Girandoni Air Gun (original 1780 example) 

+Skullminersgaming lol.

And he loss his majestic beard.

Gun Jesus will rise again.

Is this Gun Jesus' father? Does that make him Gun God?

It was all that pumping.

In fact, Lewis and Clark used this specific model of airgun.

+Forgotten Weapons I saw it on display at the Bass Pro gun museum in Springfield, MO a few years ago.

With technology that advanced during that time, that would be like someone today showing off their one of a kind plasma rifle

They took only one sample, according to their journals.

@@toddlofton8307 and had to do field repair to boot

Good point about boarding guns. Still, military minds then were quite stubborn and traditional. Also I'd like to see that horse drawn charging station, because, 1500 pumps? Sheesh.

Prussians got it down to 4 rounds a minute...That small difference along with Superior drill,and discipline helped Prussia(a secondary power) hold off the 3 great powers of europe(France,Austria, and Russia) along with Sweden, Saxony, and other various pro Austrian german states, for 7 years

Also...these Air rifles only worked well for Jeagars,light infantry, snipers and skirmishers because after your out of reseviours, your done...so it's out of the question for Line infantry who need to provide sustained fire...also these air rifles were atrociously overly complicated and unreliable, expensive and mass producability was out of the question

The point of the weapon was to kill, not disable

in the uk you can only have up to 12 ft lbs without a licence , and they don't come easy !

Parks Parks This one is a replica unfortunately.

Odysseus Only the air reservoir is, the rest is original as it says in the title.

Parks Parks I'm 240 Years Old And I'm In Better Shape

Parks Parks He's only in his sixties - give the guy a break.

Ian Macfarlane I chuckled at that one.

@Matrox One you missed the Saturday night live reference

You know why their here.

@@linkmasterspitz which one?

Shrapnel82 Comment of the decade right here

Shrapnel82

Indeed. I wonder how old many of our 'new' ideas really are.

@@Perktube1 Fin stabilized discarding sabots (the modern tank rounds for killing tanks) were invented in the medieval era. Handgonnes, a small cannon mounted on a stick, could not propel round shot at high enough speeds to punch through the armor of knights, so someone in central Europe got the idea to take crossbow bolts, put metal fetching on them, then wrap them in a leather cylinder that would fall off once the bolt left the barrel of the handgonne. Made it so that handgonners could punch through knight armor with ease. Really is scary shit how some old ideas become new again.

Fine example of how when Democrats say that they only had muskets when the 2nd amendment was written, that they're full of shit.

nah were just retarded willfully

@@gravygraves5112 I second that. I remember reading about Richard Gatling and how he continued to experiment with his rotary guns (which was weirdly enough based on an agricultural invention) in the years after the Civil War. Even during the War, it was possible for a well-trained crew to achieve rates of fire close to 1000 rounds per minutes. If I remember correctly, sometime around the 1890's he got a hold of an electric motor and was able to get the rate of fire of his rotary gun close to 3000 rounds per minute. Fast forward a hundred years later and here we are still using his design.

gewerh44 "The flintlock muzzle loading rifles of that time were just inaccurate to say the least" I think you meant to say "muskets." Flintlock rifles were/are quite accurate.

Maynard Krebs Thanks, I didnt notice that. Youre right. I meant muskets. Most armies used mainly these smooth bore firearms for their line infantry. Innaccurate soldiers if they shoot alone, one of the reasons for the necessity to shoot all together at the same time to maximize damage on the enemy line.

gewerh44 I remember one contemporary observer saying something to the effect that a man was indeed unfortunate who was struck by a musket ball at 100 yards. :)

gewerh44 I don't believe that about the muskets. I remember seeing some Australian re-enactors testing the accuracy of the Brown Bess at 90m on an area taget of 2x6m (about the size of the front rank of a French marching column). of 20 shots fired, 18 hit. On a smaller round target about 2x man size, 8 shots hit out of 10 (though they were resting the musket on some hay bales for that). Accuracy's not great, but the 5% hit rate thing is an exaggeration. The biggest problem with muskets was the slow rate of fire, especially as formations tended to be quite dense, accuracy was not such a great issue anyway. Rate of fire was key.

