How much of this hobby is nostalgia ?

For me 100% the prices in the old catalogs are so much lower than today but I rarely had enough money to buy anything. In the early 1970's El Gamo Paratrooper pinned up my bedroom wall. Finally bought one 50 years later, yeah, it's all nostalgia for me.

Im at 100 percent too with nostalgia. The newer stuff doesn't really interest me.

I also drooled over the Beeman catalogs in the 80s...knowing darn well my parents would never spend that kind of money on my wants....no way in h*ll.

Im really fortunate I was able to get into the hobby 20 years ago and was able to purchase a lot of the rifles and pistols offered in their catalog.

Now slowing down adding to my collection and started selling off.

Good times

For me personally nothing about today's airguns is nostalgic as the airguns of today are a completely different animal other than they're still powered by air. The guns of my youth were mere junk toys compared to the innovative design, manufacturing tolerances, smoothness of operation, power & looong range accuracy of today's airguns. It's like buying a Tesla & thinking you'll have a nostalgic experience for 50's cars. Ain't gonna happen, whole different animal. Of course I'm talking about PCP's, not Traditional airguns (of which I don't own).

Most is the latest, greatest next thing. Nostalgia is a small part; it's also a more fun part for me. I like the older stuff, but I shoot the newer stuff a lot more.

I have great memories of air rifles. My dad had an area of the house devoted to his hunting and shooting sports. We would often sit there when I was little and talk hunting and outdoors while he cleaned guns or was sitting at the reloading table. One day he said you wanna see if any of these guns fit you yet? After two or three I realized they were much too big and heavy and sighed. Then he said wait a minute and he pulled out another gun out of the safe, try this one. It fit perfect. It was a Daisy air rifle.

Later came the Crosman pumps and break barrels. From then on it was powder burners and shotguns. Started hunting with a shotgun at 10 or 11.

I got back in to airguns as an adult to expand hunting opportunities and for the challenge. People are much more likely to let you hunt small game if its an air rifle these days. And I love to squirrel hunt.

Its nostalgia and practicallity for me I suppose.

I also have a 4 and 5 year old and we moved to over an acre. Lots of little people training with air guns coming up.

For me? Honestly, not much. Sure, I got my shooting start with a Red Ryder and put quite a few pellets through an ol’ Crosman Air-17 as a kid, but my dad was never a big shooter. Once I was old enough to get into paintball and airsoft, I did and moved on from traditional air rifles. Following that, I got heavy in PBs as soon as I was legally able to and never gave traditional BB/pellet guns another thought.

Paintball/airsoft, on the other hand? Boy howdy, is there a lot of nostalgia there for me! My teenage years were spent working at a paintball shop and field, then learning to work on airsoft stuff and spending weekends duking it out with my buddies! Man, I had a blast!

So while I never drooled over classic Crosman, Daisy, Beeman, HW, or other air rifles, I do find myself being somewhat drawn to them now merely as a way to find out what I missed. At the same time, I tend to have “quality tastes” and naturally gravitate towards the higher-quality items. As much as I appreciate modern materials, I also have a penchant for really nice wood and deeply blued steel. Go figure!

So nostalgia? Not really. But while growing old is mandatory, growing up is not, which I guess means I can cultivate nostalgia at any time!

Edit: WAIT! I *DID* always lust after a Blue Streak my cousins had every summer when I’d go visit. Mannlicher/“full-stock” rifles are my favorite, and the Blue Streak was the air rifle version of that for me. And now I have one of my own, so maybe there IS a little nostalgia here…

Although my first rifles were Daisy and Crosman (in the '60s), I have no desire to have an example of either. Give me modern.

I still have and shoot my airguns from the 60's so, yeah there's some nostalgia there.

I enjoy all my airguns whatever their capabilities or limitations but I have to say that I appreciate and support innovation.

IMHO, Airguns and airgunning has improved more in the past decade than in the previous five decades. Nothing wrong with history but it's a great time to be involved current technology.

Cheers!

Not nostalgia, because I didn't have airguns as a kid.

But I am retro, so I jumped at the chance to buy a Sheridan Blue Streak, which best I can determine, is from 1968 and lives up to its rep. I also get a kick out of shooting my Daisy Model 25. Have no delusions about using the 25 for anything but plinking BBs at 5 to 10 meters, so it rates 5 out of 5 in that respect.

Not nostalgia here either.......My father always called pellet guns garbage so, he got me started on rimfire and centerfire etc.

If only my dad was around today to see the progress! I'm sure he'd be a supporter now?

For me the airguns are purely for pesting, so not really about nostalgia. Airguns are just the most convenient tool for the job, when I'm not using traps.

I suppose it brings back some nostalgia, as one of my softer summer jobs as a kid was walking around the family farm with a .22, hunting gophers. But it feels more like "I've been doing this all my life" rather than nostalgia.