Wooden Pea guns

[jacksdad]

Anyone remember making these?

Bits of wood and rubber bands, complete with trigger, then loaded with dried peas pinched from the pantry :blink:

I made loads when I was about 11/12 years old, then all the street would go on a raid to the next street along, and they stung like hell fire from close up! I also has a SBS but it was a bit unreliable, dodgy trigger mech!

It was normal to take a prisoner back to your street, then put them to a firing squad, that really really hurt :o

we had skirmishes into the woods and fought like a paintball fight as seen today, very good stalking practice!

Thing is, we were all mates in every other pastime, at school, etc. and things rarely developed into fistfights, although our mums went crazy when they found our hidden weapons cache, or the pea and ham soup was short of peas....happy days

Any more 'when I was a lad' tales?

 

edited the age, I was younger than I thought...we had air rifles by 14 years old

Edited January 30, 2011 by jacksdad

[stubby]

yup, I remember those guns, plus we made "flick knives" out of 3 lolly sticks, 2 rubber bands and a matchstick, crazy that back in those days, things like that were so innocent, today you'd get locked up for it

[majordisorder]

We had the next stag up from Pea guns, the peg gun. Instead of peas use the spring from a clothes peg as the projectile. It hurt like hell

[stubby]

memories are flooding back now,

 

BLOWPIPES

we took a matchstick and used cotton to bind a pin to one end, the other end had strands of wool binded to it, made brilliant darts for your pea shooter, funnily enough they never hurt too much when you got hit, but mums were always worried with the dots of blood

[PhilR]

memories are flooding back now,

 

BLOWPIPES

we took a matchstick and used cotton to bind a pin to one end, the other end had strands of wool binded to it, made brilliant darts for your pea shooter, funnily enough they never hurt too much when you got hit, but mums were always worried with the dots of blood

 

When I first went to school we had proper ink with inkwells on the desk with a scratchy dip in pen, being left handed I made a right old mess smudging ink across the page. Then the new fangled ball point pens were introduced and we were all given Bics. It wasn't long before we'd worked out if you pulled the plastic ink supply and ball point out of the tube it made an excellent blow pipe, ammunition was rice but it got a bit too soggy to shoot if you had it in your mouth too long. Happy days of innocent pranks

[Chard]

We used to play pugsticks We'd get a long whippy stick off a bush and put a ball of moist clay on the end. Then we'd launch it at cars and houses, flipping the clay off the end of the stick. It would fly accurately and at least 10 times further than any human could throw, so even though the victims could see us, they never thought it could have been us because we were too far away

 

We laaaarfed and laaaaarfed.

 

Yeah, yeah, somebody could have died, Elf 'n Safety, coulda woulda shoulda, blah blah blah **** off

Edited January 30, 2011 by Chard

[baikal boy]

We had the next stag up from Pea guns, the peg gun. Instead of peas use the spring from a clothes peg as the projectile. It hurt like hell

 

 

thats exactly what we used to do a long peice of wood nicked from me da,s shed and if you was any good with wood work you would shape it like a gun a nail in one end and a peg strapped nearest you has a trigger and you were ready for war.i used to love pea shooters but my sister didnt i remember cornering her at the bottom of the garden and stinging her legs with an endless barrage of grey peas and my ma thrashin me after seein all the red welts

 

paddy.

[chrispti]

Made a crossbow out of an old picture frame once.

 

Used a thick rubber band I nicked from school, a peg glued to the top of the frame/crossbow to hold the rubber band back /trigger.