Infantry line standing up, as they would normally fight, used to hit an average of 5 hits out of 100 soldiers on a man sized target at 100 meters. I didnt invent that. I did read that and a lot of other interesting stuff on a Napoleonic wars infantry tactics website. Most info there was taken from books, letters, manuals from that era. Plus I should have said this sad accuracy data belongs to regular soldiers on the heat of battle, not the Black Watch or the Foot Guards, nor re enactors shooting from rested position.

There are modern big bore airguns that can surpass the performance of the Girandoni rifles. Look up airguns made by Dennis Quackenbush for some examples.

StoneSlinger But I would still like to have a working replica of this rifle, mostly for collecting purposes.

pcblah Someone hand made a small number of these a decade or so ago. I saw one at a gun show. I think price was $3500. Trivia: Austrian soldiers would charge reservoirs in cool early morning. When sun heated them up some would reportedly burst from resultant excess pressure of warmed air.

diasirea Holy crap... (at the price and the explosions)

"The rich, they're not like you or I, old sport," Jay Gatsby.

+Clyde Wary Wow, never knew that. The more you know..

I can certianly see the advantage for trained troops operating in an insurgency role. Maintenence is the only really issue. Would be great for skirmishing against superior forces. Cavalry would also be a concern for light, skirmishing troops, but that isn't an issue with the rifle. Against occupying troops, this would be incredibly frustrating and dangerous, so I can see why the order could be given.

I think it was because the confused French troops became angry at not finding any enemy to surrender to.

@@netpackrat Congratulations my friend! It just took you 19 words to appear as an ignorant, an idiot and a crappy comedian for making this old rotten overused joke. Bravo!

@@drenek1 go eat a baguette Muhammad

Zdem0Z Complexity and cost were certainly factors, as was convincing military officers to adopt radically new technology.

Forgotten Weapons also some of the designs were unpractical, destroying the purpose of a repeating chamber. A few models were also too heavy or rendered useless from battlefield conditions.

+Zdem0Z The Austrian army used it with a few of their forces. However, these were really expensive to make. For the same cost it was far easier to make well over a dozen muskets to arm a larger amount of troops.

+Zdem0Z In addition to other issues of practicality such as complexity, cost, training, and probably maintenance, reliability, logistics, and fragility, what I never see people mention is that it isn't nearly as powerful as firearms typically used in warfare, then or now. Its projectiles have enough momentum and energy to penetrate flesh and kill, to be sure, but only minimally so by some estimates, including the one given here--comparable in some ways to anything from a .22 Short to a .38 Special, depending on which estimate you believe. I sure wouldn't want to get shot with one, and I realize that sometimes too much is made of the power of guns, but the difference in effectiveness I'm talking about here is pretty big and might have been a significant factor. The Girardoni air rifle is a fascinating piece of technology for that era and the fact that it was adopted for military use shows how compelling its advantages were, but ultimately there were probably several reasons militaries chose to stick with firearms, despite how primitive they were at the time. It wasn't just because they were hidebound, either, because the army that tried them ended up phasing them out eventually.

+BRAVO THREE NINE SIX EIGHT My understanding is that for example the Brown Bess musket of the period achieved a muzzle velocity of about 800-1000 fps (depending on who you ask) with a 0.69 caliber ball weighing approximately 500 grains (I don't have any data for the Augustin rifled musket used by the Austrians at the time)--that's a projectile weighing over 3X more traveling at 2X the velocity, which means it has over 6X the momentum and over 12X (actually over 13X) the kinetic energy of a projectile shot from the Girardoni. Here are a few online sources, for what they're worth: allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/the-inaccuracy-of-muskets/ www.rifleshootermag.com/rifles/featured_rifles_bess_092407/ books.google.com/books?id=G6tHHK32bLIC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=brown+bess+fps&source=bl&ots=fZv5xVOlsF&sig=rGzmwqgdNc6PDH4JccRcyieY8PU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjG18bp0aTJAhWJPCYKHet8CMIQ6AEIZzAJ#v=onepage&q=brown%20bess%20fps&f=false I think you're right about the Girardoni being ahead of its time in terms of manufacturing and materials technology. Leather seals at such pressures were probably neither durable nor reliable enough to make these air rifles more practical than firearms over time, even before the advent of metallic cartridges and repeating firearms. It's still a marvel, though, and I'm not trying to take anything away from it--this is just to understand why it didn't supersede firearms when the latter were still so crude, since the reasons aren't always obvious. I'm no expert, either, but I think we can all appreciate how the real world and pragmatic, hard use can give different results than when using something under ideal conditions. And my point here is that in addition it probably wasn't as effective per shot, either--still effective, but a clear notch below the firearms of its time, and this, too, was a product of practicality (or rather the lack thereof).

