Playing with these indoors is just no fun.
Time to shoot some cans and stuff
Time to shoot some cans and stuff
N/A Finally some decent weather to take one of the older big bores out
- Thread starter 1900colt
- Start date
" Older " ... that might be an understatement! Is that a reproduction? Either way , an amazing gun!
Upvote 0
It's #1 of 4 museum grade copies of an original gun, the one supposedly carried by Lewis & Clark.
Here is a video of it by Rick Rehm (Shooter1721) and Rich Dudek of Airgun Revisions. Some technological things are not totally correct, but you'll get to see how well these guns did.
Upvote 0
It’s insane to think that the Girandoni was made in the 1790s. That guy was way ahead of his time! If you ask me this gun is a perfect example of how important of a development cartridges were for powder burners.
Upvote 0
I would venture to say a repeating airgun was more useful than any gun until a firearm that could use shells that were reloadable (unlike the early rimfire) it was superior. The cost to produce an airgun though was most likely hard to overcome.
Youu see airguns demise almost immediately around the 1860's.
Firearms that were repeaters, reloadable shells, and far more power were here... not to mention easier to operate and probably cheaper to build.
The claimed L&C gun was found in CA, which to me would make sense. If you're traveling west in the early to mid 1800's and had the opportunity to take a repeating gun that only needed lead and leather to keep it operational, I'd take that. Your single shot musket is only going to do so much and you have to hope your powder is good.
Upvote 0
Exactly my thoughts! I’m no expert but as far as I know there were repeater muskets around the same time as the Girandoni but I don’t think they saw the same level of use, not like it really caught on either though. That would make me think yes, the Girandoni had a leg up in terms of repeaters. Same as today cost + “weird” new tech makes things go in a different direction or take longer.
Upvote 0
There were a few designs, and if I'm not mistaken, Girandoni injured himself trying to make a repeating firearm.
You had rifles with rotating barrels, and rifles that had multiple locks in a row with charges loaded in front of each other. That just looks sketchy
. There were the pepper box pistols too, some of those were rather large calibers.It was an interesting time seeing how things progressed to where we are today. Heck, we went from big bore airguns to BB and pellet guns and now back to big bore airguns
Upvote 0