I got one for Christmas 1961. It lasted for about a month. In July 1975 I was issued a full size working one (wooden butt, polymer pistol grip and hand guard). Lived with her for a year and we took care of each other until completed my National Service in the South African Army. The remainder of my Citizen Force service (similar to UK Territorial Army) We carried the R1 (licensed version of the FAL) and the R4 (licensed version of the Galil). Retired 2014.
Awww I had one of these, but in all black. My brother and I were constantly dressed in our combat uniform with buckle up sandals carrying our slr, keeping my villlage safe lol. Great days. Led to 25 years military service. Memories
I had several of these over the years, then Her Majesty gave me a real one to play with. God bless you Ma'am. Today however I'm betting my lad upstairs could knock out spares for that, if not replicate the whole thing, on his 3d printer.
I had two of these in the 1970s the all black ones, I have never seen this type before with wood colour. Great fun shooting toy soldiers and my older sister when she was not looking🤣
I also had the black one in the 70s but the bendy bayonet and the powerless bullets that got lost so quickly meant it wasn’t used with the bullets or bayonet very often.
Wow, this brings me back. I remember getting the all black Tommy Gun for my birthday from my parents and a few hours later I got the black SLR (we called them FN's) from my aunt, to a 6 year old in 1974 it was like I'd hit the woolie's jackpot. I had the steel cap gun SLR a few years later 20-30 kids, cowboys, indians, pirates and soldiers, armed with everything from a plastic sword to a sparking space gun. That was 40 years ago. Great craic and great memories, thank you.
I had one of these for Christmas, and it was fantastic for shooting down balloons from the ceiling. The small plastic bullets were partly hollow, so with the help of a penny, a apiece of plasticine, I could force my mums sewing needles through the hollow back of the plastic bullets until the sharp end of the needle pushed through the point of the bullet.When carefully loaded I could fire and hit a balloon ,bursting them eight times from ten.Not bad for a Six year old,not good in school though!
I used to knock around with a lad, whose dad used to be a toy company rep. Anyway he used to supply all the local kids with these and the Tommy Gun they did at a knock down rate. Great fun, but the bloody barrels kept snapping off!
I remember two brothers in my street had the black ones..their mam took the bullets off them in case of injury. Honestly id of thought they were full size from memory.....but very nice to see😊😊😊😊, i always thought i had imagined the metal one, i do remember that too, another kid had one not me unfortunately 😊
The size catches a lot of people,dont forget as kids we were smaller.....I saw a raleigh chopper bike the other day and was amazed at how small it was....I had one yonks ago and it seemed bigger!!
@@historicmilitaria1944 yes agreed CJ, that will be the reason. I wish I had all the toys I had as a kid, gave them all away, Britain's soldiers, dinky battle of britain set, knackered like!, space 1999 lander ,,moonraker shuttle, UFO interceptor, hornby train set, scalextric, action man, numerous early battery video games, etc etc etc....typing all that out seems like I had a spoilt childhood, but that was the 70s and 80s for kids I suppose
I had the black FN rifle, 2 in fact as the barrel on the first snapped where it met the front grip/shroud. A lot of kids at school had the same problem as well. I also had the Thompson sub machine gun. They were my favorite toys along with my Corgi gold Aston Martin DB5 Goldfinger car. I had most of the popular 1960s toys, it was a great time for kids. When I was an air cadet in the 1970s I qualified as a marksman with a Lee Enfield MKIV stamped WD 1944 as at the time they wouldn't let us use the FN rifles because of the full auto function.
@@gunner678 Yes, I remember now, but they still didn't trust us with them firing more than one round at a time. Mind you they told us to tell them if we fired high over the range wall as there was a village about a mile away. Emphasis on health and safety at the time.
The long barrel always seemed to be the first to suffer in hard play, turning this toy into an 'SLR shorty'! LOL ...I also remember the trigger pull being a bit of a beast. Always a bit of a pity that they never did a M16 or an AK47 or - best of all - a Sterling SMG!!! Good times!
@@historicmilitaria1944That’s right, my friend had one, everyone wanted a shot of it. The body was quite a pale brown colour but it looked cool with its strap
OMG, after peading with my parents, and depsite being above their budget, I got one of these for my birthday or for Christmas! I was overjoyed...until my dad, whilst showing off his rifle drill snapped the barrel off! Devastated!
Wow that really brought back fab childhood memories .I had one in the mid 60s. . What a fantastic toy and so realistic. Went on to use a real one a few years later with the TAVR and RAF .
