Girandoni Air rifle......Lewis + Clark
- Thread starter mbogo3
- Start date
Wild hogs and deer are hunted in the US with PCP's like the .50 Career Dragon shooting a .490 ball or short conical pellet....... I have a old Guns + Ammo that shows the airgun that Professor Moriarty tried to shoot Sherlock Holmes with across a busy London street from an adjoining window.It used .38 caliber projectiles.................Harold
I read the book not long ago... and wondered why Lewis always displayed the air rifle?... now I know.
Not once did I see mention of its power or multiple shot capability... in fact I wondered why he even brought a bb gun, and never thought to take note of its deception.. Cool move on Clarks part.
Not once did I see mention of its power or multiple shot capability... in fact I wondered why he even brought a bb gun, and never thought to take note of its deception.. Cool move on Clarks part.
Imagine how terrified Napoleon's troops were with the Austrians picking them off and not knowing were it was coming from.No BP cloud to give away the position of the shooters.........I read somewhere any enemy soldier caught with one was shot.........Harold
I sent the link to my cousin in Germany. Here is his response to me: "I have seen one of these, years ago in the museum in the "Erbach Castle", they called them "Windbuechse". I was wondering at that time already why this did not catch on more, because they were much superior to the flint lock rifles they had at that time. They told us on the tour it was against their code of conduct to use anything like this in that time period and it was considered a malicious weapon and anybody caught using one, was executed."
I read the book not long ago... and wondered why Lewis always displayed the air rifle?... now I know.
Not once did I see mention of its power or multiple shot capability... in fact I wondered why he even brought a bb gun, and never thought to take note of its deception.. Cool move on Clarks part.
After seeing the good Doctor proclaim that he had "THE" L&C airgun a couple times already, I'll repeat what I said before. I think the claim is pretty thin.
The Girandoni is a heck of a piece of work, without the need for it to have been associated with L&C, and I find the American's need to deify and recreate personalities from their history a little funny.
Yeah. I think if there was any multi-shot ability, it would have been notable enough to have been mentioned probably a lot, in the diaries, even if the actual capability was held back a bit from the natives. After all, it would be pretty reasonable to expect that the natives would not have read the diaries.
Same with any 'post-expedition' mentions, like the auction listing that gets mentioned. I figure it would be about on par with coming up with a high tech, modern weapon system like, say, the US' "Punisher" 25mm system, at the hunt camp. It would be far enough out of the normal realm, that folks would be pretty clear on their recollections.
From the reading I have done, the Girandoni was a fairly delicate system to keep maintained in the field as a military weapon goes. They were very expensive, too. I recall reading that there never has been any evidence of a order to execute the bearers of the Air Arms, but that too makes a good story.
Sometimes the story is as important as the facts, eh. Except when you are looking for facts, anyways.
Cheers
Trev
Crossbows at one time were painted with the same brush.But OK to use on heathens .................the German's also threatened to shoot any Americans using a Win 97 shotgun /trenchbroom during WWI but feared reprisals so never carried it out .Harold
