Hello
May I suggest doing some online research on customer reviews then buying one from your local Walmart and give it a personal run through since they have a good return policy? SAVE YOUR RECEIPT!
I would suggest doing some research on the net to see how many positive reviews this particular model has and how many positives in relation to negatives.
I was thinking the same thing as you and went to Walmart thinking to buy a Crosman pumper but luckily I did not because I decided to research online reviews from customers from many different places selling it stating the gun splits in half being all plastic with very minimal use.
That is what you use WALMART for.
HA
Check your local state and county laws regarding airguns and minors. The parents must approve of their child receiving a bb gun.
Not to imply about how to raise your grand daughter at the age of only 5, I would think it would be a bit too young to be getting into shooting air guns. Mentality of a 5 year old may be too tempting to shoot it without adult supervision.
I would give it 2 to 3 more years. JMO
HA
I have 2...there is not a lot of plastic in them,, I had one for 5 years and the other one for about 2...they are holding up fine... And yes they both came from Walmart...they get shot a lot, as they are fun and easy to use.. Easy being a relative word.. . As they are a little hard to cock.. My two cents. .
There's a whole world of Daisy collectors who know much more than I do. If you don't believe me, attend the Findlay, OH show. You'll see more versions of Red Ryders than you ever thought existed. And these guys KNOW which one is worth how much, and why!
Having said all that, the current Walmart shelf model is just about as good as you can ask for in a simple lever action BB gun. The design has been around for eons, so whatever broke has been re-engineered to a very specific price point. Yeah, there's plastic in the new guns where there was metal in the old ones, but the soul remains the same. They are still a great, cheap BB gun, just as they have always been. Not that accurate, but bullet-proof and still a hell of a lot of fun for kids of any age, (including this 60 year-old.). No, you can't tune it for more accuracy or more power. Hell, it's a BB gun! I've had my off-the-shelf Walmart Red Ryder for over 10 years now, and with zero maintenance it still works just as well as the day I bought it.
I recently bought a Daisy Red Ryder, and a Crosman Marlin Cowboy a couple of months ago... bought the Red Ryder at a local Walmart, and the Marlin Cowboy from a local outdoor sporting goods store.
Bought them mainly so I could do some plinking while barbecuing, since they hold hundreds of BB's, and you can just cock the lever and shoot.
The Red Ryder has a wood stock and forearm, and plastic lever... the Marlin Cowboy has plastic stock and forearm, and a pot-metal lever.
The "metal" lever on the Marlin Cowboy cracked on me after about a month... I think the plastic lever on the Red Ryder is more durable, however I discovered the Chief AJ adult stock and steel hoop lever for the Red Ryder and quickly purchased them... and I love them... really makes the Red Ryder more fun for me to shoot.
For the price, I don't think you can go wrong with the Daisy Red Ryder, or the Buck which is smaller and cheaper price-wise than the Red Ryder... I'm thinking about buying a Buck too to have handy for visitors... I'm wondering if the Chief AJ add-ons will also fit the Buck.
Best thing about the Chief AJ stock and lever, is you can transplant them to another Red Ryder if you break or wear one out... the wood stock comes unfinished... I used Rustoleum Varathane (color "Gunstock"), similar the Min Wax version and some wipe on Poly.
I would pass on the Marlin Cowboy after having the lever crack, even though Crosman sent me a replacement.
Get the Red Ryder for your grand daughter, and get yourself one too with the Chief AJ add-ons to shoot along with her... you can get a regular metal Daisy lever there too...
http://www.chiefaj.com/gunstocks
Here's a quick little video I made that shows my Chief AJ Red Ryder shooting at some spent shot gun shells... added one of my harmonica licks at the end of it...
MP44, I have a 5 1/2 year old daughter who is also very tall (48") and who is getting her first airguns (yes, plural) tomorrow but doesn't know it yet. I'll report more after we see how things go, but here's what I know so far:
Most “youth” guns, including the classic Red Ryder and just about every other BB gun out there all have a length of pull that is too long for little kids. The Red Ryder is about 13-13.5 inches LOP (from what I've read online). For comparison, a typical Weihrauch is about 13.75 from the trigger blade to the back of the butt pad. I've attempted to have my daughter hold my R7 while sitting at a bench and there was no way it was going to work without holding it bazooka-style. The key is to find something with a shorter length of pull.
