This report covers:
- Airgunners are contrary
- Cheap
- Pellets
- Hemostats
- Little spray bottles
- Microfiber cloths
- Summary
Today I’m going to do a type of report I haven’t done in years. And this one will be different from any I have ever done. I’m going to talk about great and inexpensive gifts that can be given to airgunners. The Christmas holidays are approaching and gifts will soon be on everyone’s mind.
Airgunners are contrary
Airgunners are contrary. If you know someone who shoots airguns you know I speak the truth. And the gifts I am about to share with you are what they need yet will not buy for themselves.
Cheap
Airgunners love to shoot. Know what they don’t like? Spending money. They are not just frugal, either. Ebenezer Scrooge was frugal. Airgunners are cheap! They need a great many things that they will not buy for themselves because doing so means one less tin of pellets they can afford. They will stand in front of a candy counter with tears in their eyes because a piece of candy costs 5 cents. Therefore five hundred of them cost twenty-five dollars and — hey — a tin of 500 JSB Jumbo Heavy .22-caliber domed pellets costs almost the same.
If someone else buys them a piece of candy, it wasn’t their fault. They can’t control what others do on their behalf. And they do like candy! Today I’m going to tell you about some “candy” you can get for your airgunners.
Pellets
Let’s stay with pellets for starters, shall we? Your airgunner convinced you that his $1,200 air rifle and scope were more essential for a good life than the new dishwasher you needed. Hey — all dishwashers make that noise and leak a little water from time to time; we have to keep the squirrels out of the bird feeder — right?
Now that you are speaking to him again you were surprised to learn that he only buys pellets that cost less than ten dollars per tin. Even though he knows the better pellets are the ones that work best in his rifle, he won’t buy them. And he certainly won’t tell you which ones they are, because you might spend the money — leaving him less for his hobby. So how do you find out what pellets he really needs? You play a little game.
Pretend to have an interest in his new air rifle. Let him tell you what wonderful things it can do when everything is right. Keep the conversation going and at some point he will drop his guard and tell you what pellets he really wants. Buy them and have them delivered to your friend’s home. Voila — you just beat the system! That solved let’s find another piece of candy for him.
Hemostats
While we were coming home from the 2024 Pyramyd Air Cup Ian McKee was driving my truck and I noticed that cool air was not coming from the air vents — despite the fact that Ian had turned on the air conditioning when we departed the Cup at 3:30 a.m. It was now about 9 a.m. and the outside temperature was up to 78 degrees F/25.6 degrees C. We were headed for Texas and I did not want to drive into 100-degree weather for 12 hours. We needed the air conditioner!
We stopped at a gas station and looked in the fuse box. The fuses are all small and thin and refused to move for our fat fingers. We needed a small thin pair of pliers to pull the fuses for examination. I had the perfect pair of needle-nose pliers in my tool box that I left in my garage in Texas (I packed it to make sure it had everything I needed for the trip — and it did! I confirmed that when I returned home.). Fortunately Ian had his airgun repair kit for the rifle he shot at the Cup and it contained a hemostat.
This set of hemostats sells for $15 on Amazon. I bought one while writing this blog. I will put them into my tool box that is now inside my truck!
All the fuses were in perfect order, but when Ian went into the gas station to get a soft drink I discovered that he had turned on the rear window defroster instead of the air conditioner. I will say we did not have any condensation on the truck’s rear window!
Hemostats are ideal for some airgun repair jobs. In fact, I understand that surgeons now use them during operations, so they have a wide range of applications!
Little spray bottles
Want a cheap stocking-stuffer? Buy a little generic spray bottle for your airgunner. Find them online for as little as 40 cents per generic 3-ounce bottle! Yes, when you buy 100 bottles they cost $39.95 with free shipping. Don’t need 100 spray bottles? Okay, give five to your airgunner and keep the other 95 for future gifts. Or buy fewer bottles and pay a little more. You’ll figure it out.
What are the bottles used for? Well, your airgunner needs one for soapy water to find air and gas leaks in his airguns, a second one for Crosman Pellgunoil, a third one for Ballistol a fourth one for plain lubricating oil and a fifth one for high-temperature silicone oil. He needs one set of these bottles for his workbench and another set for his range bag, so give him 10. If he is a classic airgunner I can almost guarantee that he does not already have these bottles, because buying them would have interfered with his buying super-cheap pellets.
