Girardoni air rifle
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| Girardoni air rifle | |
|---|---|
 Girardoni system Austrian repeating air rifle, circa 1795, believed to have been taken on the Lewis and Clark Expedition | |
| Type | Air rifle |
| Place of origin |  Holy Roman Empire |
| Service history | |
| In service | 1780–1816 |
| Used by | Austrian Empire United States |
| Wars | |
| Production history | |
| Designer | Bartolomeo Girardoni |
| Designed | 1779 or 1780 |
| No. built | 1,300 |
| Specifications | |
| Mass | 4.5 kg (9.9 lb) |
| Length | 120 cm (3.9 ft) |
| Cartridge | spherical balls |
| Caliber | .46", 11.7 mm 146.3 grains (9.48 g), or .51", 13 mm, 201.49 grains (13.06 g) |
| Action | Pre-charged pneumatic: Pressurized air ~800 psi (5515.8 kpa) |
| Muzzle velocity | about 600 fps (152 m/s), 117 ft lbs (159 J) |
| Feed system | 20/22 shot tubular magazine |
| Sights | Iron |
The Girardoni (or Girandoni) air rifle, one of the first repeating rifles, was designed by Ladin artisan watchmaker and gunsmith Bartolomeo Girardoni in Austria circa 1779. Girandoni made both customary flintlocks and the innovative air guns, called Windbüchse ("wind rifle" in German). One of the air rifle's more famous associations is its use on the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore and map the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.
Biography
[edit]Bartolomeo Girardoni was born 30 May 1744 in Cortina d’Ampezzo, a town populated by Ladins that was part of the County of Tyrol and Austria until after World War I.
In early 1779, Austrian Field Marshal Franz Moritz von Lacy became aware of Girardoni's repeating rifle and wrote a positive report to Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. After some tests, Lacy proposed that he should make 1000 flintlock rifles and 500 air guns, to be delivered to Wenzel Joseph von Colloredo. In December 1779, accompanied by his family, his assistant Franz Colli and two workers, Girardoni moved to Penzing near Vienna. Having lost his left hand in a gun accident, he made himself an Iron hand prosthesis. In his spare time, he continued to make individual pocket watches, while for rifle production, he had to organize some sort of mass production.
Until 1784, 111 flintlocks and 274 air guns were made, and the army was not satisfied with the output. Relieved of flintlock duties, he focused on air rifles and the necessary additional equipment, with each worker making specific parts that were assembled by him. Apart from the rifle itself, air reservoirs, air pumps, sealings, valves and other non-standard components parts had to be made, precise enough to be interchangeable.
After Frederick the Great had died, Catherine the Great and the Ottoman Empire in 1787 started another war regarding control of the Crimea, which triggered a war between Austria and Turkey, from 1788 until 1791. At that time, some 1000 air guns had been made, but only 200 complete sets were delivered to the depot at Petrovaradin Fortress, and 500 in April 1788. Girandoni died in Vienna on 21 March 1799.
