Do you remember the BB machine gun that ran on Freon?

[Nighthawk]

In my youth I like many others had a subscription to Soldier of Fortune magazine. I enjoyed reading the ads and the articles. One that was quite notable was an ad that had a picture of some guy with stubble on his face, a half smoked cigar hanging out of his mouth, he was shooting a BB machine gun with a can of Freon on the bottom to propel the bb's.

I was naive at that time and thought what a great idea. So I ordered one from the ad. It arrived and by that time I had amassed several cans of R12 freon. I followed the directions, carefully loaded the BB's into this plastic weapon, then attached a can of freon to the bottom. I went to the back yard and commenced shooting at the fence. I discovered that it was better to shoot bursts, because the freon would freeze the bb's in the barrel, but even the burst after while would do the same thing. I just figured the purchase was a waste of money, until I read the directions further and it said that you could use compressed air. Now I was on a mission. I acquired a freon container used to fill house air conditioners, and put the correct fittings on it with a hose to accept the lower of the BB machine gun. I put the container in a old Boy Scout pack, it looked like a flame thrower. It worked great, but alas I got tired of it and traded it at a gun show for a 22LR pistol.

I was wondering if anyone else saw this add and purchased one too.

 

[Fyrtwuck]

I saw it, but never got one. There was a BB machine gun for sale just a few years ago. I think H&H may have sold some. It was called the Drozd or something like that.

 

[CAR-AR-M16]

Yep. I had one too. Same issue with the freon freezing it up. I don't remember what I did with mine.

 

[okc_plinking]

yep, got 2 of them pistol and rifle, converted them to run off air compressor. way better!!!
then the cost of the bb's was killer so converted to run on bb lead shot.
Fred baker always wondered why a 12 year old was buying multipe bags of bb shot.
the birds in the back yard never knew what hit them.

 

[Mr.Glock]

I sure remember them. I almost lost a good friend over them. Funny story, he bought one was telling me about them. I laughed at him for buying one. Stopped over at his place one day not long after hearing about it. He handed it to me and walked to set up a target, I sprayed him!

I shouldn't have, the thing was the real deal. He was in severe pain, severe pain. We lost count on how many hits he took up and down his legs and back. Few days later he looked even worse, as the hits turned black and blue. Bad deal, I was a dumb ass for what I did, but I just thought that it would barely shoot out. They were seriously not a joke. This was back around 1983 or so when they first came out.

 

[44minimum]

I remember them because I bought one and it was a piece of crap. That was back when lots of pop came in glass bottles and it wouldn't even break the glass on the thinnest bottles, no matter how close you were. I would be surprised if it would penetrate both sides of an aluminum can. I didn't know how to hook it up to compressed air so I didn't. It cost me $35 and that was a lot of money to a kid back then. And yeah, a few years ago there was a BB machine gun called the drozd. And yeah, I had to buy one. For $199. It said to use lead BBs in it but I didn't have any and had no idea where to get any around here so I used regular BBs. It ran pretty good for a couple thousand rounds and then it locked up. No matter what we did, we couldn't get it undone. So I sent it back to the sportsman's guide, they refunded my money with no questions asked and I was happy. The guy that runs the sportsman's guide knows a thing or two about customer service and that is why I keep buying from them.

 

[scottb42]

Considering how much damage I did back in the day with a single shot, single pump bb gun it's probably a good thing I didn't have the option of full auto.

A few years ago I picked up one of these guys though


Umarex Steel Storm, powered by a pair of 12g CO2 cartridges. Strangely enough my 9 year old son isn't impressed with it, but every adult who tries it out wants to know where they can get one for themselves...

 

[Seadog]

I have a bad A$$ one that I got back in japan in the 90s. Looks like a real M16. Has all the same markings. Runs on freon. Never got around to getting It hooked on air so it just sits around in the corner.

 

[dennishoddy]

Slightly off topic, but the original 3 gun matches were covered by SOF.

 

[Sanford]

I was wondering if anyone else saw this add and purchased one too.

Saw the ad but never had one - my folks were of the "you'll shoot your eye out" persuasion so never would allow a BB gun. Maybe justifiable in their case, as I learned years later that my father actually had shot himself in the eye (richochet) with a pellet gun when he was younger.

Not all bad though, they took me out to shoot a *lot* of .22 instead.