Microfiber cloths
Want another inexpensive gift? Airgunners always need microfiber cloths to wipe their airguns. They will probably put Ballistol on one of the absorbent kind and keep it for wiping down the metal surfaces of the airgun before storing it. That one is special because they will keep it saturated with Ballistol and keep it handy wherever they store their airguns. That one is more or less permanent, so if it has a container to keep the oil off everything it touches, so much the better. A Ballistol cloth could be put into each of the carrying bags and cases they use to transport their airguns.
Another use for microfiber cloths is for cleaning the lenses on airgun optics. The non-absorbent lens-cleaning kind are best for this. Every scope needs a cleaning cloth, so there is a lot of need for these cleaning clothes. And you probably know where to get them. Your airgunner probably knows, too, but it means fewer pellets so he isn’t going there.
Summary
Airgunners don’t like to spend money on non-airgun things. They don’t even like spending money on the peripheral things they actually need that are not pellets or actual airguns. If someone does it for them and gives it to them as a gift, they will gladly accept it. And their appreciation will last much longer than the pellets they buy.
Tom,
Nice stocking stuffers. The wife might also be collecting small cookie tins as that is a good place to store oily rags, miscellaneous small parts and pellets whose cartons have disintegrated.
Siraniko
Siraniko,
I use ziploc bags for oily rags. I also have an assortment of small ziploc bags I use for storing small items and parts. I have a plastic toolbox for my parts and other small items and another toolbox I use for my airgun specific tools and lubricants.
RidgeRunner,
Ooh! Ziploc bags! Not very ubiquitous over here which probably why I overlooked them but yes since they are clear they eliminate the scenario of opening various containers while looking for something and can have a list included inside detailing the contents. Thanks RidgeRunner for that idea!
Siraniko
Siraniko,
I usually do include a note to say what the part is.
BB,
Sometimes you may find a small plastic fuse puller in the fuse box or panel. It’s usually a white plastic item that snaps closed on the fuse to pull it out.
Just noticed Crosman is coming out with a Select Fire, Full Auto, CO2, M1 Carbine BB rifle.
Looks like an entirely new item and not a modified version of the current one out. Just a simplified version with no detachable CO2 mag, sling or bayonet mount. Doesn’t seem to have a cycling bolt either, just the cocking lever, but the price is much lower. A look-alike not a close replica.
A nice Christmas plinker?
Bob,
I didn’t know about that fuise puller but now I do thanks to you.
Yeah,
I have been watching the Crosman “select-fire” M1 carbine. Why they didn’t choose to call it an M2 carbine is a mystery I am also looking into.
BB
I looked for the fuse puller when we had stopped to check it out, and didn’t see one.
In my defense, it was 3:30am and dark when I was pushing buttons.
Next year we will take my ride and you can navigate the buttons…
Um wait, the only buttons are the radio volume and emergency flashers.
Ian.
FM loves PHYSICAL buttons and controls – but them automakers are not going to gift him with those. So he’ll keep driving an almost 20-year-old van, which did come equipped with a fuse puller.
BB,
I don’t know if that fuse puller is a common item or if there would be one in every fuse box. A service writer in a dealership told me about it. Had no idea what it was when I found one.
I would venture to say not too many people are familiar with the M2 designation unless they are into firearms or war movies. But as they mentioned in the description, the M1 Carbine is “Iconic”
Without a 30-round magazine, bayonet mount and select fire switch they may have figured they were pressing their luck for an M2. Looks like they have incorporated the likes of a round look alike bolt shape.
I will need to get one to go with the collection.
Bob,
I kinda figured that was the case for not calling it an M2, because I know several guys at Crosman know firearms just as well as we do.
BB
FM would vote for pellet-shooting versions of these replica automatics, and would encourage Mrs. FM to at least give him a Pyramyd Air gift certificate towards acquiring one. One can dream. 😉
Bob M,
The first of those white plastic fuse pullers i ran into was in a 1986 SAAB 900.
One of the best articles covering the M1, M2, M3, and how they relate to the current M4 that i have found: https://sadefensejournal.com/u-s-carbine-caliber-30-m1-m2-and-m3/
shootski
Shootski, Good read, good website.
Wonder if there was a music box in the stock option of one submitted prototype? Perhaps with an ego boosting patriotic theme?
I would love a PCP M1 Carbine replica. My dad carried a real M1 carbine during his time in the Korean war.
He was a telephone lineman, his crew was 2 other Americans and 10 ROK (Republic of Korea) soldiers.
