From Russ Chastain,
Your Guide to Hunting / Shooting.
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Once upon a time, there was a young boy, and that young boy went on a trip with his family to visit an aunt and uncle and two cousins. When the boy returned home, he proudly brought with him a battered Daisy air rifle (model number now long forgotten).

That Daisy, with an ingenious new loading gate built by the boy's Wonderful Father, and the stock splinted by same, was a constant companion for the boy on his daily treks into the wilds of the big, oak-shaded yard and beyond. It annihilated many an aluminum can, buried BBs in every tree the boy could find, punched paper targets when more animated targets were scarce, and missed many a tweety bird. He shot a few pellets from time to time, but they were expensive and required single-shot loading - and the boy was always cheap, and he always liked repeaters.

The boy was trusted with the airgun for several reasons. First of all, he had been taught gun safety at an early age, and most effectively had been allowed to handle and shoot his father's "real" guns under close supervision, thus proving to him the power of guns and removing the shroud of mystery from them. Secondly, he had promised Dad not to point it at anyone or use it destructively - and a broken promise of that magnitude carried with it the very real reciprocal promise of a warm backside and confiscation of the Daisy (in that order - his Dad had made that clear).

After a long life of hard use, the Daisy finally gave out. It would no longer pump up, and no amount of heavy oiling could coax the worn seals back to life. The boy didn't like this a bit - the Daisy had some heft, felt like a man's gun, and he would miss it - but he did have to accept it. So he stowed the Daisy in the closet for a time.

A few years later, the boy went scalloping with his family and another aunt and uncle. This uncle was kind enough to provide the boy with a Crosman BB gun, in prime condition. Yeehaw, the boy was back in the airgun business!

Upon receiving strict orders from his Dad not to take it apart (the boy loved to tinker and see how things worked), he immediately retreated to his room and did just that. Lo and behold, he could get it back together, but it didn't work quite right. After a day or so of the boy's heartbroken moping and not using the gun, his Dad inquired and discovered what the boy had done. So Dad properly reassembled the gun through quite a lot of time, effort, and uncouth language, and the boy was happy again. He left it intact this time!

Until it, too, gave out. It seemed like he had barely warmed it up. Sure, there were the birds shot and eaten, the overhead telephone line shot dead-center (which bore a brand new patch the next day, and about which the boy kept his mouth shut), the transformer on the power pole out front (which bounced BBs beautifully), the homemade darts shot with little or no accuracy... but those seemed so few!

A post-mortem dis- and reassembly proved that the boy had learned to put stuff back together, but that still didn't make the gun work. An attempted Frankenstein-esque resurrection of the Daisy using another one (which the boy talked a friend out of) proved fruitless, though it did reinforce the boy's love for guns, tinkering with guns, and trying to make broken things work again.

The boy hung it up - after all, he was a big-game hunter now, and hunted deer with the menfolk. He satisfied himself with shooting at the clay pit, or going to the range with his Dad during the off-season. He toted a 44 magnum carbine in the deer woods, and a LeFever Nitro Special 410 double for small game. Who needed BB guns, anyhow?

Well, the boy graduated high school and got himself a job (that's how life used to work, remember?). He received a wonderful gift from his Dad, a 45-caliber muzzleloader with all the trinkets. But what did the boy go and buy with a chunk of his second or third paycheck? A BB gun - a Crosman 760 Pumpmaster. He couldn't escape the pull of airguns, that can-clobbering pleasure which they alone can deliver.

That's been a lot of years ago - a little over fourteen to be exact. This year, that Crosman died. Yes, the boy had had it apart before (had to see how it worked!), and he took it apart again to look for problems. Again, it was fruitless. The 760 remains as remains in the boy's shop even now.

Today, the boy returned to his roots with a $30 Daisy Power Line 856. This one sports a Truglo fiber optic front sight and an elevation- and windage-adjustable rear sight. It will be used primarily to discourage stray cats from trespassing, on the strength of a pump or two applied against their backsides. It has already been zeroed and used to riddle an aluminum can.

The boy has also now learned that Daisy Manufacturing Company has defined the "maximum shooting distance" of the Power Line 856 as 286 yards with a BB. And to think, he always considered the much more potent 44 magnum to be a hundred-yard cartridge.

- Russ Chastain