History and use
[edit]
The Lewis and Clark Expedition used the rifle in the demonstrations that they performed for nearly every Native American tribe they encountered on the expedition.[1][2] Some scholars have argued that the airgun carried by Merriwether Lewis was not a Girardoni, but a Lukens, made by Isaiah Lukens of Philadelphia.[3] However, Colonel Thomas Rodney wrote the following on 8 September 1803: "Visited Captain [Lewis's] barge. He [showed] us his air gun which fired 22 times at one charge."[4] All Lukens's known airguns were single-shot muzzleloaders, not repeaters, making it very likely that Lewis's gun was a Girardoni, the only repeating airgun of the time. Around 1803, one of these weapons wound up in Philadelphia, Penn. where an aide to President Thomas Jefferson, Capt. Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) acquired the piece.[5] Lewis stated in his journals that he purchased the airgun, but not when or where he did so.[6] Lewis fired the airgun at least 16 times to demonstrate it to various Native American tribes. On 24 January 1806, Lewis wrote "My air gun also astonishes them very much, they cannot comprehend it's shooting so often and without powder; and think that it is great medicine."[7][8]
Design and capabilities
[edit]The Girardoni air rifle was four feet (1.2 m) long and weighed ten pounds (4.5 kg), about the same size and weight as infantry muskets of the time. It fired a .46 or .51 caliber ball and had a tubular, gravity or spring-fed magazine with a capacity of 20-22 balls.[9][10][11] Unlike its contemporary, muzzle-loading muskets, which required the rifleman to stand up to reload with powder and ball, the Girardoni air rifle permitted the shooter to load a ball by pushing the transverse spring loaded chamber bar out of the breech which allowed a ball to be supplied to it from the magazine and which then rebounded back to its firing position, all while lying down.[9]
The detachable air reservoir was in the club-shaped stock. With a full air reservoir, the Girardoni air rifle had the capacity to shoot 30 shots at useful pressure. These balls were effective to approximately 125 yd (114 m) on a full air reservoir. The power declined as the air reservoir was emptied.[12] To recharge the air reservoir, it was attached to the top of the accessory pump, the base of which was placed on the ground and secured with the feet, which then required some 1500 strokes to bring it up to its working pressure of approximately 800 psi (55 bar).[5]
Contemporary regulations of 1788 required that each rifleman be equipped with the rifle, three compressed air reservoirs (two spare and one attached to the rifle), cleaning stick, hand pump, lead ladle and 100 lead balls, 1 in the chamber, 19 in the magazine built into the rifle and the remaining 80 in four tin tubes, (or speed loaders in the modern vernacular). Equipment not carried attached to the rifle was held in a special leather knapsack. It was also necessary to keep the leather gaskets of the reservoir moist to maintain a good seal and prevent leakage.[13]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Wier, S.K. (2005). "The firearms of the Lewis and Clark Expedition" (PDF). p. 12. Retrieved 12 March 2013.
- ^ Girardoni air rifle as used by Lewis and Clark. A National Firearms Museum Treasure Gun. at YouTube
- ^ Garry, Jim. Weapons of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 2012. p. 96-99.
- ^ Rodney,Thomas. A Journey Through the West: Thomas Rodney's 1803 Journal from Delaware to the Mississippi Territory, ed. Dwight L. Smith and Ray Swick. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1997. p. 50.
- ^ a b "The Girandoni Air Rifle". Defense Media Network. Retrieved 6 July 2025.
- ^ Garry, Jim. Weapons of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 2012. p. 99, 101.
- ^ Moulton, Gary. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. 13 Vols. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press. Vol. 6, p. 233.
- ^ Garry, Jim. Weapons of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Norman, Oklahoma: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 2012. p. 103.
- ^ a b Prenderghast, Gerald (4 April 2018). Repeating and Multi-Fire Weapons: A History from the Zhuge Crossbow Through the AK-47. ISBN 9781476631103.
- ^ The Beeman article on Girardoni air rifles in the sources section and an article in the German gun magazine Visier (issue 1/2007, page 141) claim the caliber was actually .463" (11.75 mm).
- ^ Die Entwicklung der Handfeuerwaffen im österreichischen Heere, 1896, Anton Dolleczek
- ^ Military writer August Haller claimed in an 1891 treatise Die österreichische Militär-Repetier-Windbüchse that the first ten shots would be effective to about 150 paces, the next ten shots up to 120–125 paces, the next ten out to 100 paces, and then the remaining air pressure in the reservoir would be too low.
- ^ A letter detailing regulations, "Signed, Vienna, 24th January 1788"; reproduced in Baker, G; Currie, C. The Austrian Army Repeating Air Rifle 2nd Ed., 2007.
External links
[edit]- Beeman's History on Austrian Large Bore Airguns
- I Benemeriti Di Cortina D’Ampezzo
- [1] (original 1780 example)
- Girardoni air rifle as used by Lewis and Clark. A National Firearms Museum Treasure Gun.
Media related to Girandoni air rifle at Wikimedia Commons
