Pritchard's 19th Century Precharged Air Gun
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.ค. 2024
- William Pritchard was a Birmingham gunsmith in the mid 1800s who offered both firearms and air guns, and this particular ball-reservoir air gun is a fine example of the latter. Air guns have existed in Europe nearly as long as firearms, although they have never had the popularity of their powder-burning cousins. Air guns offered a cleaner, quieter, and more rapid firing option than firearms (and also one that would work in the rain), but at the cost of power and cost. That is not to say that early air guns were weak; they were not. A large-bore air gun like this one would have held 700 or 800 psi in its tank, and produced a muzzle velocity probably around 550-600 feet per second (170-180 m/s). A round ball of .50 caliber at that speed was certainly lethal with a well-placed shot, and these weapons were just fine for hunting as well as sport shooting.
/ forgottenweapons
Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! shop.bbtv.com/collections/forg...
If you enjoy Forgotten Weapons, check out its sister channel, InRangeTV! / inrangetvshow
Contact:
Forgotten Weapons
6281 N Oracle #36270
Tucson, AZ 85704
![[LIVE] : ONE ลุมพินี 69 | คู่เอก "กุหลาบดำ vs นาบิล"](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/PNM6U8e_HMo/mqdefault.jpg)
awesome, an old airgun that uses the holy hand grenade of antioch as ammo.
Finally, we're gonna show that damn bunny.
1...2...4!
@@DoctorineKureha THOU SHALT NOT PROCEDETH TO FOUR
3 shall be the counting, and the counting shall be 3 ........
Phil McCrevice ‘‘tis only a flesh wound
Forgotten Weapons: You are right that these things are effective. In the early seventies, my father was director of a research establishment in the Northern Home Counties. It was remote, but adjoined a shooting estate that would release hundreds of hand-reared pheasants every year. Many of which settled in the laboratory grounds and were never shot. Over time, the pheasant population grew to plague levels and they started to interfere with work: dancing noisily on laboratory roofs during the lekking season, setting off intruder alarms, leaving unwelcome deposits on cars and delivered parcels: general nuisance.
The security guards reported to my father: "there's a bloke in Whitwell, deals with this sort of thing. Only, he works at night and doesn't want the day staff to see his face or his methods, but he's prepared to meet you. He wants to keep half the pheasants and about thirty quid should do it."
One Friday evening, once all the laboratory staff had gone home and only security guards and my father were present, an elderly gentleman in a cloth cap appeared at the security gate, with an armful of hessian sacks and a ball-reservoir airgun. (I think it must have been a smaller gauge than the one at RIA and quite possibly rifled, but otherwise the same.) By moonlight, the gentleman made his way around the complex, executing roosting pheasants with deadly accuracy and what must have been excellent night vision for his age. Sacks were filled and security guards and my father had pheasants to distribute amongst loved ones and paying customers. He came back the next Friday for a repeat performance, though there was less moonlight and fewer pheasants, so the bountiful harvest was smaller. The nuisance was erased.
This is how I and my older brothers acquired a taste for roast pheasant, pheasant sandwiches, pheasant casserole...
That is really interesting
Really amazing story and comment. Shame it has so few likes!
I would've loved to be that elderly gentleman for that moment)
Great story, Matthew. Always wanted to try one of these.
The gun, the pheasant, or the nighttime killing?😕
Legend has it that you can unscrew the air tank and throw it at your opponent...
To end them swifly i guess.
@@junichiroyamashita damn, you beat me to it 😄
There was a member of my shooting club who had a prosthetic right arm and only the index and middle fingers remaining on his left hand. This was due to the air reservoir exploding on his Pritchard air rifle. He still shot (to his credit and determination), holding the forend of his shotgun with the prosthetic hand.
It was very unfortunate. - Before the accident, he was a watchmaker. They think the reservoir exploded because of oil residue "dieseling" when critical pressure was reached.
Who could afford this, would not be pumping his own air. He would have had a man for that.
For the military, they had a powered pump that was hooked up and operated by the turning wheel of a wagon.
It sold for 4 grand. I've spent that much on a rifle... should... should I have a guy that does stuff for me? Where do I get one? Somebody help!
@@grahamlopez6202 hire a midgit to pump your air rifles for you 😅
Good God you're brilliant! They can get into the hard to reach places that I'm too big to fit!