For a BB gun, Daisy also offers the Model 105 Buck and Model 10 Carbine. You can find the Buck pretty easily at [typical big box store]; I had more trouble finding the Model 10 and ended up with the Buck for $18. I think they're virtually the same gun, but the Model 10 has a wood forestock and the buck doesn't have a forestock. The important part is that they both have a LOP of about 10.75 inches. All the daisy spring piston BB guns are probably too hard to cock for a 5 year old, but at that age I think 100% supervision is required anyway, so I don't consider that an issue.
I also bought the Umarex Embark from Pyramyd Air. This is a re-badged Ruger Explorer, but with a few changes, including better sights. I first read about it on Tom Gaylord’s PA blog and became intrigued. The LOP per my measurement is 11.75,” so it is a bit bigger.
So, of course of spent the last few days shooting both after everyone goes to bed. The Daisy is so little, I can’t shoulder it at all, but I was still able to get a 1” group from 6 yards seated. The trigger is long and creepy and quite heavy. Curious to see how my daughter handles it. Another thing that makes it kind of challenging is that the rear sight is too close to your eye, which makes getting the sight picture harder. I think this is because it’s the same gun as the Red Ryder, but they’ve chopped the back of the stock off. The only major plastic part is the cocking handle. Seems strong enough to do what it has to and…well, the gun was $18, so maybe it won’t get passed down to my grandkids, but I can live with that!
The Umarex I’m more excited about. The trigger is also creepy, at least compared with all the tuned rekords I’ve gotten spoiled with, but it’s lighter and easier to feel the let-off point. The gun cocks easier than any other airgun I have ever tried. It’s supposed to be a little lighter than an HW30/R7 – I would describe it as quite a lot lighter and the stroke is shorter, which makes it feel even easier. I think my daughter may be able to do it on her own – I’ll find out soon enough. It also has an anti-beartrap feature that can’t be disabled by pushing in the (automatic) safety. The stock is sized for kids and, well, green, but I think it should be fine. I would have happily paid $25 more for a piece of wood to be back there, but whatever. I did hit a few spots with 400 grit sandpaper to smooth some casting ridges that I found annoying, but it was easy to do and you can’t really see where I sanded. The sights are real, with no fiber optic nonsense and click adjustments that feel positive. Shooting casually from 10 meters off a folding table, I can shoot it about as well as my R7 with open sights.
Ok, longer post than I planned on writing, but I’m an airgun guy and very pumped (no pun intended) to get my kids shooting as well! I will try to provide an update in the coming days after I find out how things actually shake out with my daughter.
Pic below, from bottom up:
- Daisy Buck
- Umarex Embark
- HW30
- FWB124
After purchasing my own Red Ryder, and having fun plinking with it, I looked at a lot of videos on YouTube about the Red Ryder.
Yes, there seems to be a lot of concerns with little ones being able to cock the lever and pull the stiff trigger.
As far as cocking goes, it may help to place the butt stock against one's inner thigh with the muzzle end pointing up; this allows for better leverage when cocking the lever upwards... you need to raise the muzzle end sometimes to get the BB's down to the loading port anyways.
This is how I do it, and maybe the reason why I cracked the lever on the Crosman Marlin Cowboy, by probably being a little over aggressive with it.
I have seen the Daisy Buck at a local Walmart, but not the Buck 10... I would love to find a Buck 10 locally.
And wondering if the Red Ryder, Buck, and Buck 10 stocks are interchangeable... this would allow stock swapping as the youngster gets older & bigger... and may also allow an adult to get the Chief AJ stock for the Red Ryder to enjoy shooting it while the youngster grows.
Wow, lots of typing here for a Red Ryder. I'll be brief. Soda can, 20Y yup, LOTS of times, with just a mild spring pump. YES.
Next is... I have one I'll give you (with scope and mount although I've never opened them and only 50% sure I still have them, so let me verify..) I'm done with BB's. Shipping plus some for my effort to send it.
PM me here i'll ill get back to you wit email or whatever.
A lot of good info here.
