GTA
General Discussion To Gateway To Airguns => Airgun Gate => : Magnum February 17, 2009, 04:46:17 AM
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I enjoyed looking at this and thought some of you may like this site on airguns!!
The oldest existing mechanical airgun apparently is a bellows gun, in the Livrustkammar Museum in Stockholm, which dates from about 1580.
http://www.bit1.com/history/history.html
And some really neat airgun catalogues here.
http://www.airgun1.com/listings/air_guns.html
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Great Link Tony !
I look forward to reading more when I have some time :)
Just full of information and history !
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Interesting, but the article goes on to claim that airguns were superior as hunting weapons to powder burners until the advent of smokeless and cartridge guns. I would like the author to compare a Brown Bess (12 gauge round ball) to one of those Austrian air guns at fifty yards, much less the ponderous four and two bore African big game muzzle loaders. (A four bore's ball or slug is a true "quarter pounder".)
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GREAT INFO TO EDUCATED OURSELFS.THER R TOPICS HERE FOR EVERYONE.
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The authordoes point out numerous advantages of air weapons over pyros, but didn't outright claim superiority,
"The old airguns offered numerous advantages for those early shooters who could afford them. Some could be fired many times per minute - a striking contrast to the front- feeding powder burners. Such rapid fire was further more practical with airguns because they did not obscure their own line of sight with clouds of smoke. And, although the oft-told tale of their silence is not true, they are quieter than firearms of equivalent power and their lack of smoke and flash did help to make it more difficult to spot the marksman's position. An especially appealing feature was the great dependability of the airguns. Other advantages included lack of residual sparks, faster shot time, more consistent power, and extremely light barrel fouling."
Pretty hard to argue with any of that. Brown Bess didn't always go off. There are lots of tests to prove it could hit a man reliably at 50 yds., but had a very poor chance at 100. In any case, the author makes the case that it was smokeless powder that obsoleted airas a tactical alternative, just assmokeless obsoleted black powder on the battlefield.
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Still not buying it. Any rifle of .45 or more in bore size was superior using black powder insofar as hitting power is concerned. I would like to see the comparisons of the very complicated air lock systems vs refined flintlocks and, finally, percussion locks, not to mention self-contained cartridges. Maybe an airgun used for small game would out shine a old firearm but it's a hard case to make. I'm also not so sure that dwell time was all that much less in an airgun. As said, those locks were complicated compared to a simple percussion setup. Maybe a martial air rifle compared to a Brown Bess could be argued superior but certainly not by the advent of firearms development during the Civil War. Try a 500 yard shot with an air rifle vs a 500 grain conical from a rifled musket.
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Somewhere after the Brown Bess and before the Civil War rifled barrels came into general use, didn't they?
Perhaps the air gun with its repeater ability and quick firing cycles made up for the so-so accuracy of the smoothbore guns. Then once rifled barrels were available the muzzle loaders came into their own? One shot-one kill and the cost a repeater that needed to be kept pumped up wasn't justifiable anymore?
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The information is out there! Not just this article, but there is plenty more on the web and in old fashioned print that pretty much goes along, in far greater detail, with what was printed there. Of course, we are all allowed to form an opinion, but one with some historical background is perhaps a better bet than a gut one!
Seriously, yes, airguns at one time were considered the superior weapon. Smokeless was just one reason that powder took over, a MAJOR one was the cost to build these by hand was sufficient to outfit a couple dozen soldiers with flintlocks. It was goverments or the rich who owned these toys. Keep in mind, a pocket watch back in the 1400 cost the equivalent of a small home since they were hand made, so was this!
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Air guns were much appreciated in the past, I have a "basement air rifle" used in the 16 and 1700 for basement plinking in germany, it however was kept in my grandfathers barn and needs some restoration, I also think it may have fired using a percusion cap but no one has ever been clear with this. See the link http://www.air-rifle.net/history/history.html whichis where part of the following came from. John
"The old airguns offered numerous advantages for those early shooters who could afford them. Some could be fired many times per minute - a striking contrast to the front- feeding powder burners. Such rapid fire was further more practical with airguns because they did not obscure their own line of sight with clouds of smoke. And, although the oft-told tale of their silence is not true, they are quieter than firearms of equivalent power and their lack of smoke and flash did help to make it more difficult to spot the marksman's position. An especially appealing feature was the great dependability of the airguns. Other advantages included lack of residual sparks, faster shot time, more consistent power, and extremely light barrel fouling.