@@grahamlopez6202 ill do it for 20 bucks
To think, add one more pressure chamber and you basically have a Super Soaker. It would have gotten banned when little Lord Fauntelroy filled it with lamp oil, attached a lot wick at the end of the barrel, then leaped around pretending to be John Carson of Venus.
Another advantage to expeditions, your powder can't get wet in this thing. If you get caught in the rain and your powder gets a little moist, you can still use this to hunt and for self-defense while waiting for your powder to dry.
MarsOz Sort of, that you can use it in the rain. This was more of an expansion on that idea, before I got to that part of the video, after he appears to have mentioned the main benefits of this kind of rifle.
Michael Berthelsen Thank for not saying "whilst"
FuLLeFFekT1 Not exactly the same...
I agree, you expand on his idea. Not exactly the same.
not sure why americans don't like "whilst", i think it's a pretty cool word used commonly in british english.
Fun fact: Nerf darts are .50 cal. I think it'd be great, hilarious publicity to find an appropriate ramrod and a foam dart. Of course, this being a proper gun, that might be a bit of a tall order.
Plus, I'm sure the video would get flagged because reasons.
Still, this boy can dream...?
Though it would be interesting in theory. I doubt that a nerf dart will stand up to either the pressure the gun puts on it or the speed it would shoot due to it being significantly lighter than a 50 caliber ball
@@elementalist1984 You can pump it up to as little or much pressure you want.
th-cam.com/video/s2yIMJ4iayg/w-d-xo.html
Closest you'll get nowadays are High Pressure Air (HPA) Blasters Made outside the control of Toy companies like Hasbro. They're usually custom-made and capable of fairly high Muzzle Velocities.
@@Bob5mith kinda proves my point, it will only fo so fast before it destroys the nerf dart. And it really wouldn't be fun if you cant fire it with a full load.
if the projectile fits over the barrel its a toy in germany. look up joerg sprave
These are fantastic things and it's always a pleasure to see one. I suspect it's a nightmare inside, though.
The other thing that made Lewis & Clarke's Giardoni great was that they used it as gentle gunboat diplomacy with the Indian tribes they met; they'd have some trade and pleasantries and in the course of mutual showing off of cool shit, would demonstrate the rifle, being careful never to let it run dry. The Indians knew about firearms, but had never met such a thing as a repeater, and a relatively quiet one at that, and, lo and behold, anyone who might have been thinking about mugging them tended to re-consider.
amazing they could make gas tight seals by hand in the day if I word that correct
@@harrickvharrick3957
They had nothing but time back in the day. Time enough to run the diligence again and again on the positions of pyramids relative to astronomical events and time enough to spend hours upon hours hand tooling stuff we can do in minutes. Imo, we take things too quickly, if we in the modern era slowed down we could work wonders.
@@diehounderdoggenalt I agree with you. Wholeheartedly. Would only the world population take time.. Time to just look around, and time to think. They wouldn't have to fly hallways across the world to get somewhere speedily, somewhere where a things stand they don't spend the time required to look at things, the time it would take for things to think in the time out would take for them to (be able to) ponder over things. They would be amazed, and we'd be able to become a more friendly type for (mother) nature, we'd be able to tread a tiny bit more lightly
Wet leather washers will create a servicable seal. Thats what they used.
And they would have been in good stead had they had to fight with them. Assuming they also had the powder burners of the day, the goradoni had about a 20 shot capacity magazing and i think they could get over one mag out of a cylinder. Each gun would come with 3 cylinders and three tubes for loading the mag.
So one guy could drop 20 shots off accompanied by regular muzzleloaders then the second man so equipped could drop 20 shots while the first guy reloads. And so on.
It wasnt a magic boomstick by any means but it was nearly so.
Not altogether that complex mechanically: the most complicated part would probably getting the proper seals and tight tolerances to make this at all efficient. Required a fair amount of personal hand fitting though so not the most suited to mass production in addition to the significant loss in power and range that powder weapons have. In their niche and designed uses though, airguns have had a long life of usefulness!
IT'S SPHERICAL.
Fruitcalculus *_S P H E R I C A L_*
Just a taunt to the flat earth morons
frmadeira WRONG.
Drake, where's the doorhole?
S. V. It is now illegal to own this in England
I wish companies like Uberti would remake these.
goombakiwi that would be to cool. 😎 !