Mike
BB, hahahaha! Great stuff! 😉
When I was an electronics technician in the U S Navy, I had eight different size and shape hemostats in my tool pouch with my name engraved on them fortunately. One day I dug through my tool pouch for a pair of hemostats and there were none in it. I then went around to all of our spaces and looked into the other electronic technicians’ tool pouches and found most of my hemostats. Many protested until I showed them my name engraved on them.
By the way, they had been supplied to me by a corpsman.
I at present like to keep a couple of sets around here. I have very big, fat fingers and often find myself handling tinee, tiny parts.
These are great items to gift to airgunners. I have a microfiber towel laid on top of my workbench to catch small parts and to keep from scratching up the bench. Lens cloths are great to keep with scopes and cameras. They are not too bad to keep around for cleaning eyeglasses with either. 😉
P.S. You folks might want to hang onto those empty pellet tins. They make great little containers for parts, oily rags, etcetera.
RidgeRunner,
Oh yes! FOD (Foreign Object Damage) Pouches…i remember them!
We went to Shadow tool boxes when i took over my first Avionics Division.
shootski
Shootski,
Coincidence, I was instrumental in starting the tool control program for the Naval Aviation community.
It started in VF-124, new F-14 training squadron at NAS Miramar.
Seems they did not want to lose an expensive F-14 because of a tool left inside it someplace jamming up a flight control or something.
I happened to be in charge of the Tool Room. It was big with all the peculiar electronics and testing equipment that was required to maintain the F-14 (PGSE)
I worked with a civilian assigned to initiate it. We tried all kinds of toolbox layouts. Each box was to be job or system specific and only contain about 70-80% of the common hand tools needed to complete most jobs.
Anything else needed was to be checked out of the tool room utilizing the Maintenance Action Form (MAF) for tracking. Box tags were utilized for any additional tools needed to be checked out.
The maintenance job could not be signed off without each and every tool being returned to the tool room. Yes, no one had their own toolbox anymore. Everything was kept in the Tool Room.
We settled on the stenciled yellow fold open toolbox with a teared vertical plastic insert having a cut out or clip for each tool so as to have an At-A-Glance inventory to easily spot anything missing. Including the tags.
The hard part was convincing the work centers to decide which tools were ‘absolutely’ necessary for the job. They initially wanted “A complete set of 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2” socket sets all wrench sizes and so on. They hated interrupting the work to get another tool.
We had a lot of toolboxes for each shop and job. A busy place with a lot of growing pains. Part of history now.
Bob M,
Yup and really cool. I had a tool lodge in my rudder control on a T-28 on a PMCF (Post Maintenance Check Flight) did an unintended roll at High Key on the climb out when i pulled power. That roll fortunately dislodged the tool…i returned to Maintenance Control to have a QUIET Discussion with the assigned personnel.
shootski
shootski,
Yep, I know what FOD is. I spent five long years on the Iwo Jima – LPH-2. I heard it was decommissioned not too long after I left. A good bit of its electronics was tube and hard wire.
For you Diana 27 fans.
https://hardairmagazine.com/reviews/50-years-with-diana-air-rifles-part-one/
B.B.
Please explain to me how a person with a $1,200 airgun and scope is cheap???
What they can not stand is a cheap airgun with a lousy trigger!
-Yogi
Yogi,.
I’m sorry. That was irony — a form of humor. Same with me saying that doctors are now using hemostats in their operations when the hemostat was actually developed for surgeons and the rest of the world borrowed it from them.
When I said airgunners are cheap, I meant but did not say that they will only spend money on their airguns and pellets.
BB
Tom,
After you waxed poetic about Mepta’s quality, I have begged you, literally begged you to convince them to make a Hunter class specific FT scope for the range of $500-$1,000. I guess they refuse because we are too cheap? lol.
-Yogi
Yogi,
I have told them repeatedly. That’s as far as I can go with them.
Only Leapers listens to everything I say.
BB
Yeah, and now they too are chasing the big bucks and leaving us “bottom feeders” behind. Ah well, I will just have to hunt around and find another decent, cheap scope brand to use in my dotter age.
Good article, with great ideas for self-gifting – because that is what it boils down to most of the time. Not that FM would look a gift horse in the mouth, but there is no room for one here so he would have to respectfully decline the offer; after all, this is Casa FM, not RANCHO FM! 🙂
Well, this blog and the comments put a big smile on my face. I had just read where car manufacturers are starting to put buttons back on the dashboard in selective applications as many customers were complaining about touch screens. As for the microfiber cloths, how many of you hosers have used the Ballistol or silicon infused cloth to clean your optics instead of the dry cloth?
