Pre Charged Repeating Air Rifle from the 1800's - .46 calibre - interesting vid

Anyone heard of this Girandoni Air Rifle before?

So far ahead of it's time................

FT forum: This is just to cool not to spread around

 

Yes! Awesome bit of kit for its time. It was issued to Austrian sharp shooters to good effect. Unfortunately one needed to wheel a filling wagon around to keep the butt air reservoirs filled.

It is known that L&C took a repeating air rifle with them on their expedition, but it is not proven 100% that it was a Girandoni since there were a few designs about.

 

Do not see many in the UK but there are large calibre air rifles being made today that are pretty serious pieces of kit.

Most made in SE Asia but at the upper end Dennis Quackenbush for example makes a .457 air rifle that pushes out a 510gn slug at 700fps. Now that would tend to sting a bit.

Quackenbush Air Guns

 

When Meriweather Lewis walked across America in 1804 he used an Air powered buffalo gun, to save on the weight of black powder