Look up Sam Yang airguns. Not a reproduction, but very nice lines on them, look like modern double barrel shotguns. Can get them in 9mm, .45, and .50 cal.
@@ScottKenny1978 Thanks for the tip. Air rifles are fun and cheap, I've got a Remington .22 air rifle that I shoot for giggles.
@@Voltaic_Fire for what it's worth, I've read that the .45cal airguns are not ideal, they have the disadvantages of both 9mm (low power, iirc) and .50cal (high air consumption), so if you have the $$, buy the 9mm and the .50.
Note that those are precharged pneumatic (aka PCP), so you will want a 4500psi air tank, too.
@@ScottKenny1978 Noted, thank you again.
That gives me some serious Napoleon Total War Windbüchse Jaegers PTSD :)
Damn you beat me to it...
That was actually the _Girardoni_ air rifle, not the Pritchard air rifle--though FW also an excellent video on the Girardoni as well (albeit not presented by Ian).
Indeed,and indeed.Still gives me NTW PTSD :p
WTF is jaeger? Jäger!
"Ae" is how "ä" is anglicized in common uses, since most English keyboards can't type umlauts. "ß" is similarly anglicized as "ss".
I would love a big brand making a 4 bore precharged air gun. You can have 100 caliber in smoothbore if I am not mistaken. I don't like where current PCP rifles went aesthetically, I much prefer the old wood stock, classic hunting style rifles.
i like mine its break barrel has dovetail mount and a semi pistol grip, looks a little competition rifley because of the cheek pad but its a lot more reserved than the ones that are far more removed from actual firearm design
Everything old is new again: straight triggers.
joshuawfinn before there was firearms they used their mind to solve the situation... read the environment and strategize accordingly
I've always found military air guns fascinating. I always wondered why they didn't catch on in specialized role within the military, especially since they generally has a much higher rate of fire than black powder.
Nathan Snitko Would probably be good for sentry duty, things like that. You're not expected to fire far, since you're close to defenses, but a higher rate of fire would be great for defensive positions...
As Ian mentioned it mainly came down to cost, any competent gunsmith can manufacture barrels, furniture, and locks, but building a reliable air tank to equip a division would be extremely impractical, you can look at the early history of rifle adoption like the Baker rifle as a good example of where a military passes over good tech to keep costs down
You could probably buy 20 muzzle loaders for the cost of one of these
I mean it’s mainly cost and reliability. Same reason the US has kept the AR-15 platform in service for decades when you have better assault rifles on the market
Back in the days where these guns had an advantage over black powder muzzle loaders, you didn´t have any small elite units like we have today, that you would equip with such expensive weapons.
Plus without rifling their range is limited so in best 18th century style, the enemy could just fix bayonetts and charge like it was done time and time again.
You could say that airgun has balls...
Ahren Trevino Big brass ones. ;-)
Dang, you beat my by 5 minutes.
NotHim8888 lol
Prichard
It’s Lance Armstrong what with it only having one, I bet it was also caught shooting up and retired forcefully.
i like the spherical air tank. it's got a nice patina, shape and it's even adorned, albeit with a functional seam around the middle.
it also adds just an iota of steampunk which looks great but without any ridiculousness.
The best analysis.
I find its placement on the gun a bit suspicious >_>
I find it quite interesting that the sphere on the bottom of the Pritchard is about the same size and construction (excepting being made of iron as opposed to ABS plastic, naturally) as the one used for the classic 90s era Super Soaker 80. I suppose form follows function and the design is quite efficient.
A sphere is best for pressure vessels and it’s fairly easy to do the calculus on airflow with spheres as well
The way I’ve heard it described, pre-industrial technology could produce devices nearly as intricate and precise as anything we might have today but they couldn’t do it quickly or in quantity. Air guns would seen to be a perfect example.
While there skills shouldn’t be downplayed at all, in many ways people of preindustrial era were far more skilled craftsmen then us, but while they could produce precise and intricate devices, it very far from the level of preciseness and intricacy we can create now.
Antikythera device
Although a fictional story, one of Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories feature an assassin companion of Moriarty (one Colonel Moran), using an airgun to kill "inconveniences", even trying to kill Holmes himself with it. As my previous knowledge of airguns was limited to modern 177's and 22's, I thought it a bit far fetched. This video proves that the story had a great deal of fact behind the fiction.
