Like Ralph in TV’s famous “The Christmas Story,” after months of frantic wishing, I had a real Red Ryder BB gun.
I don’t remember how old I was when I got the Red Ryder Carbine. Not much over 9 years old if I had to guess. I am sure it was a financial strain on my parent’s budget to pay for the gun, but they felt it would help me learn responsibility and the life skill of marksmanship. They were right on both accounts. If memory serves me correctly, my dog Skipper and I slept with the rifle the first few nights I had it.
A lot has changed about youngsters since those early days of my youth, but a dream is a dream, and dreams are still around that involve a Red Ryder Carbine. The comic book cowboy action hero Red Ryder, for whom the gun was named, has long since ridden off into the sunset of “no longer published” comic books. But where he left off, the TV classic, “The Christmas Story,” picked up and has become an annual Christmas viewing tradition.
Today, just as in my youth, youngsters want the adventure and pride-of-ownership that comes with owning a Daisy Red Ryder Carbine. The good news is that the Daisy Red Ryder Model 1938 is still available, wooden stock with the Red Ryder name branded into the wooden stock, lever action, saddle ring with leather thong, and all, just as it was in the old days.
To reacquaint myself with the modern version of the Daisy Red Ryder, I ordered one and asked my grandson Josh to help me with the range test.
The Red Ryder air rifle looks as good as ever. It features a wooden stock and forearm with burnished forearm barrel band. The gun is a spring air, lever-cock design. All metal parts have a blue finish. The rear sight is a modified semi-buckhorn adjustable sight, and the front sight is a ramp sight. These are great sights for teaching new shooters the basics of sound marksmanship. The safety on the rifle is a cross-bolt-type trigger block safety conveniently located on the rear of the trigger housing. The magazine is a tube located just under the barrel and holds 650 .177 caliber BBs.
The rifle has an 18-inch smooth bore steel barrel with an overall length of 35.4 inches. The length of pull is 13½-inches. The rifle weighs a light 2.2 pounds, a good weight for young shooters.
Josh, his dad and I took the Red Ryder to my range, and you could see it was love at first sight with Josh. After getting him outfitted with shooting glasses, we gave him some safety instructions followed by familiarization with the Model 1938. Josh is not new to shooting so he was soon helping put up targets to test the gun’s accuracy. We posted targets at 15 yards. From a bench rest, Josh shot groups as tight as an inch. He was taken by the accuracy of the rifle and gave it a good workout.
This modern Red Ryder was the quality I had found with my rifle decades ago. The rifle shot well within its intended range and functioned flawlessly; if you remember, it is gravity fed and you must hold the muzzle up when cocking it to feed another BB into the chamber.
The Red Ryder sends a BB out the muzzle of the barrel at 350 feet-per-second and has a posted shooting distance of 195 yards. When I was a youngster, the Red Ryder was powerful enough to dispatch starlings that tried to get into my dad’s garden to steal seeds and peck fruit. The Red Ryder of today can do the same thing. It is no toy and commands the respect of following the 10 Basic Rules of BB Gun Safety.
The adventure and quality are still there, and I am sure that on Christmas morning this year there will be youngsters just happy to get theirs as I was to get mine so long ago.
With his final Shooting Savvy column, J. Wayne Fears heads into retirement, although plenty of tread remains on the tires.
There may very well never be another like J. Wayne Fears. With more than 50 years of outdoor writing experience and wisdom, Fears will retire this year, and with that, the long and illustrious run of Turkey Call’s Shooting Savvy column comes to an end.
Fears began writing for Turkey Call in 1976, his byline often appearing for more than a decade until editor Gene Smith selected him in 1989 to begin writing a shooting column. For more than three decades, Shooting Savvy brought hunting and shooting sports advice to NWTF members courtesy of Fears, a renowned marksman and incomparable writer.
“[J. Wayne] has won enough awards to build a cabin from plaques, and wallpaper it with certificates,” said Smith, NWTF’s editor of publications for more than two decades.
Smith recalled one of Fears’ early columns and photos, a story on shotgun patterning, which Fears used to describe how to easily replace a patterning board by repainting the sheetmetal board with white paint after each shot. It’s a practice still in use today among turkey hunters. Fears’ 1983 book Successful Turkey Hunting remains a mainstay among avid turkey hunters as well.
“Someone once said, ‘No man is an island,’ and in my case that is very true,” Fears said. “During my writing years at Turkey Call, I have received awards and much acclaim for my articles. But the real winners were the behind-the-scenes professionals who worked hard to make me look better than I am. The Turkey Call staff has given me the very best of their talents, and Shooting Savvy has shown it. I will miss you all.”
Fears is a former NWTF Tom Kelly Communicator of the Year award recipient as one of the leading outdoor media voices in the nation, a longtime proponent of safe and ethical hunting and the shooting sports. Of course, he’s not finished yet.
“There is not a rocking chair waiting for me, and I am glad of it,” Fears said. “While I have my health, there are still some things on my bucket list. The backcountry calls me to come back and take a look at more places few have ever seen. I have a book or two left in me that I would like to write, and most important, I have loved ones who I wish to devote my remaining time.”
The staff at Turkey Call and the NWTF would like to wish J. Wayne the very best in retirement and thank him for the worthwhile work he devoted himself to for several decades.