle, immediately above the Red Ryder in the Daisy line, did have a compass and sundial in the stock,^[7] but no other features of the "Red Ryder" model.
• Crazy Earl, a character in the book The Short-Timers and the film, Full Metal Jacket, based on the book, carries a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun in addition to his M16 rifle.^[8]
• Hogarth Hughes owns and uses a Red Ryder BB Gun in Brad Bird's 1999 film The Iron Giant.
• A "Red Rider Air Rifle" was the exclusive in-game Christmas gift for World of Warcraft's 2009 Winter Veil world event, with a similar description to the one appearing in A Christmas Story, featuring 200 charges (shots).
• In the movie Tactical Force about a SWAT team using non conventional methods, SWAT Sgt. Hunt (played by the actor Michael Jai White) uses a Red Ryder BB gun which he named 'Daisy' to shoot a kidnapper/robber in the forehead.
• On the television series House M.D., the main character played by Hugh Laurie jokes about saving money to buy one in the episode "It's a Wonderful Lie".
• In the Fallout series, the protagonist can get a Red Ryder LE BB gun.
• In Saints Row IV "How the Saints Saved Christmas" DLC, there is a Christmas themed weapon called the "Crimson Cowboy" which is an allusion to the Red Ryder BB gun from A Christmas Story, the Crimson Cowboy shots have a ricochet effect.
• In a post game interview in a Week 10 game against the Cincinnati Bengals, J. J. Watt in a quote referring to quarterback Andy Dalton: "Our goal was to come out here and make the Red Rifle look like a Red Ryder BB Gun, and I think we did that." The reference was used as a play on Dalton's "Red Rifle" nickname. Dalton's response made the quote go viral.^[9][10]

V/L caseless rifles

Daisy was the first company to introduce a production caseless ammunition and rifle, the V/L Rifle, in 1968. The V/L ammunition consisted of a .22 caliber bullet with a small disk of propellant on the back, and no primer. The rifle resembled a typical spring-air rifle, but the hot, high pressure air served not only as a power source but also to ignite the propellant on the back of the V/L cartridge. The V/L guns and ammunition were discontinued in 1969 after the BATF ruled that they constituted a firearm, and Daisy, which was not licensed to manufacture firearms at that time, decided to discontinue manufacture rather than become a firearms manufacturer. About 23,000 of the rifles were made before production ceased.

Rimfire rifles

In 1988 Daisy briefly made a line of rimfire rifles, the Legacy rifle. These were bolt action or semi-automatic rifles chambered in .22 Long Rifle, and were available in a number of different models. Options were wooden stock or plastic stock with adjustable buttplate, and single-shot, 7-shot box magazine (for semi-automatic models only), or 10-shot rotary-feed (the magazine was similar to, but not interchangeable with, the Ruger 10/22). While these are very rare, the inexpensive construction and the fact that they are firearms, not airguns, has led to little collectors' interest.

Lawsuit

Daisy was the defendant in a lawsuit after a Pennsylvania teenager, John Tucker Mahoney, was accidentally shot in May 1999 when a friend fired one of their BB guns at him, believing it to be empty. This left him severely brain damaged. The lawsuit alleged that the company hid manufacturing defects, specifically the BB guns jamming, and demanded that the gun in question be recalled. The company settled the lawsuit with Mahoney's family for $18 million in a case that received worldwide publicity.^[11][12] Mahoney died of his injuries in October 2003.^[13]

References

External links

• Daisy.com – Official web site
• Model 1938 Red Ryder, Daisy Outdoor Products
• An Encyclopedia of Daisy Plymouth Guns; A chronology of the BB guns and toys made by the Daisy Manufacturing Company in Plymouth, Michigan. Book is out of print. Previous link no longer functions.