Customer Rating:  
Summary: The law requires that toy guns must not look like real guns
Comment: This is in part in response to the previous review and in part FYI.
These toy guns are required by law to contain an orange portion at the end of the barrel. The reason is that toy guns too often looked like real guns to police officers, who sometimes ended up shooting the gun wielder in self-defense. A realistic looking toy gun can be a tool for suicide-by-cop. This is an unfortunate and very real phenomenon that harms the victim, the victim's family, and the cop and the cop's family.
Prop guns are really dangerous in this regard. Keep them secure during your production, and destroy them at the end of the production if a responsible person isn't going to continue to keep them secure.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good option for nonrealistic toy guns
Comment: I don't purchase these kinds of toys for children; I use them as props for live roleplaying. I am thus reviewing this as an item for adults to use for theatre and gaming.
There's no getting around how unrealistic this gun LOOKS. Whether this is a feature or a defect depends on your application; if you're running a LARP on a college campus it's probably exactly the kind of thing you want, while for a stage show it would at first seem useless.
I found, however, that this plastic holds Magic Marker very well. With gunmetal-gray or black markers the gun took on a realistic (if futuristic) look, perfect for cyberpunk, future-military, or historical uses where accuracy is not a factor. This is a VERY threatening-looking gun, suitable for use representing a Magnum or other large handgun.
While the gun can be awkward to load, this is a mixed blessing. Loading is slow (though the included instructions are clear and prevent it from being actively tricky) but there's little chance of the gun popping open and losing its caps accidentally (which has happened to me with other toys).
Ring caps are easy to find anywhere that cap guns are legal at all, so that's not a concern. I find them more convenient and harder to lose than strip caps, and the detritus is easily slipped into a pocket.
Durability has been decent so far; we've been using these guns for six months now and not lost one. That, of course, is with careless but not rough handling (dumping unloaded guns casually in a drawer, tossing them back and forth between teammates, carrying them in an unpadded box, etc.)
Overall this is a good gun for live-action gaming, possibly slightly less good for theatre.
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