My friend had one of these, always seemed very delicate. I had (can't quite remember the manufacturer) an M16 and a Thompson submachine gun which made a noise when the trigger was pulled. Came in a light green plastic witha sandy brown camouflage pattern
I had one of these in the '60s (all black version) and mine too broke where the barrel joins the front grip, very weak spot. Still, I had great fun with it and the lack of barrel didn't stop me playing with it. You say it's one-third scale. Are you sure? That seems very small, I'd have guessed half-scale at least. Shows how times have changed, I can't imagine this being on sale to children today! You don't even see spud guns, cap guns or water pistols on sale today.
Never had it, but always wanted it. I had the Thompson SMG from a jumble sale that had a broken trigger and was still my favourite toy gun at the time. One of my friends had the Lone Star cap firing SLR which had a hollow softer plastic magazine which was great to store a spare roll of paper caps in. It didnt have a bayonet, but its metal barrel made it last a lot longer... Thanks for the memories!
I had one with the black furniture, and the barrel was the first thing to get broken. I'd forgotten that it was actually airfix. It's funny to see how small it is, I remember it as full-size, probably because it was to child sized me.😅 I trained on the real thing in the reserves in my late teens, and another reason why my memory is playing tricks on me as to how big the toy one was.
That CLACK/CLANG noise of the trigger pull sent me back to the 70s in a flash... I had the black one on the card backing. Also had a Johnny 7 multi-purpose machine gun years before 😊
I had the one with the wooden effect furniture. Mr Newton, the estate agent who sold my parents our house, gave it to me, still in its original box, because his son never played with it.
I had the Thompson Sub machine gun with a drum ammunition cartridge which actually performed the task of sound amplification when you pulled the trigger lots. Our neighbour had a a bolt action 303 that fired single bullets, I was very jealous and we ended up with the black slr that’s mentioned in the video. Isn’t nostalgia alive a kicking in a dismal and bleak woked world.
Happy memories I had the black one best toy I ever had many a day playing war with my pals or watching old black and white war films on the telly taking out German soldiers with the little plastic bullets😊
I’m another one who had one of these in the early 1970s as a child along with my twin brother - great fun - black painted furniture on the ones we had - worked for a large British retailer in early 1980s for a very short while and I distinctly remember we stocked a version of FN SLR updated version of Airfix made in metal only a small supply of them though we held in stock and sold no more than 10 . Around 1984 perhaps someone somewhere knows who made them.
Thanks for the video. Mine was the black version and yes, mine snapped at the place you mentioned not too long after getting it, as I recall. I think some tape was put round it as an attempt at fixing, but I remember it disappearing not long after.
Got one of these for Xmas and pretty sure it lasted till the Summer with me and my brother playing with it. Eventually did break and was binned. Wish I'd kept the plastic bullets as someone would have been glad of them nowadays.
Holy crap I would've loved that. My brother and I got bolt action rifles for one Christmas, they looked like Kar German rifles, I remember using one of my folks empty cigarette packets to look like a Lee Enfield magazine lol. When you worked the bolt a plastic round was ejected, I had a real brass cartridge case I would put in it so I could eject a "spent" shell.
We had a great toy shop in Sheffield called red gates. Many dress up sets, guns etc came from there. The plastic tin helmet looked much like one I had with a camo suit
I had one back in the early 70s(?) Absolutely my favourite toy gun out of the many, many, many toy guns that passed through my hands. Briefly carried a real one while failing to pass basic training in 1984.
Brings back memories. I was given a £1 for a birthday and bought one while staying at my Grannies. Lent it somebody he broke it I being young and mardy went off on one, and demanded money. Later his BIG brother came handed me a pound and told me to never go down to that estate again. Did not buy another with the money as this spoilt the pleasure. I wanted the Lee Enfield one more but never got it. Managed thought to handle a real Lee Enfield at the time and a German Mauser a mate's father had in the loft and not knowing my rifle calibres took along a spent NATO round and we got it jammed in the mauser not sure why but we spent quite a while trying to get it back out. I was banned from touching it again by my mate. Also had the fright of my life as a 7 year old from an FLN when a guy in a jeep who had one on his dashboard pulled up at the neighbours I got my toy gun and pretended to shoot him he got is FLN out pointed it at me and went bang at me I never ran so fast. Thanks for the memories.
Had the black one also plus the plastic helmet with netting (was never sure what was the front and what was the back when wearing it). I can remember the barrel on mine was broken at the point you highlighted but cause of my misfortune was me running through a doorway holding the rifle horizontally (rifle wider than the doorway. D'oh!) - traumatic event but my boyish mind soon got over it and thereafter, it became a nifty SMG! 😄
I had one, all black in colour. The barrel did indeed snap where it joins the stock. My older brother fixed it by gluing a piece of dowel inside the barrel. It no longer fired but I'd lost the bullets anyway.
