BB Guns at Compasseco! Tech Force BB Guns.

Tech Force® 97 Air Rifle - $99.95 The best "bang for your buck!" With the accuracy of C-T-C 0.15, it is equivalent to, if not better than, any European made bb gun or air gun. Great for either the experienced or novice shooter. More Info Call Toll Free 800.726.1696 if you have additional questions, our knowledgeable staff is standing by between M-F 9am - 5pm EST or email at staff@compasseco.com .

Looking for BB Guns? If you are shopping for the best BB Guns or BB Rifles, you've landed at the right place! Choose from hundreds of BB Guns, BB Rifles, BB s and Guns for sale. Our BB Gun selection includes bb guns for all skill levels, start shopping by selecting the bb gun type you want from left navigation, click on the brand you want and compare the savings! Find your bb guns, pellet guns and bb accessories for the best price and highest quality available online through Compasseco.

Compasseco offers additional information on BB Guns, BB Gun Accessories and Pellet Guns such as featured articles and air gun reviews and on our blog postings.

See our featured BB Guns, BB Rifles and BB Air Gun Accessories below. These BB Guns are the most requested and top selling BB Guns at Compasseco. Also see our most requested BB Gun and BB Rifle brands:

Crossman BB Guns
Daisy BB Guns
Gamo BB Guns
Crosman BB Guns
CO2 BB Guns
Air BB Guns
Pellet BB Guns
RWS BB Guns
Gamo BB Guns
Beeman BB Guns
Walther BB Guns


BB Guns: BB Gun Information Products and Insights

BB Guns: BB Gun products can be found here at Compasseco.com. You can start your search at http://www.compasseco.com// by gun type and brand, price or by a product search. Below is some BB Gun resource information, sourced mainly form Wikipedia.com and feature products with detailed descriptions are listed at the bottom of the page.

BB Gun Information
What is a BB Gun and what is the difference between BB Guns and Air Guns?

BB Gun Definition: According to the bb gun definition posted in Wikipedia,com, BB guns are a type of air gun designed to fire usually spherical projectiles, called BBs, named after the Birdshot pellet of approximately the same size.

If you are new to BB Guns, these links offer great airgun tips and additional information about all types of bb guns. Also see Air Gun Articles. and the descriptions below.

Background on BB Guns
Some bb's can be pointy, and the typical use is for bird hunting. Today BB guns usually have a smoothbore barrel, with a bore diameter and caliber of 0.177 inches (4.5 mm). BBs made for today's bb guns are usually steel, plated to resist corrosion, either with zinc or copper with the diameter measuring 0.171 to 0.173 inches (4.34 mm to 4.39 mm). There are some manufacturers that also still make lead BBs of slightly larger diameter and which are generally intended for use in rifled bb gun barrels, as were formerly used in bb guns. Some Asian companies make plastic BBs for recreation.

Airsoft (or air soft) guns are also commonly referred to as BB guns or pellet guns by consumers, as they also shoot spherical projectiles through a smoothbore barrel. An interesting piece of information is airsoft "BBs" are 6 mm in diameter (0.24 inches), made either of plastic or other non-metallic materials, and are designed specifically to be non-lethal.

BB Guns & Safety
For the most part, BB guns are very low powered so they tend to only be suitable for plinking or target shooting - they are capable, in rare cases, of seriously injuring or killing humans and animals. Steel BBs are also very prone to ricochet, especially off hard surfaces such as brick or concrete. Eye protection is essential when shooting BBs, more so than when shooting lead pellets, since a bouncing BB retains a very large portion of its initial energy, and could easily cause serious eye damage up to and including blindness.

BB Gun History
While it is often stated that "BB" stands for "ball bearing", this is not the case. The original BB guns used the BB sized lead shotgun shot, midway between B and BBB size. BB shot was nominally 0.180 inches (4.57 mm), but tended to vary considerably in size due to the high allowable tolerances for shotgun shell use. Around 1900, Daisy, one of the earliest makers of BB guns, changed their BB gun bore diameter to .175 inches (4.45 mm), and began to market precision-made lead shot specifically for their BB guns. They called this "air rifle shot", but the "BB" name was already well established, and everyone continued calling the guns "BB guns" and the shot "BB shot" or just "BBs".

