Toy Cap Guns

Toy Cap Guns for all the little Cowboys & Indians

Remember those summer days with scatterings of the blast of Cap Guns? We offer our selection of Toy Cap Guns at very reasonable prices.

Designed for kids, these replica cap guns make great theatrical props as well!

Choose from cap guns in the following categories: Western Rifle Cap Guns, Western Pistol Cap Guns, Frontiersman Rifles, Frontiersman Cap Shooting Pistols, Military & Hunting Cap Rifles, To really get into the make-believe aspects of toys guns, the following toy categories will be useful: Bow & Arrow Sets; Toy Cap Gun & Bow/Arrow Accessories. Be sure to check out our Cowboy Hats for that finishing touch!

A cap gun is a toy gun that creates a loud sound simulating a gunshot and a puff of smoke when the trigger is pulled. Cap guns were originally made of cast iron, but after World War II were made of zinc alloy, and most newer models are made of plastic. Parris cap guns have many models made of cast metal.

Cap guns get their name from the small discs of shock-sensitive explosive compounds that provide the noise and smoke, effectively the same as the separate percussion cap primers used in real firearms of the mid to late 1800s, although invariably smaller and made from cheap plastic or paper rather than soft metal. Some are arranged in plastic rings of eight or twelve. There are also single caps, roll caps (of 50 to 500), and disk caps, all of which are actually extremely small versions of percussion fireworks. Armstrong's mixture is often used today as the explosive, but previously the tiny powder charge was a simple mixture of potassium perchlorate, sulfur and antimony sulphide sandwiched between two paper layers which hold in the gases long enough to give a sound report when the cap is struck.

Cap guns became especially popular when the heroes of cinema and television rode through the West ridding the territories of villains. Many cap guns were named after or endorsed by leading matinee idols like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Hopalong Cassidy, The Lone Ranger, Tonto, Dale Evans, Marshal Matt Dillon, or any of countless others.

The "Golden Age" of cap guns was roughly a 20 year period following World War II when television became popular.

From the end of the war until about 1965, children all over the world emulated their heroes and collected and played with these toy guns.

Today, cap guns and other toy guns in the United States must be manufactured with a bright orange, red, or yellow tip placed over the "muzzle" of the cap gun, or with the entire gun made in these or other bright colors. Laws requiring these markings were made because of incidents where civilians - usually children or teenagers - were killed by police officers when the officers thought they saw real guns. While these incidents were rare, lawmakers decided that toy guns must be marked so they cannot be mistaken for real guns.[1] It is also possible to commit acts of robbery with a replica gun, since no shots need to be fired from a gun that looks passably real.