Not an air rifle but a BB gun story. I was born in 1942 and by the end of WW2 I was ready for a BB gun. Santy Claws brought me a Daisey Red Ryder and I quickly went through the copper plated BBs that came with it. This was right after the war was over and civilian production hadn't kicked in on ammunition and copper coated BBs yet. My mom and dad scavenged and looked everywhere and occasionally found one of the slip topped paper tubes but my appetite for shooting was insatiable and soon I was forced to shoot inside the garage into cardboard boxes in order to salvage the precious BBs. I was destitute.
One day mom was in in the hardware getting something and asked the owner if he had any BBs. No, but he had something that would work. Went to a drawer and pulled it out and it was full of lead shot.....BB size. Think mom bought me a pound and it was weighed out on a scale and dumped into a doubled paper bag. I was in business. Went home and gave them a try. They worked but due to the heavier weight, the trajectory was off way bad. Had to rezero my Kentucky windage and elevation and they worked fine with a shortened max range. But, the good point was, due to increased sectional density, they killed birds dead as a hammer and made the local cats meow and leave for other parts. These lasted a good while and after about 2 bags of those, production kicked in and you could get BBs again and things were back to normal.
Anybody else remember these days?/beagle