The variety of early hunting airguns reflected the variety of hunting. One 18th century specimen in the Beeman collection is a solid .39" caliber carbine, only 40 inches long, perhaps intended for use in heavy brush or on horseback. Another, made by Hass in Neustadt, Germany about 1750, has a beautiful 33" shot barrel, about .33" caliber, which can be unscrewed and drawn out of the gun to reveal a very menacing .46" caliber barrel with seven extremely deep rifling grooves. In just moments, the owner of the gun could switch from doves to deer! One of the fine-cased English air rifles (made about 1850) in the author's collection was regularly used for deer hunting as recently as 1950. It fires a 265-grain, .44" caliber bullet!
Perhaps the most historically important American airgun of all was an air rifle carried by Captain Meriwether Lewis on the famous Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803-06. The most recent research (6) fairly conclusively indicates that this was a .31" caliber, flintlock-style, pneumatic rifle built by Isaiah Lukens in Philadelphia. It served Captain Lewis well, both for hunting and to astonish the Indians.
Certainly one of the most famous of the butt-reservoir guns was the Austrian military air rifle designed by Girandoni about 1779. Its buttstock also is a detachable air reservoir which could be quickly unscrewed when empty and replaced by a full one. Each reservoir held enough air to fire a series of 20 heavy lead balls fed from an ingenious rapid feed magazine. These formidable weapons could put out their 20 smokeless shots in a minute; it is reported that the .51" caliber (13mm) balls were deadly to 100 yards! A corps of 500 soldiers so armed had a potential firepower of 300,000 shots in a half-hour - incredible for military rifles of the late 1700's! During this same period, and for almost a century to follow, big bore airguns were extremely popular with the wealthy sportsmen of Europe. Among the ancient airguns in the Beeman collection are beautiful specimens of air carbines, about .45" caliber, apparently for boar hunting from horseback, long rifles for deer hunting, and especially beautiful English cased sets with richly engraved receivers and interchangeable rifle and shot barrels for mammals or waterfowl. The ultimate in mechanical airgun development was the fearsome air canes with their jewel-like internal locks. Evidently no well-dressed English gentleman of the late 1800's would be seen without one of these weapons-which ranged from almost .30" to .49" in caliber and had perhaps the power of a modern police revolver!
An interesting trans-Atlantic switch in airgun evolution occurred about the start of the 20th century. In America, the spring piston gun had developed to a fairly powerful and sophisticated level - especially in the form of expensive gallery guns popular after the Civil War (4). The pneumatics had reached a high level in Europe with the advent of the cased hunting sets, the air canes, and finally the first CO2 rifle - the handsome and elaborate Giffard. The introduction of the firearm cartridge and smokeless powder killed the development of airguns as powerful guns. No longer could airguns properly be considered as arms or weapons. The evolution of the pump pneumatics and CO2 guns largely left Europe and appeared here as youth-level, low-power, mass-production guns, while in Europe spring piston airguns became extremely sophisticated and accurate target and light hunting small-bore guns. Finally, in the 1970's the Beeman's blended American styling, increased power, and new features with the European developments and made the successful introduction of precision adult airguns and new pellet designs into the mainstream of the American shooting market (5). Now other companies have come into the precision adult airgun market, but the Beeman company's objective is to continue to earn your respect as that market's leader."
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Links would, seriously, be appreciated. Rifling was an 18th century invention. Rifled air guns which were contemporary with rifled firearms would have been no more accurate. Don't get me wrong, I like air guns. But the things stated in the original link were pretty broad. I'm not that familiar with period airguns but am with period firearms. Accurate, hard hitting rifles have been around a very long time.
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No offense meant, but there were no percussion caps in the 16th, 17th or 18th centuries. They were an invention of the early 19th. Any air gun employing powder or primer would be, by definition, a firearm.
I'm not saying folks didn't shoot deer with air guns. Just that even the .44, 265 bullet gun mentioned is not even in the same league, in terms of a hunting gun, with something like an 1830's .54 plains rifle. Many people equate modern calibers/game matches to black powder guns. .36 black powder guns were more or less squirrel rifles, .45's and .50's deer guns and .54's larger game. A .33 rifle, of any kind, would have been for rabbits and such. Even the .46 referred to was a bit on the small side. Muff pistols of the period often came in .50. Even the best new big bore airguns of today have a hard time keeping up with an equivalent bored muzzle loader.
