Old CW4
BANNED
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2006
- Messages
- 870
The link below will provide a video from the National Firearms Museum that is fascinating. The speaker claims the success of the Lewis and Clark expedition from 1803 to 1806 was primarily due to their having an Italian made air rifle! The rifle was 46 caliber and carried 22 balls in a tube beside the receiver. Reloading required merely a thumb press on a loading lever and the rifle could fire a ball every second or two through a rifled barrel. The balls would pierce a one inch pine board at 100 yards. Wow! And this was 200 plus years ago!
The rifle had a cast iron reservior in the stock which required 1500 strokes of a 'bicycle type' hand pump to take it up to its 800 psi capacity. It would then fire 40 balls before velocity began to drop. The same rifle was used in the late 1700s and early 1800s by Austrian army units. These units were much feared by opponents because their rifles were much more accurate than the usual smooth bore musket, fired relatively quietly and rapidly, and produced no smoke so hidden shooters were hard to locate. The URL is:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/451309/thread/1296928404/
This+is+just+to+cool+not+to+spread+around
Some smart gunmaker should resurrect these today, ought to be a hot seller.
The rifle had a cast iron reservior in the stock which required 1500 strokes of a 'bicycle type' hand pump to take it up to its 800 psi capacity. It would then fire 40 balls before velocity began to drop. The same rifle was used in the late 1700s and early 1800s by Austrian army units. These units were much feared by opponents because their rifles were much more accurate than the usual smooth bore musket, fired relatively quietly and rapidly, and produced no smoke so hidden shooters were hard to locate. The URL is:
http://www.network54.com/Forum/451309/thread/1296928404/
This+is+just+to+cool+not+to+spread+around
Some smart gunmaker should resurrect these today, ought to be a hot seller.