I would like to add that the stocks are interchangeable between the lever action Daisys- Model 105B Buck, Model 10, the Model 1938B Red Ryder, the Model 1998 "Pink Rider"- all of them. And parts are still available from Daisy and they are cheap. Gamo recently bought Daisy so there's just no telling how long the cheap, readily available parts supply will last, but for now it's all good. I'll post contact info at the end of the post. I'd suggest anyone who buys a Red Ryder spend the $3.00 for a metal lever- I like the plastic lever but I have read a few reports of the levers wearing prematurely. I think it could be a bad batch of plastic but the metal lever is so cheap, it would be good to have on hand for a rainy day.
The powerplants are the same between all the models mentioned above. The only difference is in the length of the shot tubes between the longer Red Ryder type and the shorter Buck type guns. Triggers, springs, air tubes, plunger tubes, pistons, etc. are all the same.
A nice gun for a bigger youngster might be the Red Ryder with a Buck stock, that gives a longer sight radius along with an elevation adjustable rear sight but with the short LOP of the Buck. The stocks can be bought directly from Daisy, the Red Ryder stock was $8.00 last time I looked, the Buck stock was $6.00. Just call or email Daisy and they will send the pdf for whatever model you ask for- usually comes the same day.
Some info on modifying the Daisy lever BB gun is https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/putting-a-little-more-power-in-a-15-00-daisy.807316/
Current (as of 9-21-18) Daisy contact info:
Daisy Online Contact form: https://www.daisy.com/contactus
Daisy Customer Service/Parts Ordering email address: info@daisy.com
Daisy Customer Service phone: 800-713-2479
Main Office 479-636-1200
It takes a lot to use the 499 shot tube in anything except the 499. Reason is, the OD is larger and it's only 9" long. That said, in the thread I linked to, a member there 'hinz57', did the machining to use the 499 shot tube in a late model abutment. Along with other modifications, this gun reached the highest MV of any Daisy lever action repeater BB gun that I'm aware of, over 400 fps. IIRC it was a little below what my 499 does after swapping the 499 spring for a new production Red Ryder spring. That 499, and others that have had the spring swapped, do around 430 fps and are lights-out accurate to boot. The only downside is they're single shot.
Thank you Cobalt for taking the time to reply. I did follow your link and the article was really interesting. I guess if I'm going to pursue this just buying the 499 and doing the mods would be the easiest route to go. I don't have anything against a single shot but my arthritic fingers don't fiddle with those little BB's very well. Being able to shoot a bunch of shots before reloading is pretty inviting.
In 2017 I decided to purchased a brand new Red Ryder, just for the fun of it. Got home with the new rifle and a new container Daisy BBs and started shooting away. About 2 days and 300 rounds later the rifle jams a BB somewhere in the action and no matter what I did, I could not free the stuck BB. So I took the rifle back to the big box store I bought it at and they exchanged it for a new one. Two days later and about 100 rounds, the 2nd rifle jams. Again I took it back and again exchanged. Tried a different brand of BB's and again the 3rd rifle jammed in a hundred rounds or. I felt guilty going back for another exchange, so I set the Red Ryder aside and that is where is still sets. Oh well.
Thank you Cobalt for taking the time to reply. I did follow your link and the article was really interesting. I guess if I'm going to pursue this just buying the 499 and doing the mods would be the easiest route to go. I don't have anything against a single shot but my arthritic fingers don't fiddle with those little BB's very well. Being able to shoot a bunch of shots before reloading is pretty inviting.
I agree that having a repeater is very handy compared to a single shot.
In 2017 I decided to purchased a brand new Red Ryder, just for the fun of it. Got home with the new rifle and a new container Daisy BBs and started shooting away. About 2 days and 300 rounds later the rifle jams a BB somewhere in the action and no matter what I did, I could not free the stuck BB. So I took the rifle back to the big box store I bought it at and they exchanged it for a new one. Two days later and about 100 rounds, the 2nd rifle jams. Again I took it back and again exchanged. Tried a different brand of BB's and again the 3rd rifle jammed in a hundred rounds or. I felt guilty going back for another exchange, so I set the Red Ryder aside and that is where is still sets. Oh well.
I would take the gun back. If it's a problem with Daisy QC or manufacturing, returning it is the only way they will ever know there's a problem.
There were reports of those BBs causing jams but that has been many moons ago and since then I haven't heard of any further problems.