 

My mums darts became the ammunition and the whole thing worked a treat

 

Test firing at various objects around the house saw my aim improve considerably, even managed a hat trick into the living room door frame from some distance

 

It was soon to end after I wound a few darts into the boiler jacket, unbeknown to me at the time, the darts actually punctured the boiler

 

Wasn't untill the next morning when my mum found a steady stream of warm water comming through the kitchen ceiling and the floor was under water, that I was rumbled, crossbow was snapped up and I was sentenced to a months hard grounding and know more pocket money. . . . . EVER

[jacksdad]

Another thing you don't see these days, Bogeys ! Not the ones out of your beak, the planks of wood with pram wheels and axles held on with bent over nails, front axle steered by your feet and a brake which was a timber lever that you pushed against a back wheel: I bet a gang of 12 year olds wouldn't have a clue how to make the things we had

We also made slingshots, a garden cane with a slit in the end, 2 playing cards slotted in then folded out to make flights, then 4 nails bound to the naughty end, and a length of string to launch it. you looped the string round the back, under the flights, held the string at the front,wrapped round a finger, threw it then whipped the string as you let go....went for 100's yards, probably get jailed if found with one these days!

I'm 48 soon, anyone younger ever made their own kit?

[chrispti]

Another thing you don't see these days, Bogeys ! Not the ones out of your beak, the planks of wood with pram wheels and axles held on with bent over nails, front axle steered by your feet and a brake which was a timber lever that you pushed against a back wheel: I bet a gang of 12 year olds wouldn't have a clue how to make the things we had

 

And I bet most of US, wouldent have a clue of how to steal a car

Edited January 30, 2011 by chrispti

[MM]

Ah, jumpers for goalposts

 

 

Peg guns were great, but it was always a race to get to the postman for his elestic bands. (thats how poor we were )

Blow pipes were all the rage as well. The best darts were a sewing needles with the end of a shoe lace. The plastic bit that stops it fraying had the needle pushed through to the front, and made an awesome dart. Silent like Ninja :yp:

[baikal boy]

Another thing you don't see these days, Bogeys ! Not the ones out of your beak, the planks of wood with pram wheels and axles held on with bent over nails, front axle steered by your feet and a brake which was a timber lever that you pushed against a back wheel: I bet a gang of 12 year olds wouldn't have a clue how to make the things we had

We also made slingshots, a garden cane with a slit in the end, 2 playing cards slotted in then folded out to make flights, then 4 nails bound to the naughty end, and a length of string to launch it. you looped the string round the back, under the flights, held the string at the front,wrapped round a finger, threw it then whipped the string as you let go....went for 100's yards, probably get jailed if found with one these days!

I'm 48 soon, anyone younger ever made their own kit?

 

 

we use to call them a trolley and had some great fun in the summer + skinned knees and elbows and dutch arrows were made in the plenty ive got one now that i made for my kids still up the garden shed a bit more elaborate than the ones i used to make when i was a kid back then i osed to make the flights out of old cornflake boxes but this one has perspex flights and silicone holding it together and a dart at the buissness end my 2 loved it.

 

paddy.

[jacksdad]

Good man! Its like keeping the old ways alive and kicking

I'm going to make some toys this after, maybe not a bogey though, unless I see an old pram dumped somewhere....

[death from below]

I live in America - we get frustrated at school ya'll - go get poppa's M14 and wipe out most of my school buds - ya'll.

 

You Limeys with your pea shooter tails, ya'll so quaint.

[stubby]

 

It was soon to end after I wound a few darts into the boiler jacket, unbeknown to me at the time, the darts actually punctured the boiler

 

reminds me off my first air rifle, xmas morning, pressie opened while it was still dark outside, we had a very long landing, and I opened the bathroom door to give me a few extra feet, then sat at the other end firing darts into a target, was shocked at the power of it, because on walking upto the target, they had gone right through and embedded themselves in the wall, unknown to me, also into the mains water pipe, it was'ent until I pulled the darts out with pliers did the water start spraying out, my first "fix" was a bath towel, realising that wasent working, had a wake my dad up, he wasent too happy, emergancy plumber on christmas day

 

go-karts, we had an old chinder race track near us, made a great go-kart track, but you'd go home black as the ace of spades, even turned your snot black

[bruno22rf]

We used to have an engineering works at the end of our road who would supply us with nuts and bolts if we asked-we used something like 2 8mm bolts and a nut -put the nut half its thread onto one bolt then put as much red match powder in it as you can-screw the other bolt down gently then throw-of course parents these days would think it dangerous but not many of us got seriously hurt.