I had one of these, and guess what? Yes, it broke just in front of the gas plug! I replaced it with a metal and plastic version that had a metal barrel and receiver with plastic for grip, pistol grip and butt. It did eventually get broken, as the plastic parts were still brittle, but it lasted an awful lot longer than The Airfix one. I had the Thompson submachine gun too and it lasted much better, but the longest lasting of all was an almost entirely plastic bolt action rifle. It had some metal parts in the bolt and cap firing mechanism. It wasn’t modern, but it was the best!
Good grief, I can remember having the Black version. I can also receiving a lecture from my next door neighbour as to why it was a British SLF and not, definitely not, an FN. The I joined the Army, got a real one, and, yes, he was right.
Had great fun with these as a kid. The black version vs my mates Tommy gun in the corridor of our flats ! Probably get an armed response unit called out these days.
Excellent. I am lucky enough to be able to restore these toys back to their original condition. This requires the use of epoxy Fish Tank Cement, Superglue, Milliput, Plasticard, Filler and a heck of a lot of skill and patience. A full restoration takes upwards of 3 months. I do this for my own enjoyment only. I have never allowed myself to spend more than £150.00 per battered toy, and I have only ever found one "New" condition carded example at a price I could afford. Why do I do this? Just for the Hell of it. Who doesn't want to be 6 years old again, for a while at least.
@historicmilitaria1944 I may be miss remembering, but I think I remember my Dad pointing out mine was made in Israel on the cardboard backing sleeve, I think the Israelis and Arabs were having another one of their spats at the time , which is probably why He mentioned it 🤔
@historicmilitaria1944 Yeah, I was intrigued enough to just have a google check myself. It's amazing what sticks in the mind of a seven year old kid fifty years later ! Lol😆👍
Hilariously (it was the 1970’s…) my Father returned from a month long Army deployment with one of these for me (male) and a toy carpet-sweeper for my sister…
Airfix released a metal version in the late seventies and it was cap firing . I had both the had the real L1A1 SLR when I joined the army . In eighty three .
Me and my brother had three of these over as many years we also had a Thomson Mechine gun. Little did i realize that years later i would be using the real thing in the British Army.lol!
Wow, from my childhood, but I can't remember seeing one, or knowing anyone who had one. The toy gun everyone wanted was the "Johnny 7 OMA" sadly, I never had one of them either.
There was also a plastic model of the lee Enfield 303 which came with five plastic 303 rounds that could be loaded into the magazine and would load into the breach and eject when the bolt was operated and the bolt would snap off after a week or two .
Mine broke. The barrel. Oh well. I still have photos on my photo album of my first live armed guard during 1989. With my SLR in its rack. A wooden furniture 1950s issued rifle still going strong even then.
My Mum & Dad bought me one of these on a day out to blackpool back in the mid 70's. Mine was all black and i accidentally shot one of my mums plates off a welsh dresser which broke into several pieces when it hit the floor 😅
The only one that comes to mind is the company l and s scale models,a Japanese firm who sold plastic kits of pistols and machine guns back in the 1970s and 1980s.
mine was all black, got it from Woolworths for 10' (50p) bob I think and it came with a bendy bayonet that got lost quickly, the bullets were silver and the carry handle snapped off, I fitted a carry strap made from an army surplus haversack, in the 1960s they were stocked floor to ceiling with brand new unused gear as the 1970s came along the new stuff was harder to get worn but mended gear replaced it, I bought a brand new lined M65 parka for £10 they are now £350+ if you can find one,
I never saw these, despite being a big fan of Airfix. The detail is pretty awesome. The extra 1/2 penny it would have taken to reinforce that barrel must have been a profit killer. In New Zealand you were pretty flash if you had the 1/3 scale Lincoln Toys Lee-Enfield SMLE .303, complete with pot-metal bolt. We all coveted this as lads in the 1960’s. Even trying to re-launch such a thing these days would cause protests and cancellation, but I suppose we were a bit less confused as boys back then, we wanted guns and that was that! I’d like both for on the wall these days, having had a few of the real thing, with the odd Mauser and Garand thrown in. 👍🏻 EDIT: Just tried to access Batallion Toys Australia site but it looks like the e-Safety Karen might have restricted access to these dangerous items. They were doing an SLR, Owen gun, and a lumpy looking Lee Enfield, but this was 2021 so they may be out of business . The SLR was about AU$38.
Ive got a toy FN FAL from when I was a kid in the 1970's The wood and magazine is plastic but the action and barrel is metal. It even goes bang via rolls of caps. No its not for sale.
