Need help designing circuit to amplify IR LED

I'm currently working on a laser tag system using the Uno and I'm having trouble getting enough current to my IR LED. The Uno obviously can't provide enough current so after a search on google I thought I might try an amplifying transistor. I tried the 2N2222 and 2N5550 (don't ask why I picked this one) but they did not work. I have no idea if these are the right ones for what I am trying to accomplish so I'm hoping I might get some help in picking the right transistor and perhaps drawing up a schematic of the IR LED circuit, but I would prefer to use one of those transistors I mentioned above as I immediately have those on hand. I would appreciate any help in this matter.

More information/Future edits:
IR LED: TSAL 6100 http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/tsal6100.pdf
In addition to the IR LED I will have a TLCY 5800 LED: http://www.vishay.com/docs/83178/tlcr5800.pdf wired in parallel acting as a muzzle flash.
I am using a 7.2-7.5V power source.

Nice tutorial with examples :

You can see the circuit I use in my IR remote signal blaster at:

http://home.comcast.net/~tomhorsley/hardware/arduino/teensy.html

I got tired of reading spec sheets and trying to understand exactly how to pick the right current limiting resistor, so in the end I found it simpler to breadboard the circuit and just put my trusty multimeter in series with the LEDs to directly measure the current different resistors gave me, then picked a resistor that gave me the max rated current for the IR LEDs I was using.