[stubby]

We used to have an engineering works at the end of our road who would supply us with nuts and bolts if we asked-we used something like 2 8mm bolts and a nut -put the nut half its thread onto one bolt then put as much red match powder in it as you can-screw the other bolt down gently then throw-of course parents these days would think it dangerous but not many of us got seriously hurt.

 

the bigger the nuts and bolts the better, swan vesta's

would shops nowdays sell matches to kids

[MM]

Bag kites We used to steal someones mothers knitting wool, and tie it onto the handles of a carrier bag. Windy day = a good laugh.

[baikal boy]

We used to have an engineering works at the end of our road who would supply us with nuts and bolts if we asked-we used something like 2 8mm bolts and a nut -put the nut half its thread onto one bolt then put as much red match powder in it as you can-screw the other bolt down gently then throw-of course parents these days would think it dangerous but not many of us got seriously hurt.

 

 

you could also do this with the roll of caps you used to be able to buy from your local paper shop what you used for the old cast cap guns can you still buy them?anybody?

 

paddy.

[jacksdad]

We used caps as well, a penny for a roll in a little cardboard box. They still have cap guns now, but they don't bang very much, more of a fizz, H&S no doubt

[Lord Geordie]

We spent hours playing with Dutch Arrows on the fields here MAN they went some distance :blink:

 

For those who don't know what a Dutch Arrow was!

 

A long straight cane with a cross cut in the back and you could use feathers for the fletches but we cheated and used playing cards, Just under the playing card you cut a notch and at the other end either burn and sharpen it or we used to pop a nail in the end and sharpen it.

 

Take a boot lace and tie a knot in the end.

 

make a loop with the lace round the notch with the lace OVER the knot and pull the lace tight and grip the front of the arrow between your thumb and fore finger and throw pretty much like a javeline.

 

The Lace acts as a sling shot causing great acceleration in the arrow which could easily fly over 100 yards :o

 

Loads of fun

[CZ550Kevlar]

We used to tie an old frying pan to the top of a sappling tree put a cow pat in the frying pan, pull back and release, wow we got some distance out of that thing, also i remember we once made a crossbow out of some car arch suspension springs and inner tubes as the bow string then got lengths of copper pipe flattened one end into a point and put flight on the other end, in hindsight that was quite danagerous as we got it to such power we were embedding pipe deep into trees.

Also i remember once my dad showed me how to make smoke bombs, i didn`t realise then the fine line between "smoke Bomb" & "bomb"

ahhh the good old days.

[Zapp]

you could also do this with the roll of caps you used to be able to buy from your local paper shop what you used for the old cast cap guns can you still buy them?anybody?

 

paddy.

 

We used to make bangers out of whole rolls of those caps. They would go off with quite a boom if you did it right.

[Schern]

I used to set off the whole roll of paper caps at once by standing it on it's edge and smacking it with a hammer. That made a good old bang as they were a bit **** one at a time. The plastic rings that you used to put in revolver cap guns always seemed the loudest. The problem with paper cap/hammer trick was that you got through them at a fair old rate!

[J@mes]

We used to play pugsticks We'd get a long whippy stick off a bush and put a ball of moist clay on the end. Then we'd launch it at cars and houses, flipping the clay off the end of the stick. It would fly accurately and at least 10 times further than any human could throw, so even though the victims could see us, they never thought it could have been us because we were too far away

 

We laaaarfed and laaaaarfed.

 

Yeah, yeah, somebody could have died, Elf 'n Safety, coulda woulda shoulda, blah blah blah **** off

 

 

We used to do this with crab apples, using a slightly thicker stick.

 

Like you say, the projectile would go off in to the distance and clout something or someone causing pain and suffering, but we were 10 years old and didn't really consider this!