Cap Guns

A cap gun or cap pistol is a toy gun that creates a loud sound akin to a gunshot and a puff of smoke when the trigger is pulled. Cap guns were originally made of cast iron, but after World War II were made of zinc alloy, and most newer models are made of plastic. more...

Cap guns get their name from the small, powdered compounds (roughly 1/16 or 1/8 of an inch in diameter) that provide the noise and smoke. Some were typically arranged in plastic rings of six or eight, each divot being a "cap." There were also single caps, roll caps (of 50 to 500) and disk caps, all of which were actually extremely small versions of percussion fireworks.

Cap guns became especially popular when the heroes of cinema and television rode through the West ridding the territories of villains. Many cap guns were named or patronized by the leading matinee idols like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Tonto, Dale Evans, Matt Dillon and countless others.

The "Golden Age" of cap guns was after World War II when television became popular and such companies as Nichols Industries, Hubley, Kenton, Kilgore, Wyandotte, Classy, Mattel, Actoy, Esquire, George Schmidt and Stevens made millions of cap guns in various versions. While many had their names patterned after a hero or heroine, many cap guns also were named "Stallion 45," "Pony," "Mustang," "Pioneer," "Cowboy," "Texan," "Colt 45," "Rodeo" and such.

As stated, from the end of the war until about 1965 children all over the world emulated their heroes and collected and played with these toy guns. However, when the western television shows began to fade away and the heroes retired, the popularity of the toy guns also diminished and eventually all of the famous cap gun manufacturers either sold out to other toy companies or started manufacturing other types of toys.

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