Vintage Benjamin CO2 pistol

[rule303]

I was just going through my safe and thought I would post this up. I inherited it from my grandfather when he passed away about 15 years ago. It's a Benjamin Franklin model 250 single shot smoothbore .177 co2 pistol. I shot this with Gramps a few times as a kid after I graduated from the Daisy lever bb gun. This one takes 8 gram CO2 cartridges which aren't exactly easy to come by these days, but can be ordered online. It is surprisingly accurate for a smoothbore.
I get a laugh out of the bell target pictured next to the gun. It has a bell mounted on the back of a metal plate with a 1" square cut out of the middle. You were supposed to buy the matching paper targets and if you got a bullseye it would go through the hole and ring the bell. Unfortunately if you hit the target anywhere else you hit a flat steel plate and your pellet ricochets off to God knows where. Like the box says "More fun shooting indoors or out" lol. It was probably sold in the same department as the lawn darts.

 

[cobalt327]

That's a great bit of Americana you have there. I'd say the recommended ammo would definitely be pellets for that steel target- for BBs you'd need a flak jacket!

 

[jmorris]

Ah, don’t knock your Grandfather, he may have shot the thing so much to know not to shoot BB’s at the pellet target.

Don’t ask me why or how but I still have the one from when I was a boy and a few targets. You need to be well inside an inch to “ring the bell”, though.

Your pellet “splats” and that’s about it. There wasn’t much drama back then though, things were, what they were.




I noticed you have some of the darts too.

I make them out of old shoelace ends and straight pins but I don’t think they would hold up for CO2, work good with just a couple pumps though.