Unknown Rifles

[hawkeye1755]

Got this pic from a friend.He asked me if i know a little bit more about these rifles.I can only say that two of these rifles are 'air-rifles'.Are the other two also 'air-rifles'? :hmm:
Did anyone know the time when they were build?
I know that Lewis & Clark had an 'air-rifle' on their voyage.Take a look at that barrel from the second rifle from the right.

:hatsoff:

 

[Runner]

Awesome!

Do a search for Quackenbush Airguns. Contact Dennis about the guns you have. He will point you in the right direction. S
You could also send them to me for testing!

 

[bwhoffman]

far right gun appears to be an air rifle, the others...??? i dont know.
do a goggle search for "air rifle of lewis and clark" there has been a lot written about it in the past year.

 

[George Holton]

The one with the ball is also an air gun like lewis and clark carried

 

[Runner]

The buttflask and belly flask guns are easy to pick out. The large barreled looking brass gun is most likely a much smaller barrel mounted inside the air tank which looks like a large barrel. The fourth gun I do not recognize but I would like to know more. Dennis makes parts for the originals and produced some 45 caliber muzzleloaders designed for deer hunting. His early replica liege lock gun had no forestock and used the same type of butt that the one in the picture does. The 45 long gun used a belly flask. He is currently producing large bore walnut stocked air rifles that people have used to harvest up to elk. He would be my first stop for info on those guns. It is possible he made one of them.

 

[baranjhn]

I can't tell for sure, but the one on the far right looks like a Giradoni. The long metal tube next to the breech is a magazine. I believe they were a 12 shot repeater.

 

[Runner]

There was another gun that used a magazine like that also. When you flipped the "frizzen" forward and back into position, another ball was loaded. The picture doesn't show enough detail for full identification. That is an outstanding collection in the picture. A lot of the really old designs did not use a forestock, so I am puzzled by a couple of those guns.

Dennis makes his guns. He makes his barrels. The stocks are made of good old black walnut right there. His current offerings sell as soon as he can deliver them. People "tune" or polish them up and resell them for twice what Dennis charged. If he ever does a run of BP muzzleloaders, my name will be high on the list. A lot of other builders will be crying the blues tho! His offerings rate up there with the best ever produced and his prices are extremely reasonable!

 

[hawkeye1755]

:hatsoff:

So , i found a little information about these guns after searching the web today.
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. 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 35-40 quiet (but NOT silent), smokeless/flashless shots each. These large bore Austrian military rifles were capable of firing twenty two 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 stories that they were used against Napoleon or that Napoleon issued a death warrant for carrying one do not seem to have any basis in fact. This specimen is believed to be the airgun that Meriwether Lewis (click on Lewis name to read about our research on this gun) carried in the famous 1803 "Voyage of Discovery" expedition to the explore the future areas of America west of St. Louis..
The Beeman Airgun Collection
Link
:hatsoff:

 

[Todd Rickard]

Very cool! I like airguns almost as much as black powder guns. This collection is kinda like the golden middle.

 

All the above guns were shown on the NRA TV show here in the states called American Rifleman not very long ago.

 

[Todd Rickard]

Here is a link to pictures of the inner workings of such a gun.
Link

 

[Blizzard of '93]

Thanks for a good post, the one on the right looks to be identical to the airgun that 'American Rifleman' featured as the possible gun that L&C had with them.

 

[Runner]

One little note. Large bore airguns are not quiet at all when you reach these power levels. Even a couple of my hopped up 22's will make a unsuspecting bystander jump. A 50 caliber ball at 600 fps sounds a lot like a short started ball does in a muzzleloader. No flash, but lots of noise!
Somewhere here on the forum is a post about the concentric barrel type guns. That system would be quite easy to build using an underhammer action.
I shoot several air rifles almost every day. Sooner or later I will get my muzzleloading rifle finished. That picture is like looking at candy for me!

 

[romeoh]

Well undertaker, you´re from germany.
I don´t know in which corner of germany you live, but if you ever should be in munich you could visit the hunting museum there.
They got a lot of fine ML and also a few of those old airguns are shown. :thumbsup: