I had one of these-the afore mentioned uzi, in fact. It was actually a piece of junk. Sure it looked cool, but the little water ‘clip’ ran out quickly and the batteries died more quickly than that.
Now-the 1980’s cap guns-those were where it was at. Talk about realistic. I would never been seen walking around with one of those these days. Instant Get Shot Kit 💯
In their heyday, Entertech had a GREAT lineup of full-scale realistic submachineguns:
- TEC-9
- MAC-10
- MP5 (sort of a sawed-off SD variant)
- UZI carbine
- UZI mini/pistol
- ?? sort of a VZ-61 Skorpion knockoff they called an "AK"
- ... I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
And some pistols:
- 1911 w/ backpack reservoir
- Beretta M92
Plus assault rifles:
- M16
And even a pump shotgun:
- Remington 870 w/ pistol grip (non-motorized)
The launchers were a bit silly because they operated the same as an SMG:
- RPG
The early models were crap, because they simply slapped a motorized gearbox with a steam-locomotive-style armature that pumped a traditional sprung trigger pump automatically. So on the firing part of the cycle it was pushing against water pressure PLUS the spring, and on the chamber-refill part of the cycle the spring was "helping" push the plunger back quite unnecessarily.
Later more-evolved models had a custom plunger head that ATTACHED to the armature, eliminating the need for any spring. Those shot a lot better... until they broke.
And it wasn't long after that they started painting or stickering them with bright orange, then transitioned to molding the muzzle pieces in orange, and then finally making the whole thing in day-glow kindergarten colors, which made them kind of pointless because Super Soakers massively outperformed them if you didn't care about realism.
Whoa, thanks! Sounds like you should've written this article, heh. Yeah, after they were made unrealistic, Entertech sales collapsed. When Acclaim bought LJN in 1990, LJN listed their Entertech income as zero dollars.
Before there was Entertech water guns, there were Crrackfire cap guns. I had a cop come to my friend's house because someone reported "a kid with a rifle". I was 11 or 12. We were playing, and I had the "cool gun", a Crrackfire Police Task Unit Carbine, you can see it on this page (https://angstandspeed.blogspot.com/2012/10/mystery-toy-guns-of-my-youth.html). Their entire line was hyper-realistic, including a chrome M-16 that my cousin had.
EDIT: This was 1976 or 77. I took the stock off it in '77 and used it for my homemade Luke Skywalker costume for Halloween because I didn't have money to buy a Star Wars gun, and it looked Star Wars-ish without the stock. I sewed my own shirt, wore the desert boots that i wore every day, and made a lightsaber out of a golf bag club tube screwed to a plastic flashlight.
Oh, man, those machine-gun cap guns! By the time I was a kid (early '80s), they were whispered about in tones befitting a legend. Like somebody's cousin knew a kid who had one.
I remember pre-Christmas 1975 or '76 was the year that I snuck a look in my parents' closet and found our gifts. In that moment I felt so bad, because I felt I betrayed my parents, and that was also the confirming moment that Santa wasn't real. I had to act surprised on Christmas morning when I opened the first Crrackfire gun that I had, a Dirty Harry style revolver. Kinda weird that I had so many guns as a kid, yet my family (and I to this day) have never owned a real one.
I had one of these-the afore mentioned uzi, in fact. It was actually a piece of junk. Sure it looked cool, but the little water ‘clip’ ran out quickly and the batteries died more quickly than that.
Now-the 1980’s cap guns-those were where it was at. Talk about realistic. I would never been seen walking around with one of those these days. Instant Get Shot Kit 💯
That's a relief to hear that the Entertechs weren't as cool as they looked. Maybe now I can let the healing begin.
In their heyday, Entertech had a GREAT lineup of full-scale realistic submachineguns:
- TEC-9
- MAC-10
- MP5 (sort of a sawed-off SD variant)
- UZI carbine
- UZI mini/pistol
- ?? sort of a VZ-61 Skorpion knockoff they called an "AK"
- ... I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
And some pistols:
- 1911 w/ backpack reservoir
- Beretta M92
Plus assault rifles:
- M16
And even a pump shotgun:
- Remington 870 w/ pistol grip (non-motorized)
The launchers were a bit silly because they operated the same as an SMG:
- RPG
The early models were crap, because they simply slapped a motorized gearbox with a steam-locomotive-style armature that pumped a traditional sprung trigger pump automatically. So on the firing part of the cycle it was pushing against water pressure PLUS the spring, and on the chamber-refill part of the cycle the spring was "helping" push the plunger back quite unnecessarily.
Later more-evolved models had a custom plunger head that ATTACHED to the armature, eliminating the need for any spring. Those shot a lot better... until they broke.
And it wasn't long after that they started painting or stickering them with bright orange, then transitioned to molding the muzzle pieces in orange, and then finally making the whole thing in day-glow kindergarten colors, which made them kind of pointless because Super Soakers massively outperformed them if you didn't care about realism.
Whoa, thanks! Sounds like you should've written this article, heh. Yeah, after they were made unrealistic, Entertech sales collapsed. When Acclaim bought LJN in 1990, LJN listed their Entertech income as zero dollars.
Before there was Entertech water guns, there were Crrackfire cap guns. I had a cop come to my friend's house because someone reported "a kid with a rifle". I was 11 or 12. We were playing, and I had the "cool gun", a Crrackfire Police Task Unit Carbine, you can see it on this page (https://angstandspeed.blogspot.com/2012/10/mystery-toy-guns-of-my-youth.html). Their entire line was hyper-realistic, including a chrome M-16 that my cousin had.
EDIT: This was 1976 or 77. I took the stock off it in '77 and used it for my homemade Luke Skywalker costume for Halloween because I didn't have money to buy a Star Wars gun, and it looked Star Wars-ish without the stock. I sewed my own shirt, wore the desert boots that i wore every day, and made a lightsaber out of a golf bag club tube screwed to a plastic flashlight.
Oh, man, those machine-gun cap guns! By the time I was a kid (early '80s), they were whispered about in tones befitting a legend. Like somebody's cousin knew a kid who had one.
I remember pre-Christmas 1975 or '76 was the year that I snuck a look in my parents' closet and found our gifts. In that moment I felt so bad, because I felt I betrayed my parents, and that was also the confirming moment that Santa wasn't real. I had to act surprised on Christmas morning when I opened the first Crrackfire gun that I had, a Dirty Harry style revolver. Kinda weird that I had so many guns as a kid, yet my family (and I to this day) have never owned a real one.