THIRD
GENERATION FIREBIRD SYMBOL
FOUND ON CHEAP TOY GUN SET
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November 23, 2012
And just because life is weird ... or rather my life is weird. I'm always looking at toy guns and toys for modeling projects or art projects and lately I've been trying to collect parts to build a "Slammer" from the Frank Miller / Geoff Darrow and series "Hardboiled". I need a 9mm Beretta, a .45 Colt 1911 semiautomatic and a long barrel magnum revolver. Here's the weapon in question ...
The "Slammer" combines parts of the 9mm, .45 and .44 magnum revolver. It has made a cameo as the 10mm pistol in the various "Fallout" series of video games.
Now, looking through the toy section of a local "Big Lots" the other day I found this toy gun set and the revolver intrigued me as a cheap find to kitbash a "Slammer" together ... when I picked up the toy gun set to look at the revolver I discovered it was way too small for the scale that I was interested in modeling ... and I noticed that it had a third gen Firebird emblem stamped into the plastic near the hammer and cylinder.
You can see the third gen Firebird symbol stamped into the revolver between the trigger and the cylinder release button. Here's a closeup of the image.
And here's the actual 3rd Generation Firebird logo for comparison ... you be the judge.
My guess is that the toy was made in China or some other country by some cheap manufacturer who wanted to include a "Ruger Redhawk" or "Ruger Blackhawk" revolver in the playset but didn't want to get sued by the Ruger company so they had one of their employees look on the Internet for a bird outline and found this instead. It's the only reason why I can think that the third generation Firebird logo managed to wind up stamped into the side of a cheap toy gun.
UPDATE - 10-17-2015
I found another example of the 3rd Gen F-body Firebird symbol on another toy gun. The local super Halloween store comes once a year and sets up in an old Service Merchandise building. I was looking around for things I could kitbash and found a 9mm Beretta pistol. I looked at the pistol and found the third gen Firebird symbol stamped on the grip.