hockeywarrior I think that was part of the problem, the degree of craftsmanship needed to properly build one of these is so high.

@@jimstenlund6017 So, in a way, it's kind of an idea that came a little too soon for its own good. Half a century later and this thing would've have been a a real beast

The totally insane part is that modifying this for semi and full auto would be simpler than the gun as it is. yes you need power to reload, an gas port might work optional an small extra air chamber who is filled on firing and then load an new round and cock it. You would need an spring in the magazine. the most complex part would probably be to make sure you get an bullet in the breach before it returns, you might have to redesign it. Would it still work well with an carbine length barrel? Would think so on short ranges, Larger air tank and magazine and you have an real and portable machine gun. Yes it would be as powerful as an rather weak machine pistol but it would be 150 year until you got something as good.

@PWS354 I believe the majority of the Austrian army carried these from 1780 to 1788. Sice Austria was one of the 3 or 4 dominant armies in Europe at the time, that was no small army!

@@davidjones8942 No. That was not produced in such large numbers. Across the lifespan of the system, only 1500+ were made. The biggest difference on the battlefield in terms of scale was the repeating speed. With only 100 pieces of those within a few minutes, you could lay down 1-2k of the enemy soldiers.

@@davidjones8942 from what I have read they carried it (in small numbers) upto 1815.

So this was used to demonstrate that when the 2nd Amendment was passed, people already knew of "HiGh CaPaCiTy AsSaUlT wEaPoNs" and actively used them?

So a good guy win a gun kept potential threats at bay simply by having it. Love it.

Reminds me of the story of the British in Africa showing off a Maxim machine gun to the local chief. He apparently later committed suicide in despair.

only around 1500 were made.

it was used as a sniper rifle up to 120 yards.. amazing back then since scopes werent invented yet

Yep, leather seals. The article I linked to in the description has some excellent photos of the internal components.

Forgotten Weapons I thought the tank was sealed using horn for the valve? There's a takedown somewhere on the net and it showed a brass coil spring driving a horn plug, reason being that horn was the only maleable but pressure resistant product they could find that would create sufficient seal without blowing out. I'll have to check out the article! Thanks for posting this!

leather has been a part of several 'high tech' developments, such as this and in the amasing Atmospheric railways in England, they ran minus locomotives, the power being produced by steam powered vacuum pumps every few miles, the carriages were pulled along by being linked to a chain attached to a 'bullet which was forced along an open topped tube, speeds were well in excess of sixty mph, it was a complex system but worked suprisingly well, but ailed due to the greased leather flaps which closed the atmospheric tubes being very tasty... rats ate them... leather very environmental :D

www.beemans.net/Austrian%20airguns.htm Pretty impressive for 1780 !!! ... 750psi via a hand pump is amazing .. and the riveted and brazed air tank, yikes .. every rifle must have shipped with brass balls, lol !!

@@KrustyKlown Well, if you heat the entire pressure cylinder without the valve up to brazing temps and dunk it into molten brass, it's quite airtight when new. Not so much after 200 years, though! The valve seals are leather, so wear out pretty quickly, but that's an easy repair. The lockwork inside is very complex, which is the major downside to the Girandoni design. Modern precharged pneumatic airguns can get .45ACP performance, 200gr slugs at ~750fps, nothing to sneer at!

