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The Parris Manufacturing Company of Savannah, Tennessee is an American company that primarily manufactures toy guns. [1]
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The Parris Manufacturing Company of Savannah, Tennessee is an American company that primarily manufactures toy guns. [1]
Iowa inventor William G. Dunn (1883–1968) originally owned a hardware business in Clarinda, Iowa. With the start of World War I, Dunn created the Dunn Counterbalance Company that operated out of the hardware store until he built a factory in Clarinda and renamed his company the Dunn Manufacturing Company. [2] Dunn was responsible for 48 patents, 7 to do with wind power. [3] The Dunn Manufacturing Company also built a 3-seat Cruzeaire Monoplane in 1928. [4]
In 1936 Dunn teamed up with Cecil Lewis "Catfish" Parris, a marketing specialist, to form the Parris-Dunn company. The company was formed with Parris as President and Dunn as Vice President to sell a wind driven generator [5] for farms to recharge electrical items. The Dunn Governing Principle was able to use a controllable propeller speed with fewer moving parts than other wind generators. [3] The idea was successful with over 37,000 units created the next year that were sold throughout the USA and foreign countries. [6] Philco Electronics contracted with Parris-Dunn to put their well known name on their "Skychargers" and marketed the items to their customers. [7]
With surplus American arms sent to England and other countries prior to America's involvement in World War II, the American military suffered a severe shortage of rifles. As the U.S. Government decided that wind generators were not a priority item, Parris-Dunn could only manufacture spare parts for the ones in use. When the company sought some war work the government recommended making dummy training rifles with wood and metal that copied the M1903 Springfield. [8]
Impressed by the rifles made for the US Army, the US Navy contacted Parris-Dunn in June 1942 to order their own rifles that they insisted have bayonet studs, adjustable rear sights, and working triggers with a clicker mechanism; the weapon becoming the USN MK 1 Dummy Training Rifle. [9] The Navy ordered 190,000 for their first order. A plastic copy of the M1905 bayonet and scabbard was manufactured by the Pro-Phy-Lac-Tic Brush Company who usually manufactured toothbrushes. With walnut in high demand for real rifles, Parris-Dunn used cheaper wood further reducing the cost of the rifles.
Over 500,000 rifles were produced with Parris-Dunn being awarded the Army-Navy ‘E’ Award.
With the end of the war, the training rifles were sold as surplus. From 1943, Parris had approached the company's chief engineer, Maurice Greiman with the idea of Parris-Dunn manufacturing toy weapon popguns of a Western style that shot corks for the use of children and traveling carnivals. [10] [11] Parris had Cowboy models called Cowboy Pla Guns, Trainerifles, and Shootrite guns in larger sizes for adults to practice cork gun marksmanship indoors. [12]
Dunn retired in 1949 with Parris moving the company to Savannah, Tennessee where it remains. [6] During the Civil War Centennial the company manufactured replica cork shooting Civil War muskets and pistols.
The company manufactured full size replicas of the M1903 Springfield and smaller sized models for children that featured a working bolt with a dummy bullet, leather sling, the clicker action, and a smaller rubber bayonet similar to the M1 bayonet.
In the 1960s Parris used the cork gun design to make several types of BB guns. [13]
So much of the mail to the Parris Manufacturing Company was missent to Savannah, Georgia that Cecil Parris visited the local post office and had the postmaster add "Catfish Capital of the World" to the postmark. [14]
In 1953 Parris started the idea of Kadet Military Drill Teams that communities could form. Purchasers of Kadet toy weapons would receive a free comic book drawn by Kurt Schaffenberger for Customs Comics Inc. telling the story of an imaginary boy named Bob Duncan who became a Kadet and advanced to the rank of captain. The comic book featured instructions how to do the American manual of arms and offered the full range of Kadet Trainer Rifles, cork firing weapons, rank insignia, and dress and fatigue uniforms for both girls and boys featuring a white riding helmet. The brochure also featured a Kadet Officer's Training School located on a 200-acre (0.81 km2) farm in Savannah and a Kadet song. From 1953 to around 1970 when the programme ended, the Kadets had over 16,000 members. [15]
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The Krag–Jørgensen is a repeating bolt-action rifle designed by the Norwegians Ole Herman Johannes Krag and Erik Jørgensen in the late 19th century. It was adopted as a standard arm by Norway, Denmark, and the United States. About 300 were delivered to Boer forces of the South African Republic.
The Lee–Enfield is a bolt-action, magazine-fed repeating rifle that served as the main firearm of the military forces of the British Empire and Commonwealth during the first half of the 20th century, and was the standard service rifle of the British Armed Forces from its official adoption in 1895 until 1957.
Toy guns are toys which imitate real guns, but are designed for recreational sport or casual play by children. From hand-carved wooden replicas to factory-produced pop guns and cap guns, toy guns come in all sizes, prices and materials such as wood, metal, plastic or any combination thereof. Many newer toy guns are brightly colored and oddly shaped to prevent them from being mistaken for real firearms.
