We all get a little longer in the tooth and the black pepper hairs on our heads and chins tend to get overrun by salt with every passing Christmas.
Christmas morning, as so many of the songs insist, is for kids. That’s indeed true, but that doesn’t mean we old timers can’t reminisce about the memorable Christmas gifts of our youth — especially the ones that had something to do with firearms.
My all-time favorite firearm present arrived under the tree on Christmas morning, 1980. Nope, it wasn’t a toy per se. It was my first shotgun, a 20-gauge Mossberg pump-action. Within an hour of opening gifts, my dad took me into the woods in our backyard to take my first three shots with it.
Ah, the thrill of that morning is a memory that simply can’t be beat. Although I did say that the year prior, when I got my first 10-pump Crosman Pumpmaster.` Oh, and the year before that when I received my Daisy Red Ryder BB gun.
Both the Crosman and Daisy guns saw countless missions to the woods in search of all manner of pesky vermin. Just in case my mom's reading this post, we never, ever played army with the pellet and BB guns. And we never, ever shot one another in the Dungarees or Toughskins jeans at point-blank range.
Sure, real working guns are great, but we’re tipping hats to some fun, pew-pew stuff that won’t shoot your eye out, unless, of course, you’re really reckless and know your way around rigging toys with firecrackers and whatnot.
Without further ado, here are some gems from Christmas past, as well as a few from Christmas present, that put smiles on faces no matter what the year says on your birth certificate. — Nino Bosaz
Gun Toys You Can Build
For the kid in ya who remembers the hours spent listening to your mom or dad yelling at you because they stepped on one of your stray LEGO pieces, go and brick yourself up!
First, go here to Brick Arms. Once you arrive, you’ll find a vast collection of LEGO-ready weapons and accessories, weapons packs, and custom minifigs that are prized by collectors worldwide. For the best value, check out Brick Arms weapon theme packs.
Speaking of things that snap together in LEGO-ish fashion, have you ever heard of the American Brick Store? I know at least one of my colleagues has, because every time I bump into him at SHOT Show, he hands me a John Wick minifigure. Since you’re here reading this fun toy post, chances are darn good that you’re a fan of the John Wick movies.
While you’re at the American Brick Store, be sure to check out the full assortment of themed minifigures and building sets for fans of Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings and some Marvel superheroes, too!
Just don’t leave loose pieces laying around for your wife to step on. You’ll thank us later.
Get yourself some Goat Guns kits to pass the time and start building a collection your kids can inherit someday… waaaaay in the future. Big boys like little toys, too. I’ve a collection of these 1:3 (and some are 1:4) scale diecast metal firearms with actions that actually cycle, and they come with dummy rounds, too. The Barrett MK22 is my personal favorite.
Besides Barrett, Goat Guns also has licensing agreements with SIG SAUER — the SIG MCX is killer — and FN Herstal; we’re talking two SCAR variants and two P90 options. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to put Goat Guns together, but some of the parts are quite tiny, so take your time with the builds.
Other models available include the M1 Garand, basic and “skeleton” model AR15, Vietnam-era M16A1, the new for 2025 STG44, AKs, bullpups, handguns and more! Goat Guns look great on display in any gun room or office space. Depending on which model you choose, prices for these high-quality diecast models run from $50 to $80. Multiple-gun kits are available, too. — NB
G.I. Joe
What red-blooded American boy back in the 70s didn’t have get bitten by the G.I. Joe “Gotta Have That This Christmas” bug? Not that I’m going to steal valor and whatnot (I never served in the U.S. Military), but G.I. Joe toys from back in the day made kids think they were living life on the front lines.
I figure I was about eight years old when Santa brought me the G.I. Joe Official Jeep Combat Set.
Man, I wish I still had all of my old G.I. Joe toys, as a quick look on ebay shows that one could spend a small fortune to rebuild a vintage G.I. Joe army. One site worth going down G.I. Joe memory lane is vintage3djoes.com where you can see “moving images” of all of the classics. —NB
Disney 1776 Freedom Rifle Toy “Cap Gun” Musket
Way before Disney got woke — I’m talking Christmas 1975 — on Christmas morning, my folks told my sisters and me that as part of this year’s present, the family was driving down to Florida for summer vacation. So it was off to Disney World in Orlando, Florida, to experience our country’s bicentennial celebration.
Everywhere you turned in Disney, it was 1776 in your face. Disney’s “America on Parade” featured giant, toy-like floats, all patriotically themed. The toy that stopped me in my tracks was the 1776 Freedom Musket. From the moment I got my mitts on it, I couldn’t let go.
Thinking back on it — there were hundreds of kids running around Disney World blasting away with cap-gun muskets. Dangnabbit, that’s one toy that I really wish I’d saved.
That and Stretch Monster — of course, like most kids I just had to pop with a pin to find out what the stretchy stuff inside was all about. I found one on Ebay, that I might just treat myself to. —NB
Winchester Ammo Box
One Christmas gift from my childhood that I just can’t part with is a vintage wooden ammunition box that my grandmother gave to me. The box has been in my life for more than 40 years. It’s made it through three different home moves, and countless reprimands from my wife, saying, “How long are you going to hold onto that thing?”
Through its life, the lockable box has served as a special stash place for Playboy and Hustler mags (hey, I was a teenager once, ya know), a handy storage unit for dog leads, e-collars, grooming brushes, bones and treats, and of course, shotgun ammunition. Check out the accompanying photo of my ammo box.
