Maxiball! .......Can ya hear me?

[RussB]

Can ya hear me now? Knowing how you like air rifles, along with your deep feelings for a nice smoothbore, I found something I thought you just might like.
http://www.collectorsfirearms.com/al970.htm

First time I've ever seen one. I know Lewis & Clark accounted for one....have to wonder if it may have looked like this.
Has anyone ever seen a picture of the one from Lewis & Clark? I guess that air rifle, along with their cannon was the thing that impressed the Indians they traded with most.
BTW Maxi; Pay SSE his buck twenty nine!
Russ

 

[Liver eatin’ Johnson]

That would be fun to hunt with! The one Lewis and Clark took with them had the airchamber in the buttstock...

Lewis & Clark air rifle

 

Wow! Nice air rifle. Wish they looked like that today!
NO! I ain't given up the buck twenty-nine!

 

[sse]

NO! I ain't given up the buck twenty-nine!

:cry: :cry: :cry:

 

[musketman]

Interesting "hammer" on the Hanson Air Rifle, it almost looks line an air pump handle... :winking:

 

[RussB]

That would be fun to hunt with! The one Lewis and Clark took with them had the airchamber in the buttstock...

Lewis & Clark air rifle

LEJ...That is interesting! Got any more?
I feel pretty sure that's the first picture I've ever seen, although my reading tells me it was certainly there, and some writers were pretty good at describing it, it is still NOT AT ALL what I had pictured in my mind. Anyone know the caliber? ballistic performance? (if such can be said.)
Somehow, in my mind I guess, I had thought of it being some kind of "repeater"..... Seems that would have impressed the Indians more than just a plain old, single shot, have to pump up, air rifle.
This picture just broke my bubble!
Respectfully, Russ

 

[RussB]

"Interesting "hammer" on the Hanson Air Rifle, it almost looks line an air pump handle..."

Yep! It sure does Musketman.
It's still a bit more convincing than the "Cock" on the original, when it comes to representing an "air-rifle".

In the picture LEJ posted, it seemed to me that all it was lacking was the flint. Why have it? when you had to pump it up with a pumping motion on the front of the cannister?

That air rifle has been in my mind for years! I've envisioned everything from something from Star-War's to a Bicycle pump...I think I like it better before I knew what it looked like.
Russ

 

That is a nice air gun - for sure. I read a bit about the early large bored airguns, and in .30 cal or slightly larger, many enough power to kill deer. There is a notation in the Chronicals (L & C) that a chief killed one of the women with the air gun & that L & C, or someone in the crew also killed a deer with it.
: I think the one pictured is very close to the line drawings(paintings) I've seen of the L and C gun. The hammer looks similar. This was quite a feat for a flintlock era firearm/airgun.
: In Canada, an airgun developing in excess of 500fps is considered a firearm, handgun or rifle - the forensic lab will add anything they deem necessary to the air chamber to get borderline guns OVER that majic 500fps. They are not restricted to oils. Apparently WD40 is useful in that application as well, but very hard on guns with springs. On the othr hand, there are much more volitile substances that increase velocities even higher.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Apparently WD40 is useful in that application as well,

Yep. WD-40 is basically a premium diesel. You can run a diesel on straight WD-40 from the gallon cans (and clean out your lines and injectors in so doing). We use it to spray into air intakes when starting boat diesels in sub-freezing weather. Compress it 15 or 20:1 and it ignites.

Bummer about the pellet rifles. Mine does around 950 fps and it's a cow now-a-days.

 

[cable]

a recent article quoted contemporary sources that clearly describe it as a repeater with 22 shot capacity that 'could be fired 22 times in a minute'....supposedly it fits the description of Italian airguns from the late 1700's; the Lukens gun in the museum at VMI, long thought to be the gun, certainly doesn't fit the description. Sure would love to have a repro of either style; Dr. Beeman, in a private email answering my question, states that there is a maker that may produce some in the near future....he did not reveal who that might be.

 

[Stumpkiller]

Don't know about the L&C gun, but the ones Napoleon hated from Austria were repeaters and could keep up 5X the firing rate of the blackpowder muskets his troops were using.