Brilliantly played by the the "evil looking" Patrick Allen. in the Jeremy Brett series. I thought the same when I saw it.
Modern mass produced AirGuns are available in small bore calibers: .177, .20, .22 & .25, and in big bores : .30, .357, .45, .50 caliber.
Check pyramydair.com if you are interested.
Hi, the one used in sherlock holmes story was a spring powered air gun firing a revolver bullet ( popular sizes were. 45 or. 455 soft lead) to disguise it origin and made by a swiss gunsmith with a barrel looking like a "opera" stick and stock concealed beneath the shooters cloak. A 19 th c DAY OF THE JACKAL. read original story for more info.
I was hoping someone would mention "The Empty House". First story of Holmes return from the (fake) dead.
"Although a fictional story, one of Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories.......'" well thats what the Brit govt want you to believe. Are you aware that King George V paid all the costs to set up the British Intelligence Service well before 1914, and his predecessors Queen Victoria and later Edward V11 had bank rolled the recruitment of selected British Gentlemen as "travelling explorers" (Robert Baden-Powell an example) to carry out Espionage missions throughout Europe, Africa and Asia.
I just re-discovered your channel. Looking forward to more oddball firearms. These things fascinate me. I was a machinist/operator and I can appreciate the engineering and skill that goes into these hand crafted old weapons. You do a wonderful job presenting them as well.
With an airgun, you can always keep your powder dry.
This is a really awesome piece of history I never knew about. Thanks for this!
Absolutely fascinating and beautifully reviewed, as ever.
When I first read of the Giradoni Rifle it blew my mind, just it's use as a military arm in the 18th century, on top of it's use by Lewis and Clark.
Oi mate, do you have a license for that bloody dangerous rooty-tooty point n' shooty? Bin that air gun, save the childrun
Terrorists have used a stolen van and kitchen knives to kill people in the streets? Better try and ban airguns, .50 cal rifles and knife sales online.... /Theresa May
Get a life, bin that spoon, fork and knife.
There's also something about "rapid fire" which is very vague, which could range from semi auto .22 rimfire, lever/bolt action guns, and MARS guns.
Yep- pretty much anything fun is in their sights for a ban right now; we'll be a nation of archers soon enough. I'm thinking nothing short of a protest march with 1 million+ members of all shooting hobbies is required; right to the gates of Downing Street with a list of demands for common sense laws on knife and 'gun' ownership, and an end to the scape-goating we're experiencing right now. It started with Labour and their VCRA bollocks, now the Tories are just adding to it under the pretense of protecting us from terrorists largely. Makes me sick.
SuicideNeil excuse you, a bow can fire 12 (!!!) arrows a minute. Who needs that kind of firepower?!? We need to ban them. Think of the children.
Way more interesting than I expected. Great video, Ian.
I have been waiting for you to make this video ever since you posted the girardoni video. Thank you Ian.
This gun seems like it was way ahead of its time. A rifle that could quickly fire a lot of rounds. Wonder why these were not used more commonly. Think about it, these as rifles for light cavalry, they could get close enough to enemy and pepper them with hundreds of rounds before retreating to reload.
it just needed a magazine like paintball "stock class" just rock the gun forward and a new round is falling in and its clear for next shoot.
Not a rifle, has a smooth bore.
Due to limited precision machining capability in those days, each gun had to be custom made and fitted by a master craftsman. They would had cost too much to outfit regular soldiers with.
Any Sherlock Holmes fan could have told you air rifles were around for centuries!
That has to be the coolest thing i`ve seen on your channel yet.
I have never gone out and shot a gun before but I love history. This channel is so awesome. I wish there was something like this for musical instruments and prewar tools.
Cool! So, as a german, this is the one time I can actually relate to something on this channel. Cause my parents had an Airgun when I was young (still have it I believe). Alright, that was my glorious time to shine! Thank you for your attention. That's it. Bye!
You should get an airgun. And a boat. And some roller skates.
Sake Laine Don't forget a necklace made of macaroni!
Ian has dealt with many firearms that Germans can relate to.
@Joost van Schijndel: I guess he's referring to the (comparatively) high difficulty of legal gun ownership here in Germany. You can't just walk into a store, fill out a form and buy one (as you can in most states in the US). So gun ownership and especially gun culture (if you can even call it that here) is very different. So you are rather unlikely to find many Germans here in the comments going "oh yeah, we have one of those in the attic back at my parent's home", like you occasionally see with commenters from the US (at least on the less obscure guns he features).
