Posted on 01/27/2013 1:35:54 PM PST by EXCH54FE
Behold the Girandoni air rifle, a 20 round high capacity tubular magazine and air reservoir which fired at roughly the same velocity as a modern .45 ACP. It can punch straight through a 2x4 at 100 yards.
Invented by Tyrollean Bartholomaus Girandoni around 1779, this revolutionary rifle is four feet long and weighs a manly 10 pounds. It's semi-automatic rate of fire and, for the period, its immense firepower reserve made it a fearsome thing to contemplate in battle. No appreciable bang, no smoke and at least 20 rounds before its punch began to diminish.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
There’s a lesson here for Congress, especially the Left and most certainly the current Administration. Take away our guns and we will invent things more lethal, more usable, and more readily at hand than mere gunpowder weapons. Force our hand and you will ignite the illimitable reservoirs of creativity we possess in reserve. Bring your heavy boots to bear on our Unalienable Rights to keep and bear arms and we will prevail simply by virtue of need overcoming tyranny.
MOLON LABE
rules!
I own guns that old but never heard of that one
That should read "...when single shot flintlock..."
The percussion cap was invented in the early 19th Century; there were no caplock rifles in the 1700s and Lewis and Clark carried flintlocks too.
Take a high end paintball gun and replace the paintball pellets with ball bearings and you have a pretty wicked close range weapon, wherein after the battle you can recover most of your rounds.
I think there is one of these in the Henry Ford Museum. (Not sure, as it was over 45 years ago since I was there.)
Another lesson was that Lewis and Clark were able to secure peaceful passage by demonstrating superior firepower.
and if a paint gun is not handy, the battery powered nailer machine can do a job at close range at the bad guy’s face.
Forcing the Germans to keep any weapons they invented below 90 mm in diameter after WWI sure worked out well.
You are correct. The percussion cap was developed in 1805. The Lewis and Clark expedition started in 1804.
Also, if surgery removed both thumbs, dangerous weapons couldn't be picked up and used very well. Free surgery for thumbs removed.
The Girondani rifle was expensive beyond what any militia member could have afforded and technically very tricky for its time and could not have been maintained by people living outside of urban areas. Given that, it was a more potent weapon than anything prior to the Henry rifles.
You can buy a fully automatic air machine gun off the shelf today. 9mm bullets and I think .45.
And don’t forget all the anti-2nd gun grabbers who argue that our founders couldn’t have conceived of rapid fire weapons at that time. I once read that Jefferson was well aware of this weapon.
The Vicker was a fowler.
The invention that made the percussion cap possible using the recently discovered fulminates was patented by the Rev. Alexander John Forsyth of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland in 1807.
wiki
This would be fun:
http://www.buffaloarms.com/Products.aspx?CAT=4608
Seems I remember reading that the Brits would
execute any Americans caught with this weapon
Thought it was an unsportsman weapon I guess
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