Meriwether Lewis Carried an Air Rifle on Lewis and Clark Expedition

[Son of Damian]

Found this video the other day, then did a little searching and found some more info.
The Girandoni air rifle Lewis carried was an Austrian made 22 shot repeater. The compressed air tank stock had to be pumped 1,500 times to fill it to 800 psi which was enough for some 300 shots from the rifle. Pretty interesting forgotten part of history.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9WEsILY92o&NR=1

Animation showing operation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GzLa1Cvcuo&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppaZf7VXpq8


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbo8arkKXTg

Technical description and examination of rifle believed to have been carried by Lewis on the expedition.
http://www.beemans.net/lewis-assault-rifle.htm

Examination of other Girandoni air rifles
http://www.beemans.net/Austrian%20airguns.htm

[skyeye]

Fantastic piece of engineering and look into history. Thanx much.

[JCR]

Known to all who play Empire and Napoleon total war :)

Austrian high tech from the 18th century...

[randir14]

Ive read that Napoleon ordered no quarter for any enemy caught using one of those rifles.

[Currahee 1SG]

What a read.

MYTHS ABOUT THE GIRANDONI AIRGUNS
There are several oft-repeated tales about Girandoni system airguns which we now know to be fanciful. Some historical accounts simply are not true or they may contain comments that are not true.
First, One of the most common myths is that Napoleon ordered the hanging of anyone in possession of an airgun. The late Arne Hoff, famed arms historian and curator of the Royal Danish Arsenal, and others, have commented that this story, told as the “eye witness” war experience of French General Mortier, has now been quite thoroughly refuted (Baer, 1973). This story may have grown from the fact that many towns, fearing these unfamiliar, terrifying guns - even without any negative incidents, banned airguns. A death penalty was common for many offenses, so it is possible that some airgunners were put to death. One story relates that the city fathers had a gunsmith, who knew how to make airguns, blinded!

Second, apparently there never was any incident of the air rifles being used against Napoleon’s troops.

Third, it is often related that these guns were silent. A number of city, and other governmental decrees of the 1800s, made the guns illegal, often largely on this basis. I can state from personal firing of one of Cowan's fully-charged museum copy of the Girandoni military air rifle that the discharge sound is quite audible, though by no means as loud as a similar large bore flintlock firearm and evidently much less loud than the report of many antique or modern pre-charged pneumatic rifle.. However, the fact that the guns discharge without smoke or muzzle/pan flash does make locating the position of someone firing such a gun much more difficult.

[JCR]

Lol these guys are air gun nerds, it seems.
It did however see action against the turks.
The site also says against the Prussians 1779 but there was hardly any fighting in the "potato war".
There's a conspiracy theory that Bavarian King Ludwig II. (the king who filled Bavaria with all those Castles for US tourists) did not drown but was shot by an air gun in order to save Bavaria from bancrupcy.

[[WDW]Megaraptor]

What was the purpose of having a percussion hammer on this gun?

[Currahee 1SG]

[WDW]Megaraptor;5054634
Megaraptor;5054634']What was the purpose of having a percussion hammer on this gun?

After reading the article again the only thing that the hammer provides is a means of preparing the weapon for firing. Below is copied from the above article link.

Figure 11. Hammer pulled back to point where striker latch is about to jump up and engage wedge on tumbler and sound the first click of cocking. Flintlock guns do not have a striker latch so they do not sound a click at this point.

Figure 12. Hammer pulled back to point where sear engages half-**** notch on tumbler. Second click. Hammer may be left in this “safe” position. In this mode the trigger should not be able to allow the hammer to fall and cause the gun to discharge.

Figure 13. Hammer pulled back to engage sear in full **** notch. Third click. Gun is now ready to fire whenever trigger is pulled.

Figure 14. Trigger pulled, allowing hammer to start forward and have tumbler wedge engage notch of striker latch. This wedge will push the striker assembly against air valve and start to release compressed air from reservoir.


After moving a ball into firing position, the gun is cocked by pulling back on a hammer-like cocking lever.

[SBL]

Cool !