 

[Keith]

Don't know about the L&C gun, but the ones Napoleon hated from Austria were repeaters and could keep up 5X the firing rate of the blackpowder muskets his troops were using.

I never heard about Napoleon and air guns. Can you tell us the story?

 

[Stumpkiller]

Four large bore pneumatic airguns from the Beeman Airgun Collection selected to represent four different styles of mechanisms made in airgunning's glory days. Left to right: a.) Mortimer butt-reservoir airgun with interchangeable rifle and shotgun barrels. The buttstock air reservoirs of such British air rifles generally were covered with sharkskin. This unusually elegant specimen from gunmaker T.J. Mortimer was made with a reservoir covered with smooth calfskin. Circa 1810. This gun is in the general format of the airgun that I, and most antique airgun historians believe was carried on the Lewis and Clark Expedition. b.) Pneumatic shotgun with ball air reservoir. Made by Bate with a fake flintlock mechanism. c.) Massive pneumatic .58" caliber "flintlock" style air rifle by Bate. The air reservoir is a full length brass cylinder which is concentric around the barrel. A pump is built into the buttstock. About 1780. d.) Girandoni Military Repeating Pneumatic Rifle. Each soldier was provided with two of the cone shaped, butt-reservoir, air tanks, good for perhaps 20 quiet, smokeless shots each. These .5l" caliber Austrian military rifles were capable of firing twenty well-aimed lead balls in less than one minute while enemy troops were reloading their muzzle-loaders one shot at a time. They could properly be considered as the "assault rifles" of their period. The story that they were used against Napoleon does not seem to have any basis in fact. and the tale that Meriwether Lewis carried such a gun in his 1803 expedition does not seem to be based on credible information.

Beeman collection.

Well this site is certainly a spoil sport - so there's this:

http://www.airgunexpress.com/techarticleprecharged1.htm

It may come as a surprise to many of our readers but long before there were spring piston air guns, there were precharged pneumatics or PCP's for short. A precharged airgun is any airgun that uses an "on board" reservoir to hold air or gas that is used to propel the projectile. The most common propellants are air and CO2. The term precharged pneumatic refers to an airgun that uses compressed air.

Historically, PCP's have actually been used in combat. In 1780 the Austrian Army used a twelve shot, .51 caliber, repeating, precharged air rifle against Napoleon's forces. The rifle was called a Girandoni, after the inventor. In Europe, entire shooting galleries were filled with nothing else other than precharged airguns.

http://www.troop1188.com/docs/AirRifleTraining2000_2.doc

In the late 1700's, powerful pneumatic guns even found their way into the ranks of the military. The Austrian Army had an entire regiment armed with .44 caliber repeating air rifles. All surviving accounts indicate that the Austrians used those airguns with deadly effectiveness against Napoleon's army. So feared, any Austrian soldier captured with an air rifle was summarily executed as an assassin!

So, like everything else in history - it is debatable and either proven or disproved by careful search. :haha:

 

[RussB]

"and the tale that Meriwether Lewis carried such a gun in his 1803 expedition does not seem to be based on credible information."

Ut...oh! Now I'm totally crushed! Good Grief!

Still think I might want a .58 cal to shoot the 315gr HB conical.....it just looks a great big 'ol air rifle pellet.

Russ

 

[RussB]

See what I mean? A big 'ol air rifle pellet?

 

[robinghewitt]

Holy Scrocks

I make little airgun power meters that go on the end of the barrel, I shall have to update the instructions,

"Not suitable for Americans" ::

 

[Keith]

"and the tale that Meriwether Lewis carried such a gun in his 1803 expedition does not seem to be based on credible information."/quote]
The Journals of Lewis and Clark aren't credible? I have read about the air gun they had in the journals. While they may have occassionally reached wrong conclusions or described something somewhat inaccurately, the journals have never, to my knowledge, been shown to contain information Lewis or Clark knew to be false. :m2c:

 

Keith- I too read about the air-gun in the journals & as well, it is listed elsewhere with the equipment they took.

 

[Stumpkiller]

I thought that would get a rise. That is just the way it was presented on the site I lifted it from. Further proof that you can't trust the Internet - except here.