Fred formerly of the Demokratik Peeples Republik of NJ now in drying out GA
Buttons back would be great! I had a 2017 Forester that had buttons and was great…but getting a lot of miles. I decided to trade it in while it still had some value and get something that would last as long as I will. I got a 2024 Legacy. Great car, 38-42 mpg, handles NM winds well…BUT they replaced buttons with an 11″ screen. Will be watching for return of buttons.
https://www.wsj.com/tech/personal-tech/touch-screens-are-over-even-apple-is-bringing-back-buttons-86fb9ea8?st=wvizEy
As a motorcyclist, there are several brands of cars i watch out for. However, in the interest of maintaining bon homie and peace on the blog, i will not divulge their names but they are typically driven by blue hairs
B.B. and Readership,
Got lenses?
https://www.amazon.com/Kimberly-Clark-Kimtech-Kimwipes-Delicate-Disposable/dp/B0013HT2QW?th=1
And what airgun addict wouldn’t love one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Giottos-AA1900-Rocket-Blaster-Large/dp/B00017LSPI/?th=1
LensPen: https://fstoppers.com/originals/review-lenspen-original-still-great-way-clean-your-lenses-502263
ROR is a great product: http://www.ror.net
Some important ideas on the topic:
https://www.televue.com/engine/TV3b_page.asp?id=103
shootski
PS: as was said in one of the Links most methods for lens upkeep result in HOT DEBATES.
B.B.,
I have an on topic post awaiting moderation apparently.
Who exactly is in charge of moderating our posts and are there rules?
shootski
Shootski,
Could be AI is waiting for you to breath into the breathalyzer on your lap-top? 😉 It may be next!
As far as car controls go, I think I have perfection on my hands. I have all 3 to pick from for control. Touch screen, buttons, knobs and buttons within knobs on panels and steering wheel controls Three ways to control play with the radio.
How many cars have built in G Force indicators, and a one touch Race Mode paddle on the steering wheel to rearrange the engine performance / acceleration level, exhaust, steering feel and suspension settings for the track? 🙂
I may not have survived driving this car if I had it when I was 21.
Today’s performance cars are right up there with the latest PCP air rifles for outstanding improvements.
Bob M,
breathalyzer? 151 and Cola so NOT tonight!
I feel the NEED for Gs!
Tunning performance makes sense i remember the outrage at the “vacuum cleaner” cars: https://automedia.revsinstitute.org/the-astonishing-chaparral-2j#:~:text=There would be no more,It entered legislatively enforced retirement.
Keep dirty side down and shiny side up!
Just don’t give me an automobile that decides for me.
shootski
Shootski, I believe I have an Exoto Model of every Chaparral Can-Am except that one, just too U-Gly.
Hard to tell sometimes living on a dirt road.
Bob M,
If you dirt is mostly composed of sand some Clay (think Georgia Red Clay) added to the dirt can help hold it in place. I have also heard of folks using a 10:90 mixture of wood glue (environmental?) to water sprayed onto the surface to help bind the dirt. Sounds like it would work to hold sand dunes in place a bit better at the shore as for hurricanes.
shootski
shootski,
You posted many links to other websites. That post was held for my approval because we also get many spams and hacks that do exactly the same thing. I had gone to bed when you posted it. I am awake now and have approved it.
If you want to post a link to another website, hold the number to one or two. I still have to review all comments, but that one should post.
BB
B.B.,
Thank you for the clarification.
shootski
Just for the wives, but where are they?
Might be interesting to have the wives chime in, but I guess they do not actually read the blog, or do they?
Mike
BB,
This might be slightly off topic, but here goes.
This isn’t a gift idea but is my favorite item for small parts storage: prescription pill bottles.
Cheap? After you get to a certain age, it seems like you’re overrun with them. When empty, just peel the labels off and wipe the inside out. They are colored but are clear enough to see what’s in them.
“Hi, my name is Bill. I am an airgunner and I am cheap.”
Bill
I’ll add disposable pipettes. I find them invaluable. I buy Ballistol and 100% Silicone oil in bulk and use these to apply most any liquid.
Not posting a link but this search will get you there.
300PCS 3ML Plastic Transfer Pipettes,Disposable Graduated Transfer Pipettes Dropper for Essential Oil Mixture, Scientific Experiment, Make up Tool