Girandoni air rifle as used by Lewis and Clark. A National Firearms Museum Treasure Gun

YOUTUBE ^ | Feb 04, 2012 | swampsniper

[SWAMPSNIPER]

Lewis and Clark's secret weapon - a late 18th Century .46 cal. 20 shot repeating air rifle by Girandoni , as used bin the Napoleonic Wars. A Treasure Gun from the NRA National Firearms Museum.

[SWAMPSNIPER]

ping

[dr_lew]

That’s very interesting, but I think there’s a spin to it. I have to assume that these Indians in the many encounters described, were ignorant of firearms of all sorts. I surmise that Lewis and Clark’s choice of this Girandoni air rifle for these demonstrations was simply to conserve gunpowder, since the Girandoni was impressive enough to serve as an exemplar of their arsenal. I’m not buying the suggestion that it was more impressive than a noisy and smoky conventional firearm, for this purpose.

[iowamark]

National Firearms Museum
11250 Waples Mill Road
Fairfax, VA 22030

Open Daily 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Admission is Free

[SWAMPSNIPER]

The fact that it was a repeater may have done the trick.

[Cheburashka]

That’s very interesting, but I think there’s a spin to it. I have to assume that these Indians in the many encounters described, were ignorant of firearms of all sorts. I surmise that Lewis and Clark’s choice of this Girandoni air rifle for these demonstrations was simply to conserve gunpowder, since the Girandoni was impressive enough to serve as an exemplar of their arsenal. I’m not buying the suggestion that it was more impressive than a noisy and smoky conventional firearm, for this purpose.

---

The impressive part was the fact it was a repeating rifle, at a time when there repeating rifles were nonexistant. But nonetheless as a combat weapon it was a gimmick. The Austrians issued the Girandoni to its troops fighting the Revolutionary French for only a short time - it was too delicate and I understand refilling the air cartridge took a lot of pumping - I can imagine the troops attempting to get them prepared for the next battle after a long day of fighting and marching, when all they wanted to do was go to sleep for the night.

[Freedom4US]

The Journals were pretty clear on this. In fact now that you mention it I can’t remember any instance in their travels as mentioned by Lewis or Clark where any of the Indians _weren’t_ familiar with firearms of the day, and were willing to trade dearly for powder and ball. The Air Rifle “Vurry Much Astonushed” everyone, for some reason.

It’s said they returned from the trip in 1805 with enough powder and lead to do it all over again.

[R. Scott]

Being quieter and without the huge cloud of smoke would have been impressive too.

[R. Scott]

1500 strokes to raise 800 pounds of pressure! Yep, a lot of pumping.

[Joe Boucher]

The narator indicated it would be 1500 strokes with todays bicycle style pump.
He did not indicate what kind actually was used.
Possibly another reason to not allow the injuns to see inside the boat.

[HD1200]

Reality strikes as opposed to the Youtube and wishful thinking about this 1800 air “rifle”.

http://www.topairgun.com/girandoni

A .45 caliber Repeating 22-Shot Big Bore Air Rifle... WOW!!

Really... now wouldn’t that be the ultimate? Well, that all sounds terrific, but let’s take a look at what is really going on. Not having an actual Girandoni air rifle to test, I set up .45 caliber Sam Yang Big Bore Light Hunter air rifle to replicate as near as I could the power and performance of a .46 caliber Girandoni air rifle.

As you can see below, the Light Hunter with a starting air pressure of 3,000 psi put the .457 Hornady Round Ball through the Douglas Fir 2x12 (37mm) at 10 meters like it wasn’t there!... business as usual. And, after 6 shots, produced 9mm groups. Then the power started slowly declining until at shot 19, the pellet got stuck in the barrel with 500 psi remaining. I never made it to the 22nd shot- the Light Hunter had run out of gas.

Then, I filled the Light Hunter to 800 psi to compare apples with apples... with a slight orange tinge- .45 caliber of the Light Hunter versus .46 caliber of the Girandoni; but air pressure is air pressure (you can’t put two quarts of jelly in a one quart sack). Even so, the first shot at 800 psi did not send the Hornady blasting through the Douglas Fir. Instead, the Hornady’s butt was sticking out 2mm since it only penetrated 11mm into the target... was the Hornady “mooning” the Austrian army?... we will probably never know... read on.

Onward and downward... on the 7th shot, I came up with 20mm groups at 10 meters and at the 8th shot, the Hornady was stuck in the barrel with 500 psi remaining, and again the Light Hunter was out of gas. It was then that I realized that I did not have the chance of a snowball in Hell reaching shot number 22. Claims are that the Girandoni could be fired 40 times before recharging... okay...

Now then, given the fact that the Light Hunter has a barrel length of 21.65 inches and the Girandoni barrel looks much, much longer, would it be possibly that the Girandoni would produce higher muzzle energy? I know what you are thinking... but from what I gather, the professionals (SWAT) are opting for shorter thicker barrels (with no loss of power or accuracy) to reduce the whip vibration at the muzzle found with longer barrels; so longer may not always be better. Never the less, it is my opinion that if the Girandoni was somehow outfitted with a 1,000cc reservoir that would allow at least a 3,000 psi starting air pressure, we would see a more than acceptable power and accuracy at a 22nd shot. In the meantime. I think you will agree that the 800 psi capacity leaves a lot to be desired.

It is reported that the Austrian army claimed that they could penetrate a one inch pine board (today that is 3/4” or 18.5mm thick) at 100 yards (I wonder if that is possibly 100 feet instead because pine is soft compared to Douglas fir) with the Girandoni and other reports claim a velocity of 535 fps. A 144 grain round ball traveling 535 fps results in 92 fpe. As you can see by the tests below, the most was 48 fpe (about half) at 800 psi. It looks like it would take more than 800 psi to give a Hornady 92 fpe... unless the secret lies in the barrel- you decide. I know this, I would love to get my formerly nicotine stained hands on a Girandoni, lock it down in my Dirt E. Harry sliding gun vise and chronograph it to see what it really does in terms of power and accuracy at 800 psi.

That said, if you would like to experience the power and performance of a big bore air rifle in your life time, please take a look at the selection that I offer above and place your order today! The drift that I get from manufacturers is that Hell will freeze over before we ever see a working Girandoni replica- these guys want to know their ROI up front and I can’t say as I blame them. I did have a gentleman contact me back in March of 2011 saying that he knew he could make an exact copy of the Girandoni. I gave him the contact information, suggested he outfit it with an AirForce Condor removable reservoir (to overcome legalities), make it shoot “off the shelf” .45 or .50 caliber round balls and I have heard nothing. Hopefully, he will get the job done... time will tell.

[HD1200]

Hmm...

[wildbill]

Of course, carrying around an air tank is less conspicuous than an air rifle, but Anton Chigurh showed it to be lethal and quiet at close range in “No Country for Old Men.”

By the way, did anyone ever get a good look at the magazine and firing and loading mechanism of that air gun?

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Thanks SWAMPSNIPER. Just adding to the catalog, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.