The M14 rifle, officially the United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M14, is an American select fire battle rifle chambered for the 7.62×51mm NATO cartridge. It became the standard-issue rifle for the U.S. military in 1957, replacing the M1 Garand rifle in service with the U.S. Army by 1958 and the U.S. Marine Corps by 1965; deliveries of service rifles to the U.S. Army began in 1959. The M14 was used by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps for Basic and Advanced Individual Training from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s.
The M1903 Springfield, officially the U. S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M1903, is an American five-round magazine-fed, bolt-action service repeating rifle, used primarily during the first half of the 20th century.
The .30-06 Springfield cartridge, 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use until the late 1970s. In the cartridge's name, ".30" refers to the nominal caliber of the bullet in inches; "06" refers to the year the cartridge was adopted, 1906. It replaced the .30-03 Springfield, 6mm Lee Navy, and .30-40 Krag cartridges. The .30-06 remained the U.S. Army's primary rifle and machine gun cartridge for nearly 50 years before being replaced by the 7.62×51mm NATO and 5.56×45mm NATO, both of which remain in current U.S. and NATO service. The cartridge remains a very popular sporting round, with ammunition produced by all major manufacturers.
The Type 56 is a Chinese 7.62×39mm automatic rifle, a licensed derivative of the Soviet-designed AK-47.
The Type 81 is a Chinese-designed selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle based on Kalashnikov and SKS actions adopted by the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and has been in service since the mid-1980s. It was designed as a replacement to both the Type 56 assault rifle, as well as the Type 63 assault rifle, mostly being a further development and design improvement over the Type 63. Later, the Type 81 would be used under the designation Type 87 as testing for the PLA's new 5.8x42mm firearms, namely the QBZ-95.
The M1917 Enfield, the "American Enfield", formally named "United States Rifle, cal .30, Model of 1917" is an American modification and production of the .303-inch Pattern 1914 Enfield (P14) rifle, which was developed and manufactured during the period 1917–1918. Numerically, it was the main rifle used by the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War I. The Danish Sirius Dog Sled Patrol on Greenland still use the M1917, which performs reliably in Arctic conditions, as their service weapon.
The origins of the modern British military rifle are within its predecessor the Brown Bess musket. While a musket was largely inaccurate over 100 yards (91 m), due to a lack of rifling and a generous tolerance to allow for muzzle-loading, it was cheap to produce and could be loaded quickly. The use of volley or mass firing by troops meant that the rate of fire took precedence over accuracy.
The M1941 Johnson Rifle is an American short-recoil operated semi-automatic rifle designed by Melvin Johnson prior to World War II. The M1941 unsuccessfully competed with the contemporary M1 Garand rifle but was used in limited numbers by the US Marines during the Second World War.
Maco Toys, Inc., was the name of a popular toy company based in Brooklyn, New York which produced war-themed toys for children in the 1950s and 1960s. Their toys were sold in a catalog that was illustrated by Tony Tallarico and printed by Charlton Comics which presented itself as a war comic book. Products included plastic guns, grenades, and a plastic Molotov cocktail.
The Mondragón rifle refers to one of two rifle designs developed by Mexican artillery officer General Manuel Mondragón. These designs include the straight-pull bolt-action M1893 and M1894 rifles, and Mexico's first self-loading rifle, the M1908 - the first of the designs to see combat use.
The AR-M1 is a Bulgarian assault rifle designed primarily for export. It is a modernized Bulgarian derivative of the AKK, which itself is based on the Soviet AK-47. The AR-M1 can be chambered for both the 5.56×45mm NATO and 7.62×39mm cartridges.
The Mauser Model 1893 is a bolt-action rifle commonly referred to as the Spanish Mauser, though the model was adopted by other countries in other calibers, most notably the Ottoman Empire. The M1893 was based on the experimental M1892 rifle, which Paul Mauser developed for the Spanish Army as part of a program to correct deficiencies in the earlier 1889, 1890, and 1891 series of Mauser rifles. The M1893 introduced a short staggered-column box magazine that fit flush with the bottom of the stock; the magazine held five smokeless 7×57mm Mauser rounds, which could be reloaded quickly by pushing a stripper clip from the top of the open bolt.
The 3-inch gun M1903 and its predecessors the M1898 and M1902 were rapid fire breech-loading artillery guns with a 360-degree traverse. In some references they are called "15-pounders" due to their projectile weight. They were originally emplaced from 1899 to 1917 and served until shortly after World War II. These 3-inch guns were placed to provide fire to protect underwater mines and nets against minesweepers, and also to protect against motor torpedo boats. In some documentation they are called "mine defense guns". The 3-inch guns were mounted on pedestal mounts that bolted into a concrete emplacement that provided cover and safety for the gun's crew.
Griffin & Howe, Inc. is an American firearms manufacturer headquartered in Andover, New Jersey. Founded in 1923 by Seymour Robert Griffin, a New York City cabinetmaker, and James Virgil Howe, foreman of the machine shop at the Frankford Arsenal in Pennsylvania.