Replies

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.