While I will concede that an air gun was safer in terms of sparks, et cetera, I've also come across stories of air reservoirs rupturing and injuring users. Metallurgy being what it was, all guns had defects of one form or another.
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This article includes some accuracy testing ofan original"Brown Bess" on pages 3-4: http://www.rifleshootermag.com/featured_rifles/bess_092407/index.html (http://www.rifleshootermag.com/featured_rifles/bess_092407/index.html)
Here was a guy who shot a replica for accuracy, and killed a man-sized target every time at 25 yds. http://mvtco.blogspot.com/2007/10/brown-bess-accuaracy-experiment-phase-1.html (http://mvtco.blogspot.com/2007/10/brown-bess-accuaracy-experiment-phase-1.html)
His group was withina "dinner plate", though.
The air guns seemed to have mostly shot smaller bore, and thus lighter, rounds. The range in the article is .30 to .51, the latter being the military Girandoni. To be fair, Brown Bess was a .75 and most of the blackpowder muskets also used massive rounds. I think pneumatics of that (or any)day would have been challenged to create that kind of energy.
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Here is a link to a Wiky page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rifle
But just doing a Google search brings up like 4 million items. Yes, these are only the web options, but your local library should support other forms of research.
Here is a small blurb from the link
"Air guns represent the oldest pneumatic technology, having existed since the 15th century. At that time, they had compelling advantages over the primitive firearms of the day. For example, air guns could be fired in wet weather and rain (unlike matchlock muskets) and with greater rapidity than muzzle-loading guns. Moreover, they were quieter than a firearm of similar caliber, had no muzzle flash, and were completely smokeless, thus not disclosing the shooter's position. Black powder muskets of the 18th and 19th century produced huge volumes of dense smoke when fired, a disadvantage compared to air rifles.
At the time, airguns posed a serious alternative to powder weapons. Although much more expensive, they were generally far superior. Robust air reservoirs had evolved with increasing technology, thereby improving the charge capacity while minimizing any possibility of bursting. Similarly, improvements in valve designs began to create well-sealed chambers."
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Here is another link and quick blurb from it, kinda funny blurb:
http://www.airguns-online.co.uk/air_rifle.htm
"towards the end of the eighteenth century the Austrian army equipped one of their regiments with .44 calibre repeating air rifles. It appears that these weapons were so effective, notably against Napoleans army, that the Catholic church, amongst others, condemned them as ‘tools of the devil’ and captured Austrian servicemen caught in possession of an air rifle were generally dispatched at short notice as assasins."
Tools of the Devil...humm, sounds like they had a little more concern over these then those noisy powderburners!.
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Interesting links there daveshoot, Thanks.
I did not know that the brown bess was originally Black!
I'm not 100% sure but I understood the .690 balls/undersize were done so that in battle you could keep loading and firing with out having to clean barrel so much. Also so you did not have to stand up and load LOL.
It would be interesting to test the accurcy of larger dia balls, to see if any variation from the undersized and. If I can con my brotherinlaw into helping me out with his smooth bore, I may add this to my list of "things to do in the spring time" :D
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OK, OK, I'll yield! :D
Although I have seen somewhere the bit about soldiers being executed is largely myth.
Brown Bess was so named because the metal was browned.
While sub-caliber rounds were used for more shots due to fouling, the average soldier equipped with a Brown Bess was lucky to get off two rounds before employing his bayonette, that being the standard miiltary strategy of the day.
I have heard of soldiers proficient enough to reload a musket while prone, these being the legendary Algerian French origiinal "Zouave" units, but that was a bit later.
Black powder guns lobbed large chunks of lead because, like air guns, their velocity was low. The advent of high pressure smokeless powder ushered in the lighter, high speed bullet.
And, once those multi-shot Austrian guns ran out of air, it took something like several thousand pumps to refill them. Supposedly spare reservoirs were hooked to pumping mechanisms attached to wagon wheels so they could be recharged while on the move. (PCP owners - Do Not try this with your scuba tanks and pickups!)