That said, legal gun ownership is still very much possible, it's just a lot more of a hassle (and in many ways much more restricted). Source: I'm German and a legal gun owner (hunter).
They make air guns now for hunting. Huge rounds with lots of power. Even .50 caliber. They're really cool.
But does it take glock ma- Okay, I'll see myself out.
I love old weapons, the design of them is always fascinating: every weapon looked completely different from one another, plus everything from the overall shape to the mechanism was one of a kind
In this episode, Ian shoots PCP...
One generally smokes pcp.
Shooting pcp? Do you also drink pot and smoke alcohol? Or hey, maybe you think alcohol has to be butt chugged?
Do y’all not get the joke? @MrMisterDerp lmao bro you stupid af
@@MrMisterDerp Some dude did try to butt chug alcohol and in one occasion slept and died
@@MrMisterDerp How do you think PCP was administered in a therapeutic setting? "Bro hit this wet cig"
Very cool gun! :-)
Das man dich hier sieht ist eine echte Überraschung.
I know right , my first gun as a kid, was a pump bb gun .
Cool dich hier zu sehen, Marc!
I remember finding a picture of one of these after looking up the Girandoni Air Rifle, nice.
Thanks, a beautiful weapon.
Charging the reservoir to 700to800 psi, wow!.
I am tired pumping my bike tyres(yes UK,so not tires), up to 40 psi.
Thanks again,very informative.
God I hope TH-cam doesn't ruin this chanel for us. I love the history of firearms and the presentation is excellent!
I would love to own this piece. It's a beautiful object
One could still use those with a custom tank, even with a new separate valve to refill without taking it off the weapon. Hell, even a backpack battery powered air compressor*.
Love your videos! Thanks for making them. ^_^
Wow, I had no idea air guns existed since the 1500s. Thanks for teaching me something new and fascinating!
I remember finding out about this gun looking through Eyewitness books in middle school. It's so beautiful.
Could actually be used today with a modern hpa tank with a custom adapter.
Great video! Many people look down to air guns
I really wish there was a company that recreated these old air guns.
This guns got balls.
Literally
Particularly useful for dealing with those pesky powder mages.
Love these old guns, such style and workmanship.
I don’t get how people can dislike this... this guy is like the Bob Ross of guns
i NEVER knew air guns existed so long ago WOW
That would be one fancy paintball gun. Gotta love these odd developments.
It'd be pretty interesting to see someone roll up to their local woodsball field with an unrifled reproduction in .68 caliber.
(With the pressure dialed down, natch, probably supplied from a 12 gram CO2 cartridge in the stock.)
StarSpangled I mean, if you could find paintballs if the right caliber, that sounds like a really intriguing idea.
There are .43 and .50 call paintballs....but I would recommend shooting the First Strikes out of it ;)
haha more of oss paintballers enjoying this gun.
use it on the paintball field and its half way over on the other teams side just from the start.
@@ToastyMozart that would be great to see and it need a stock class magazine for rapide fire.
Qhen I was in my early teens, I read about Lewis & Clark having one of these. Very interesting and I wondered how they compressed air back then. It definitely kept me having an interest in air guns. An AirForce Airgun is definitely in the list. A lot of people underestimate airguns 🤷♂️.
Austrian soldiers were issued manual pumps which required 1500 strokes to fill a single reservoir on their Girardonis, of which they carried at least 2. This took about 20 minutes. The Austrian army also had carriage mounted pumps for refilling them.
Lewis and Clark likely had an Austrian style hand pump for theirs.
This is not only a miracle, but a GORGEOUS piece of artwork that reminds me of the most beautiful musical instruments ever crafted.
I was curious how the action worked on these. Very interesting.
How did they go about creating the air tight pressure seals without rubber? Copper? Leather? Some sort of fabric loaded with grease?
Greased leather or moistened cork gaskets was what I read they used. They had to periodically reapply the grease or wet the gaskets to keep a tight seal. One reason why in military usage they required well-trained soldiers to deploy and maintain.
@@kovona `They also used animal horn. It has just enough give to make a seal under pressure.
Very old air pumps had dished leather seals. 200+ year old water pumps had oak cylinders with leather compression rings. Without knowing definitely I'd therefore assume leather.
