Bee Bee - Safety

Safety

Most commercial BB firing airguns guns can shoot beyond 200 ft/s (61 m/s). The Daisy Red Ryder was sold in the USA as a toy in the mid 20th century. A storyline of the film A Christmas Story is that Ralphie wants one of the BB guns for Christmas, but he is told "You'll shoot your eye out, kid!" The toy gun fires about 280 ft/s (85 m/s); typical adult airguns are generally in the 300-450 ft/s range.

Some commercial airguns (including BB and/or pellet guns) have the ability to fire considerably faster, even beyond 550 ft/s (170 m/s). Although claims are often exaggerated, a few airguns can actually fire a standard 0.177 lead pellet faster than 1000 ft/s (about 680 miles per hour), but these are generally not BB firing guns.

Airsoft guns are a subclass of BB guns, which are usually considerably lower energy and possess far less damage potential to humans and property (though they are subject to similar safety issues). Airsoft guns were developed for several reasons, one of which was to create a safer method of indoor target shooting. Most early Airsoft guns were single action (single pull of the slide, single shot) type that came with "sticky targets" where the plastic bb stuck to the target long enough to determine the accuracy of the shot, then slid down into a catch tray as later shots hit the target. This also facilitated easy reuse of the plastic bb's as they were originally not as easy to find. Airsoft guns were then quickly adopted into paintball type sports as they hurt less than a paintball, and don't make a mess. Airsoft guns are also available in far more shapes, sizes, and models than paintball. Proper safety gear including a full face mask are usually required when engaging in Airsoft shooting sports.

A pellet with a velocity of 150 ft/s (46 m/s) has skin piercing capability, and a velocity reaching 200 ft/s (61 m/s) can fracture bone. The potential can exist for delivering a fatal injury; this potential increases with velocity, but also rapidly decreases with distance. The effective penetrating range of a BB gun with a muzzle velocity of 400-600fps is +/- 60'/ 30mts . A person wearing jeans at this distance would not sustain any serious injury. However, even at this distance a BB still might penetrate bare skin, and even if not, could leave a severe and painful bruise. The maximum range of a BB gun in the 400-600fps range is 240-350 yards given the muzzle is elevated to the optimum angle.

As a note, steel BBs are also very prone to ricochet, especially off hard surfaces such as brick, concrete or trees. Eye protection is essential when shooting BBs, more so than when shooting lead pellets, since a BB bouncing off a hard surface can retain a very large portion of its initial energy (pellets usually flatten and absorb energy), and could easily cause serious eye damage up to and including blindness.

As with rocks, bricks, keys and other items, vandals have sometimes misused BB guns for the wrongful damage of property. The pellets can break windows, or leave distinctive round damage.

The major manufacturers are Crosman and Daisy which are known for their quality. Most pellet gun manufacturing companies have a wide variety although some aren't as popular. Even though people use these pellet guns to play games and sports, it is still dangerous and may cause permanent or serious injuries, including death.