I don't mean to be "that guy" but can we please show a little respect for the indigenous peoples of north America? They weren't indians, and to refer to them as such is downright offensive and insensitive. The proper terminology for them is "ingins"

+MKRocker94 20 fucking minutes

+MKRocker94 In service each Jager company would be supplied by carriages which carried hundreds of cylinders and came equipped with mechanical pumps for refilling depleted ones. These would be run forward to the firing line by men detailed for this purpose, who would then take empty ones back to be refilled. The manual pump was more for "topping up" partially emptied cylinders during breaks in the fighting.

.gnithgif eht ni skaerb gnirud srednilyc deitpme yllaitrap "pu gnippot" rof erom saw pmup launam ehT .dellifer eb ot kcab seno ytpme ekat nehtdluow ohw ,esoprup siht rof deliated nem yb enil gnirif eht ot drawrof nur eb dluow esehT .seno detelped gnillifer rof spmup lacinahcem htiw deppiuqe emac dna srednilyc fo sderdnuh deirrac hcihw segairrac yb deilppus eb dluow ynapmoc regaJ hcae ecivres ni 49rekcoRKM+

+MKRocker94 Sounds like a regular night with the ol' bottle of lube for me

+JamesPolymer How did the mechanical pumps work, given that it was the 1780's?

And it might work well for an ambush, too, but it requires intensive training and hand picked soldiers with the necessary aptitude for maintaining a delicate system, especially before they invented the air pressure gauge.

@ihatetacos theresa6616 - Thank you for you kind remarks. Re: "...wouldnt you think obvious that they would have invented a gauge earlier ?" No, I wouldn't think that. They invented the air rifle long before the air pressure gauge. The way in which they pumped up these old air rifles, is much like they do today, by counting the number of pumps. The compressed air tanks on these rifles were rather big, and could be damaged by over pumping. In modern day air compressors, air tanks come with an air pressure gauges. These old rifles had a rather large air tank on them to hold enough pressure to be repeaters. The large air tanks on these repeaters, and the leather seals they used in the system could be damaged by too high of air pressure. So, over pumping this rifle would put it out of service. The problem is that in a combat situation, counting the number of pumps is problematic, and it would be better to have an air pressure gauge, which didn't happen for at least 2 reasons. No. 1 - The air pressure gauge had not yet been invented, so the answer to your question "...wouldn't you think obvious...", is "No". No. 2 - By the time they invented air pressure gauges, the steel and seals on air rifles had improved. And they do not, as far as I know, make repeating air rifles, probably because they don't want a large air tank and the necessary air gauge if they did have a large air tank. Also, you'll understand that no military ever adopted an air rifle for the reason that they were delicate and could be easily damaged by over inflating, and it is a slow process to pump up an air rifle, and noisy. Also, these early air rifles had a rather large air tank to provide enough pressure to be a repeater. Today, the air rifles that use the pump system are single shot rifles, and you have to pump it up for each shot. Air storage is done in much thicker steel, and so the seals would blow out before the compression storage tube would. In modern air rifles, the storage of compressed air is done in a robust steel tube.

@@mu99ins They wouldn't necessarily have to have invented gauges - a springloaded overpressure valve might have been enough. Admittedly a tight enough fit, consistent preloading and the inclusion into the design without creating another point of failure would have been challenging. I mean some of these issues could have been lessened by adding the valves to the pump, not the pressure tank itself. Fewer valves needed in total, no problems with long-term leakage.

Those cars with big pump also carried already filled air tanks in the first place. Since one such tank lasted for 30 consistent powerful (125 y kill range) shots, the big pump started to work only when air tanks went off and the battle was still on.

HISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsssssssssssssss.... Or just BOOM with bits of whatever those things are made of

+Artyom Zaytsev probly something like whomp noise. similar to shooting a large hole in a propane tank or some other pressurized tank.... and no they light very easier before you ask.

+Artyom Zaytsev From what I have heard they were made of rolled pieces of iron sheet layered together to make almost a composite. So yeah, great shrapnel. Like he said in the video, the original canisters are simply too dangerous. Even the factory rejected a large number after initial testing.

"Fredrick! Stop farting!" "Damn it Francis! I'm not farting!"

Ever see a powder horn get hit?

Patrick S Over 100 years to change those medal racks' minds to how awesome this monster is.