Frankly, air guns are a lot cooler than firearms in some ways, the inventiveness of designers comes out with all the different ways of pressuring air and then delivering that air to the chamber, different ways of delivering ammo to the chamber, and they have a big of a quirkiness to them being that they don't use a propellant.
The Girodonni air rifle was high tech in those days. On an expedition like Lewis and Clark they were very useful logistically and also a force multiplier. Saves gunpowder for the other weapons and rapid fire . I do not know who had the idea to bring those rifles, but it was a good idea. I am sure they pulled more than their weight.
Thank you have very interesting article!
After getting some bad news about my wifes health, new Forgotten Weapons videos are making my day better.
Gotta love educating yourself down the youtube rabbit hole to take your mind off of less pleasant things.
nc_classics_ Sorry to hear about that. Hope things look up for you and your missus. ='[.]'=
best wishes to you and your wife.
Thanks guys she just got dianosed with Breast Cancer and shes 3 months pregnant. Only 31 yo. Its frustrating to not be able to help, videos help me kinda occupy my mind.
nc_classics _ That's terrible to hear, I hope things improve. Stay strong, man. Know that you've got a ton of random gun/history buffs praying for and/or thinking of you guys!:)
Very nice
I enjoy your videos. Great job.
Stunning!!!!!Love vintage air guns !
The tank looks like the vacuum reservoir from an old Chevy.
Brummies make good guns
Very cool to see this review.
What an absolutely fascinating weapon. Very interesting engineering!
I own a 1897 GEM.177 break barrel.and it still goes ok.just look's a bit weird.(made in Germany)
I'd be amazed if you can actually get that many shots from a charge, I love my airguns but modern big bore ones at 50cal or above only get half a dozen shots max, and they have bigger reservoirs that are charged up to 4500psi. They're certainly interesting and have definite applications but shot count per charge falls off dramatically with bigger calibres.
Yeah i was thinking that too. A couple dozen is really optimistic. That might also be the total number of shots even if they werent usefully powerful though even that seems high. They were shooting at much lower velocity and probably less air per shot so that shot count would be higher than on the modern ones.
The giarardoni that Lewis and Clark carried could actually accept a reservoir pressure of up to 800 PSI with about a 200 pound man operating the pump. The disadvantage was that if you were a smaller bill you couldn't get pressure to be quite as high because of the pump used at the time. I am an airgun fanatic and hunt almost exclusively with air I love he's videos and would really love it if you could do more antique air gun videos because the history on them is not as easy to find out as it is on many firearms.the giarardoni is famous enough you can find info on it about the only one I know of and would love to learn more about Pritchard as well as any other old-fashioned PCP guns. I consider you to be a very knowledgeable source seeing as I know quite a bit about firearms in history myself I got to say when I need information on an old gun I look to your Channel keep up the good work!
It is amazing how far air guns have come in the last few years.
The Pritchard, pushing a 50 cal round ball (~177gr) at 575fps would develope around 130ft-lbs. A modern comercially available 50 cal air rifle specs pushing a 550gr slug at 760fps developing 705 ft-lbs!
I'd love to have a modern reproduction. Would go great with my flintlock collection.
"Air HARD"
Really interesting gun,love to have this one
Please do more videos about AirGuns.
There are air canes and many different types of air rifles & pistols from the 19th & 20th century that would fit in with the "forgotten weapons" theme.
silent but deadly
not quite.
Not so silent. You can compare it to slapping busting an air filled paper bag. They were strong enough to shatter a burnt clay brick at some distance. You could see them as a compromise between firearm and crossbow, just with a more favourable rate of fire at the expense of range.
my ass..
@@Nathan_H1gg3rz Juliet?
Now days they have 4500psi .50 cal with 700ft/lb energy. Even 1000ft/lb custom airguns that use helium.
Why helium?
Helium is lighter and reacts better when pressurized, so i can have more helium in a container rather than "air", increasing up time and power
dont quote me on that
Benjamin Nitro Express uses sealed nitrogen system. With Aluminum pellets between 1200 and 1400 fps.
@Tyler Graham
doesn't helium leak, much like hydrogen?
I live in the area around where Lewis and Clark set up a fort on the West Coast, and the local museum dedicated to their expedition actually has a Girardoni airgun on display.