In the 1920s, Daisy began to receive reports of BB gun users salvaging scrap steel ball bearings for use in their guns; a number of guns came in for repair with split barrels, from oversized steel balls being forced down the barrel. The bearing manufacturer, American Ball Company, quickly seized on this as a marketing opportunity, and started to market 0.171 to 0.173 inch diameter steel air rifle shot specifically for BB guns with a bore diameter and caliber of 0.177 inches. This quickly led to an exclusive marketing agreement with Daisy, as precision ground steel BBs were cheaper to make than precision lead BBs. The lighter steel BBs also provided higher velocities than lead BBs, which made new BB guns shoot flatter and more accurately at the short ranges where they were effective. By 1939, Daisy had acquired American Ball Company, which it used to produce its own steel BBs. Since Daisy was the dominant player in the BB gun market, other makers followed suit, matching Daisy's bore diameter and switching to steel BBs in 0.177 caliber (4.5 mm) measuring 0.171 to 0.173 inches in diameter.

Operation of BB Guns
BB guns can use any of the operating mechanisms used for air guns; see the powerplant technology section of the air gun article. However, due to the limited accuracy and range inherent in the BB gun, only the simpler and less expensive mechanisms are generally used.

Since nearly all BBs used today are steel, it is common to find BB guns that use magnets in their loading mechanisms. Since the BB is too hard to be swaged to the bore size, magnets are often used to hold the BB at the rear of the barrel--otherwise, the BB would simply roll out of the barrel if it were held at a downward angle.

The traditional, and still most common powerplant for BB guns is the spring piston type, usually patterned after a lever action rifle or a pump action shotgun. The lever action rifle was the first type of BB gun, and still dominates the inexpensive youth BB gun market. The Daisy Model 25 BB gun, modeled after a pump action shotgun with a trombone pump action mechanism, dominated the low price, higher performance market for over 50 years. Lever action models generally have very low velocities, around 275 ft/s, a result of the weak springs used to keep cocking efforts low for use by youths. The Daisy Model 25 BB gun typically achieved the highest velocities of its day, ranging from 375 ft/s to 450 ft/s. Lever action guns often have huge ammunition capacities; one of Daisy's early lever action models held 1000 BBs, in contrast to the Daisy Model 25 which held only 50 BBs. The ammunition in the lever action BB guns is gravity fed, such that the gun must be held at the proper angle when cocked to load the ammunition. The ammunition in the Daisy Model 25, on the other hand, is spring loaded, and no shift in gun angle is required to reload another BB.

Multi-pump pneumatic guns are also common--many youth oriented pneumatic pellet guns provide the ability to use BBs as a cheaper alternative to lead shot. These guns have rifled barrels, but the hard, slightly undersized BBs don't swage or obturate to fit the barrel, so the rifling may not impart a significant spin. These are the type of guns that will benefit most from using precision lead BB shot. The pneumatic BB gun attains much higher velocities than the traditional spring piston types. One interesting use of a pneumatic BB gun is in the calibration of ballistic gelatin, which is done by measuring the penetration of a steel BB at a velocity of about 600 ft/s (180 m/s).

The last common type of power for BB guns is pre-compressed gas, most commonly the 12 gram CO2 powerlet. The powerlet, invented by Crosman, is a disposable bottle containing 12 grams of liquid carbon dioxide, which evaporates to form a gas to propel the BB. These are primarily used in pistol BB guns, and unlike spring-piston or pneumatic types, these are capable of rapid fire. A typical CO2 BB pistol uses a spring-loaded magazine to feed BBs, and a double action trigger mechanism to chamber a BB and cock the hammer. The hammer strikes a valve hooked to the CO2 source, which releases a measured amount of CO2 gas to fire the BB. Velocities of CO2 powered BB pistols are moderate, and drop off as the temperature in the CO2 source drops, due to changes in the vapor pressure. Many CO2 BB guns are patterned after popular firearms, and can be used for training as well as recreation.

BB Guns - Ammunition
In addition to the traditional steel or lead balls, there are a number of types of specialty ammunition that can be used. In appropriate types of BB guns, general breech loading models with tip-up barrels.

Airgun pellets of the correct diameter, .177 caliber, (4.5 mm), can be loaded into many BB guns. Since airgun pellets are often made in a fairly stable, front-heavy design, even a smoothbore barrel can fire them with a reasonable degree of accuracy for short distances.

