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Custom Gunman

The Custom Gunman and a Custom Gun.

The Kôsenjû Custom Series is a series of toy guns and targets released by Nintendo in the seventies (starting in 1971). Designed by Gunpei Yokoi, they were built in response to the success of the Kôsenjû SP Series. Whereas the Kôsenjû SP Series could shoot up to 24 feet, the Kôsenjû Custom Series was capable of shooting up to 300 feet. Unfortunately, the Kôsenjû Custom Series wasn't nearly as successful, partly due to the increased price. In addition to the price hike, the length in which the guns could shoot, while impressive, was pointless since it would be nearly impossible to shoot a target, especially the small ones provided, 300 feet away.

The guns designed for the series include the Kôsenjû Custom Gun and the Kôsenjû Custom Lever Action Rifle. The Rifle was considerably more expensive than the gun, though was also built with more expensive materials and was also larger. There were only three targets built for the series (three less than the Kôsenjû SP Series), though more were seemingly planned (as revealed through a patent, view below). The targets included Custom Gunman, Custom Lion and Custom Target. The first two targets collapsed when shot while the Custom Target span around and lit up (and today is extremely rare).

Planned targets[]

In a patent titled "rope controlled photo target", patented by Nintendo, it was revealed that at least two other targets were planned including an elephant and a house. The contents within the patent reveal that the two objects were collapsible, similar to the lion and the gunman. Had they been released, they would probably have been called Custom Elephant and Custom House. The images can be viewed below:

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