Airguns have such a neat niche in history and even made their way into popular culture back in the day: in one of the Sherlock Holmes stories, one of Holmes' enemies, Col. Moran, tries to assassinate him with an airgun because it was quieter and wouldn't draw police attention to the shooter's location. Moran was able to kill a man from across a wide city street and almost got Holmes, although the detective fooled him with a bust statue set up by his window. Holmes was particularly nervous about this because even if the shot missed he wouldn't be able to figure out where the shot was fired from and probably wouldn't be able to get out of the way in time before airgun fired again.
In the late 90's Granada TV series on the books I believe they even depicted Moran using a Girandoni, specifically.
It has been rumored that the creator of Neuschwanstein was shot with one of these. Back then, they had a reputation of assassins weapons. The military used them for a brief time by something similar to snipers (especially by professional huntsmen). They weren't used for long range shooting but more for taking out multiple opponents in quick succession without waking up the entire village. Still, they are louder than crossbows.
A poachers gun.
SuperFunkmachine some use airrifles even today for that purpose
Some where in England a large man is salivating. (170 joules)
PS. About 125 foot-pounds.
Legends say he runs the airgun gear show
Wow, I'd love to have this. Lately I have been more into air rifles than actual firearms for some reason. It's just so cool that you can basically make a deadly BB gun.
Thanks ian, loved that
Looking at these old airguns ot makes you think if airguns will be the next step in firearm development. Our ancestors may have been centuries ahead.
Impractical as a weapon but a light-gas gun is essentially a superpowered air gun (although the actual energy source is a chemical propellant). Those have achieved a muzzle velocity of 8.5 km/s.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-gas_gun
they are overall under powered compared to smokeless powder firearms, and even black powder. An actual rifle is much much more powerful than a rifle utilizing air. However, during the extremely early 19th century, it would have boasted superior firepower because it would be easier to reload than most firearms at that time.
Yeah I definitely couldn't see anything like this on the battlefield, I could see something more along the lines of a modern fully automatic pellet rifle, of course far more engineered for modern combat.
The idea of a automatic pistol, the air triggered by a spining wheels that indexes (by some kind of gear or cam) and load each shot from a spring loaded tube magazine below.
As it's so simple im not sure why know ones built one?
(I'm not sure of how uk law would take it, is it sec 5 or an air rifle?)
@Not worth it
there's a lot more energy to be stored and released in a chemical reaction rather than via pressure. I think the next step of firearm development is using fission-based propellant, which should have even more energy-per-mass.
Waiting for the Girandoni's here...
Gun Jesus strikes again.
Yes! I would love to see Gun Jesus handling one of those.
mtgAzim Thanks for the link! =^[.]^=
what a wonderful channel!
always wanted one of those
At $4k-$6k ...I...I'll ... pass
Always wanted a reproduction one of those. ; )
Anand it’s spherical....SPHERICAL!
A Drake and Josh reference in a Forgotten Weapons episode..
Nice~ 😙
Looks like Homer Simpson's makeup gun. 😂
Wowww! unbelievable! such an advanced and environmentally friendly weapon from 18th century and even in 15th century.
This was interesting. Thanks!
Wonder if you could own one of these and shoot it in the UK without a licence? Like modern air rifles
RedFang you would be able to own it as an antique but if you wanted to shoot it then it would need to be below 12 ft lbs to use without a licence, more than that FAC required
RedFang Depends on where you live. In Scotland I believe you need a license to own and use an air gun.
THE FIRST AIRSOFT!
Nothing 'soft' about it.
Baconstine pffffffff abrutis c'est du second degré réfléchi
+Baconstine Well, lead is pretty soft. But it'll also kill you, there is still that difference. ;)
Airhard
Kyle Gilmore u idiot its a fking joke 2e degré
I have never seen one of these before. It's an interesting piece. I knew air guns had been around for centuries, but had no idea what to expect, in terms of design. I certainly didn't expect the shperical air tank, but it makes perfect sense for the era. I wonder if this was Tony Belas' first gun.
In Vienna's Heeres geschichtliches museum (army museum) they have an example of the pump used to charge the air resevoirs for the napoleonic austrian air rifles.
“Oi maek me oun lak.”
Those who are deeply ambivalent about this particular item could be said to be neither sphere nor there.
Ba dump. I shall see myself out.
I read about this in an old guns related magazine when I was in elementary. Odd that airguns were more accurate than guns of the era but it was a different time.
I friggin want one of these!!!