You’ll notice some circular saw cuts in the top right of the hinged lid. That’s from when I once deployed the box as sawhorse of sorts. Hey, I was in a pinch and needed to make a quick cut. I won’t ever part with that box.
Recently, I told my wife that when I die, please cremate me and put my ashes in that old box. I hardly think she’ll listen to me. That said, those “vintage boxes” are still available here. —NB
The Rambo M60 Machine Gun
My turn.
Many of my earliest Christmases were dominated by little-kid toys — action figures (the Ghostbusters Firehouse Playset Christmas was a memorable one), but at some point, my gifts shifted to toy guns until I was old enough for the real thing. And I loved those toy guns.
This was the mid- to late-1980s, and toy guns had not yet been neutered. You could get realistic-looking cap guns and water guns without barrel plugs that were silver and brown, not neon shades of yellow and orange.
I remember having a plastic cap-gun knock-off of a Beretta 92FS with a magazine that ejected and held the paper caps and a spring loaded slide you could actually work. It even came with a plastic tube to screw onto the barrel as a silencer.
But the greatest Christmas wrapping paper tear I can remember was the year I got the Rambo M-60 Machine Gun Target Game. I don’t remember there being a game component, but this was the greatest toy gun I could have ever imagined at the time. The only gift that may have topped it was the Rambo Bow & Arrow Set. If you know, you know.
We’ll just move past the fact that they were marketing toys and cartoons based on two very grown-up action movies to kids in the mid-80s — that was the style of the time.
The base gun was what kinda-sorta maybe looked like a miniaturized M-60-ish submachine gun. When you pulled the trigger, it made a raspy noise and a plastic belt of bronze-colored “ammo” fed through it.
You could attach a pump-action extension on the muzzle that made the gun feel more like a machine gun, plus it shot little rubber darts with the additional trigger.
Not only that, but it came with a detachable bipod, and the main gun had two triggers at the rear, detachable handles, and a flip-up crosshair sight, so you could shoot it like a mounted machine gun. Of course, a plastic Rambo knife and a little red headband were also included.
While many of the attachments broke or were lost over the years, this toy gun won me many imaginary battles in the neighborhood and the woods down by the river. —Dave Maccar
The A-Team / Rambo M-24 Assault Rifle
Another of my favorite toy guns also came with a bunch of attachments and configurations. People born a bit before the early 1980s might remember this one as the A-Team branded M-24 Assault Rifle Target Game Set. I had the later Rambo-branded version.
It kind of looked like a rearranged Uzi maybe, but I’ve never seen a real gun that looked much like it. Didn’t matter.
The base gun was a great submachine gun toy with a gray magazine that really ejected (but was just a block of plastic).
A red switch on the left side let you select from a brapp-brapp machine gun sound or a spring-powered dart launcher function. This one shot the hard-plastic darts with hollow plastic tips - the kind you could modify to do a tiny bit of real damage if you were a bad kid.
But then, there were the attachments. There was a skeletonized stock that snapped on to the back of the gun, and a “scope” that locked into grooves on the top.
A significant muzzle brake could be attached to the barrel, or, an entire front-end extension could be snapped onto the muzzle, complete with bipod, that would turn the whole thing into a sniper-rifle kinda thing. It was amazing.
As the 1980s wore on, the A-Team branding was ditched and the same toy gun was released as a Rambo-branded product, but it was entirely the same. They even made a version for the landmark mini-series V (1983).
Of course, there were a ton of toy guns that looked a lot like real guns, like the Beretta cap gun I mentioned. I also had a set of water pistols that looked exactly like a MAC-10 and a full-sized Uzi, complete with a folding stock. Apparently they had been banned — thank goodness for the local flea market. — DM
Home Laser Tag
Say “Laser Tag” to an ‘80s kid and they don’t think of the black-light drenched arcade thing that they call laser tag today. Back then, this was a way you could finally settle the “I got you! No, I got you first!” arguments on the backyard battlefield using electronics.
Laser tag sets came with two laser emitting guns of one design or another and some kind of receiver you work on your chest and back. If the gun activated the receiver and logged a hit, it would beep and light up and tell its wearer that they, indeed, had been hit. It was the perfect “high-tech” toy for the time.
I had the most K-mart version you could imagine — it was literally just called Laser Tag and had a photo on the box that I’ll never forget of a kid in a sick black turtleneck looking like he was about to have the greatest time of his life.
In short, the TV commercials made these sets look WAY more radical than they really were. They were wearing these awesome vests, like you'd see at a laser tag arena today, and helmets and all kinds of gear like they're in a remake of Rollerball.
The set you actually got had one gun, one sensor, and a plastic harness kind of thing to wear the sensor, which meant you needed to buy two sets to actually play a game, or you had to know someone with the same set. You could, apparently, but a vest that held the sensor, but I never saw one.
The tech was a little finicky, after all, it was just a TV remote with one button inside of a plastic gun. Plus, the guns and sensors simply ATE batteries, so after a while, the cool electronic guns simply became inert toy guns that stood in for general sci-fi blasters of every ilk.
These days, toy guns don’t really exist, per se. Yeah you might find some semi-realistic looking cowboy cap gun sets in a few places and you can, of course, find almost anything online, but the days where you could just buy a 1-for-1 plastic replica of a TEC-9 over at the Rite Aid are likely gone forever.
These days, if you’re looking for a not-real replica of a gun, the best bet is the airsoft market, but those aren’t exactly toys — but they make for great training tools! —DM
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