Ignoring the safety issues, I’m shocked we were allowed to ‘play’ with these guns, because they had to have been valuable.
Some of them were either a flintlock or cap kind of setup, and we loved to play with that mechanism. Some were lever action, and we would play with that and pull the trigger. Some must have been lever pump air rifles, since we would stick the barrel in the ground, to get a plug of dirt...and pull the trigger to make a puff of dust. A few were revolvers, and we loved pulling the trigger and turning the cylinder.
This collection today...had we not abused it playing army...would probably be very valuable today.
Back to the safety issue...I have no idea if these were functioning guns...but I suspect they were. They didn’t seem modified in any way...they were just old. I guess my friend’s dad was confident that a 6 year old couldn’t get ammo for an old lever action rifle.