Another type of ammunition used in smooth bore air guns is the dart, which consists of a small, pointed metal body with a string tassel on the end. Darts are used only in low-powered guns for indoor target practice, and can be used in place of hand-thrown darts in a game of darts. The original air gun darts were used in very accurate, handmade, target guns used in formal competition in late 19th and early 20th Century Germany. Modern darts come in an additional form, the bolt (after crossbow bolts), which uses plastic fins in place of the tassels.

A standard copper coated steel .177 caliber BB usually usually weighs about 5.3gr (about 1/3 of a gram.) A lead airgun pellet weighs about 7.9 gr (about 1/2 of a gram.)

Competition Use
While most BB guns are used only for informal plinking, it is possible to shoot competitively with a BB gun. The National Rifle Association youth shooting program has classifications for smoothbore BB guns, open from ages 8 to 15, and these classes are popular with youth groups such as Boy Scouts of America and 4H. BB guns are generally shot at a distance of 5 meters (5 yards 1 foot 8 inches). To hit the tiny 10 ring on the standard 5 m BB gun target, which is about the size of a BB, requires a very accurate BB gun and very consistent BBs. The dominant BB gun used is the spring piston Daisy model 499, a specially made competition BB gun that Daisy, and many shooters, claim is the world's most accurate BB gun. When used with the Number 515 precision ground BBs, made specially for the 499, the combination allows amazingly tight groups for a BB gun. The 499 retails for around 175USD.

Legal issues
BB guns are regulated in the same manner as air guns. In countries where there is a maximum velocity or muzzle energy at which point an airgun is treated like a firearm (such as in Canada or the United Kingdom), BB guns are often not powerful enough to be considered firearms.

Compasseco, Inc offers a huge inventory of Air BB Guns and BB Rifles. Browse our entire online bb s and guns catalog inventory for additional selections. If you are looking for high quality bb guns and a dealer that provides excellent customer service, Compasseco will exceed your expectations! We make shopping and online ordering easy. Call 800-726-1696 (USA only) for more information.

Find more information about Air Guns, Air Rifles and BB Guns.



Featured BB Guns

Anics Pistol Model SKIF A-3000

This bb gun is the next generation of BB Air Power. A truly new type of CO2 BB Gun that obtains velocities up to 500 fps and gets a minimum of 75 shots with one CO2 cartridge. Made in Russia, it has the feel and weight of a high-powered pistol with quality unsurpassed by western standards. BB Pellets’s are loaded into the 28 shot magazine, which fits into the grip of the pistol. The moving rifled steel barrel allows precision durability whether shooting lead, plastic, or steel pellets. The pistol can be cocked for precision single action shooting or double action for rapid firing. It has ambidextrous non-slip grips and is easily disassembled for cleaning. Sights are fully adjustable for windage and elevation. Available in black. Caliber .177, 1.5 lbs. Comes with case, pelletÊloading tool andÊone clip.

RWS Diana 350 Magnum

The RWS Diana 350 Magnum gives Magnum-plus power! The Model 350 bb gun produces a velocity of 1250 fps. Combining the sleek design and break barrel ease of handling, the 350 moves airgun shooting to another level. Features: walnut stained hardwood stock, raised cheek piece, checkered pistol grip, recoil pad, adjustable trigger, interchangeable sight inserts, total length 48", barrel length 19.5", 8 lbs. Available in both .177 (RWS-350) and .22 (RWS-35022)

IZH-46 Target Pistol .177cal (M-Series)

This target bb pistol offers quality and accuracy at an affordable price. Shooters have won many International competitions with this pistol competing against some of the best German Made air pistols. Features include a five way adjustable trigger; micrometer fully adjustable rear sight; hammer forged rifled barrel; adjustable international target grip; single stroke pneumatic with easy under cocking mechanism; length 16 1/4"; barrel length 10"; 2.4lb; Supplied with cleaning rod, sight adjustment tool, drift punch tool, extra seals and full factory warranty.

Russian Droz BB air pistol

This is the ultimate in Air BB guns. The DROZD is uniquely styled with select fire, which contains three switches. The first powers the electrical firing mechanism, the second is three stages for selection of fire, 1-single shot, 2-three round burst and 3-six round burst. The hird switch controls the cycle speed (300,450 or 600 rounds per minute. The magazine hold 30BB’s at a time along with the CO2 cartridge. When the magazine and the butt stock are installed, it has the fit and feel of a military style weapon. CO2 / Battery powered, semi automatic with detachable stock. Length 13.75" With stock attached 19.5"; Barrel length 10" (COLOR IS YELLOW & BLACK ONLY)