But all this jamming is highly unusual, regardless of the brand of BB being used. That you had the same thing happen even after changing brands makes me wonder what else could be at work here, like are the BBs being carried in a pocket or ammo pouch where they may have picked up debris? BBs shouldn't be lubricated, either- that would allow any dirt, etc. they come in contact with to find its way into the gun.
Is the BB sticking in the barrel itself? If you roll a BB from the muzzle into the gun, you should be able to see the BB through the slot in the top of the receiver if the barrel's not jammed. The BB will be held there by a magnet but that's not a problem, just cock and shoot the gun and the BB will shoot out normally. In that case, the jam may be caused by BBs getting lodged in the chute where they enter the shot tube (see attachment). The slot on top of the barrel shroud lets you see the loading area and magnet. If you can actually see the magnet when looking through the slot, then the blockage has to be more towards the muzzle, and likely in the chute (red arrow/yellow circles in photo).
If you have the barrel plug/front sight out already, use a flashlight and look to see if you can see anything in the chute- it's at 12 o'clock as you look down the barrel with the gun upright. Sometimes all it takes is dropping the barrel shroud muzzle first against a block of wood or a careful whack with a dead blow hammer if it's rubber coated to knock the jam loose (with the barrel plug out). Just don't get carried away and bend the shroud.
In 2017 I decided to purchased a brand new Red Ryder, just for the fun of it. Got home with the new rifle and a new container Daisy BBs and started shooting away. About 2 days and 300 rounds later the rifle jams a BB somewhere in the action and no matter what I did, I could not free the stuck BB. So I took the rifle back to the big box store I bought it at and they exchanged it for a new one. Two days later and about 100 rounds, the 2nd rifle jams. Again I took it back and again exchanged. Tried a different brand of BB's and again the 3rd rifle jammed in a hundred rounds or. I felt guilty going back for another exchange, so I set the Red Ryder aside and that is where is still sets. Oh well.
I would keep taking it back, or better yet, get my money back, and go to a different store.
Was it Walmart ?
I bought a Red Ryder last summer at a local Walmart, just for the fun of it to have something to plink with while up at my garage barbecuing, working on something, or just to feed my cat... she got use to me taking some time to plink at a hanging aluminum beverage can, where the goal was to shred the can into two pieces.
I love shooting that thing, especially after I got a Chief AJ adult-size stock and steel large hoop lever for it... have not had any problems with it.
Not related to air guns, but I took a scanner radio back to a certain big box store, telling them it wasn't working correctly. There were some channels that would not program. It was their last one.
Went back the next day for something different,and happened by the display case and there it sat. The clerk hadn't wanted to deal with it.
Stuff doesn't always make it back to the manufacturer. ?
Not related to air guns, but I took a scanner radio back to a certain big box store, telling them it wasn't working correctly. There were some channels that would not program. It was their last one.
Went back the next day for something different,and happened by the display case and there it sat. The clerk hadn't wanted to deal with it.
Stuff doesn't always make it back to the manufacturer. ?
Yeah, I was wondering about how often this happens... just put it back on the shelf, maybe the next owner won't notice the problem(s) !
Thank you for the articles on the Daisy BB guns. I might have to tear into one of these for the fun of it. I do have a barrel for a daisy 499. Would you happen to know if it could be used in a Red Ryder?
I'm also looking at an older Daisy model 95.
We have learned since my earlier reply that the 499 shot tube (barrel) CAN be used in the 1938B Red Ryder. This mod requires that the original RR shot tube assembly be removed and a 499 abutment installed in its place. To use the 499 funnel assembly, the loading door has to be removed for clearance then the shot tube, funnel, and barrel nut can be installed. The original piston is replaced by a 499 piston. This essentially turns a Red Ryder into bargain priced 499. Just like a 499, it's a single shot and uber accurate, but unlike a 499 this gun has a 400-plus fps MV and it's a whole lotta fun to shoot! All the parts required are still available from Daisy at reasonable cost- $17.00 plus shipping- and is FAR cheaper than buying a 499, even a used one unless you get real lucky.
I first installed a 499 abutment and shot tube into a new Daisy 105B Buck just to see if it would work, too- and it does. Even using a worn out spring it did 380 fps and is very accurate.
Some details are discussed beginning here: https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/putting-a-little-more-power-in-a-15-00-daisy.807316/page-24#post-11039304