While institutional inertia was no doubt a contributing factor (and often is for many military arms procurement decisions), there were viable logistical reasons to not make this rifle standard-issue.

@@SaftonYT Like money but that is short term thinking the benefits of winning wars land and resources at lower cost would have paid for them a million times over.

@@Barskor1 Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps the various issues the gun had in terms of logistics would have broken the proverbial bank.

@@Barskor1 It wouldn't have won any wars. Logistics and economics win wars. The air rifles were very expensive, hard to maintain, complicated to use, and broke easily. You could have hundreds of sturdy, simple and reliable muskets for the same price. It is exactly the same situation as with the Panther and Tiger tanks in WWII: they were very good machines, but the allies had 10x more tanks which were cheaper and more efficient.

Hate to burst your bubble, this holds 21/22 rounds at most (depending on either caliber or (more likely) sources), and most high capacity mags being targeted hold 30+ rounds. That said, 10 rounds are what these laws aim to regulate capacity to, and I agree that it’s stupid. Probably another thing this would shoot down are suppressor bans, since this is shooting a subsonic projectile that’s still plenty lethal with no supersonic ‘bang’ of gunpowder, meaning it’s probably just as quiet, if not quieter, than most integrally suppressed weapons.

How was it in service for 10 years then? And used by snipers?

I read that excerpt from the book, the shot just grazed her which is why she lived, but it took a good bit of skin with it, nothing life threatening though.

Dion Morse

it seems that as usual, generals and supply sources have always been guilty of fighting the last war, over and over. But we know now that wars are constantly evolving and with the level of communication which our confrontation adversaries also have a battle field tactic can change in an almost fluid way.

Must be 40 Feinsteins out there.

I know I'd sure as hell get a workout! XD

gee guys, it's only 20 min.

with the pumps we got now I would say at least less then half that

I've got a modern .357 air rifle with a modern two stage hand pump, and it takes about the same amount of strokes to get up to pressure. I'm usually puffing and sweating by the time I get done charging the damn thing, though my gun charges to 3000 psi instead of 800 so there is a bit more force involved, though I'm not sure of that since those old pumps were only single stage. Either way you are correct, it's a hell of a workout. I bought a 300 bar carbon fiber tank and a Yong Heng air compressor after only a few manual tank charges, screw that noise lol. I can refill my gun in about 10 seconds around thirty times with the air tank now heh. You'd get strong in a hurry if you had to pump these things regularly and that's a fact, it takes over half your weight to push the pump down near the end of the fill, you really feel it in your abs, arms, shoulders and thighs.

Fighting trim baby!

+SavageShooter93 Makes sence, only thing needed is lead to melt, since gunpowder is no longer an issue, saves weight on the expedition.

There are a few handmade reproductions made, but nothing available for commercial sale.

Forgotten Weapons oh ok. thank you.

+Forgotten Weapons That's a crying shame

You're better off just buying a modern air rifle.

Maybe he just wants the experience of an old fashioned air gun, and isn't concerned with which is better.

Then Napoleon would have executed them all because to the French the use of air rifle was a war crime. Those captured with one were treated as assassins.

I don't think Napoleon would have won against the Austrian Army if they were all armed with these rifles because of the rate of fire that they would put out.

He would have. Austria could only have fielded a minuscule army, as these weapons were very expensive and difficult to use, make, maintain and repair. Napoleon's army would have been some 200 times bigger than Austrias army, and wielding this weapon doesn't make one bulletproof. Besides, loading this guns pressure tank requires bulky and fragile equipment that an army consisting of only these soldiers couldn't possibly have carried with them.

Potentially quite lethal, especially considering the medical technology of the time.

NormanMatchem As I wrote in the video description, 153gr at about 400 fps.

Forgotten Weapons Oh, crap, sorry. Also, wow, that's not exactly what I was expecting. Sure it's powered by air and not gunpowder, but still... that's basically half the velocity of 9mm while using a similarly heavy bullet. How would someone manage to reach 100m? Let alone 'sniper' distances. It's got speed going for it, that's for sure, and I'm not doubting its potential lethality... but as far as accuracy goes... Rifled or not, it's REALLY hard to imagine such a slow-moving bullet managing any kind of distance. What would it be going at 200m, 200 ft/s? lol

NormanMatchem From a "sniper" standpoint, muzzle flash and report factor in just as much as distance. A well-concealed soldier armed with one of these would be much harder to spot when you're expecting a flash and a cloud of smoke, I would think. Forgotten Weapons ... thoughts?

n1ztb None the less, there were rifled muskets by 1780. Not in widespread use mind you, but they were around. Those would be FAR more effective at 'sniping'. As I said, 153gr at about 400 ft/s is tremendously weak. You'd have a hard time even reaching 100m, which means it'd probably be not much more accurate than your average smoothbore musket. Meaning it probably shouldn't even be in the same room as the words 'snipe' or 'sniper'.

The Democratic party didn't exist back then so it was ok

But he's right, it negates that argument completely.

JonasFeyhart I am perfectly happy with a bank robber using this gun, while he's getting his bike pump out and taking 20mins to reload the bloody thing the cops can come and arrest him. It's so obvious that there a difference between this and a AK-47 so don't be silly. Also, I very much doubt that your ordinary minuteman could have afforded one of these. So I highly doubt Washington was planning to fend off British invasions with these guns (something that doesn't much these day either).

Fa Kenews Its funny that after creating these armed miltias to prevent overeaching governments they then used these miltias to put down rebellions. But anyway, what are you saying? The goverments should allow people to own an age of sail Frigate? Or that school shooters are going to attack school with frigates? They would have get a couple of hundred sailors to crew it and only attack coastal schools. But yes there were grenades and cannons in the 18th century whats your point? Does that change the that its possible to amend the constuition? Out of date laws get repeales all the time. You changed the one about having slaves and the founding fathers wouldn't have liked that. I suppose if all else fails use that 2nd amendment for its purpose and rebell against the government if they try and take your guns.

Any self-proclaimed "militia" that tried to take on the US armed forces in _any_ capacity would be swiftly transformed into a bloody smear on the ground. Numbers, training, and support weapons like mortars do more for a unit's fighting ability than anything ArmaLite (or any other company in the business of self-loading rifles) could ever produce--thus rendering the Second Amendment's stated purpose utterly redundant in the modern world. The Constitution is a legal document, not a piece of religious scripture. It was made to be amended as circumstances change. At any rate, gun control advocates are pushing for restriction of _self-loaders_ , not repeaters. You don't see many school shooters with Mosin-Nagants or Krag-Jørgensens these days.

Jonathan Hughes And all service men would just fall in line like sheep dogs that lack any autonomy. There will be defectors. Not to mention the PR nightmare it will be when they bomb their own civilians. The entire countries moral was destroyed after Vietnam because of that and they were just coming off of a WW2 victory that allowed them to be the number 1 super power in the world. Those were people all the way across the world and you think that effect wouldn't be multiplied tenfold when it's being done to their own citizens? You also have to consider that farm land and energy would be in complete control of the rebels. Cities are mostly just consumers and they'll fall when they can't get food and oil. The toppling of just one of those cities would be a logistics nightmare. Then there's the fact that there's a lot of countries that could benefit from a rebellion in the US to disrupt it's power. Russia for one. They'd establish a proxy war in the US and provide weapons and help organize militias. You're absolutely ignorant if you think a rebellion wouldn't at least cripple the US greatly which is more than enough deterrent to keep them from infringing on our rights. They said the same shit about the British and look what happened. They were spread too thin and a bunch of farmers managed to run them off. Same situation currently. What makes the US so powerful is the fact that it's core is so safe and that any external conflict would have to be almost entirely done by sea which isn't great. An internal conflict is much different. The citizens control all the resources of the country. And the asshole that said something along the lines of "your minutemen couldn't afford such a rifle at the time" well no shit but it shows that the FF knew that weapons innovation was a thing and that there would be improvement. They themselves were also fanboys of such rifles and wanted to implement them into the army but simply couldn't afford it. It's a completely moronic stance to think that they only wanted the citizens to have muskets and nothing more even tho they allowed them to carry the most powerful weapons known to man at the time.

Except it's not classified as a firearm.