Sent to me in e-mail was this video:
40 shots of .46 caliber round ball on a single charge. 22 rounds in the magazine - ZOMG an assault rifle! Given the state of weaponry at the time of Lewis & Clark's expedition, the Girandoni rifle must have looked like something from the distant future - rather than firing 6 times in a minute (the standard infantry rate for a muzzleloading rifle at the time), this rifle could fire five times that many rounds in half the time. It must have also been a lot quieter than a cap and ball rifle, and penetrating 1" of pine at 100 yards means that the .46 caliber rounds must have been capable of significant damage.
In any case, it's an interesting piece of our nation's firearms heritage.
That is all.
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7 comments:
Actually, "the standard infantry rate for a muzzleloading rifle at the time" was 3 rounds per minute for the British 'Brown Bess' smoothbore musket. A muzzleloading rifle was even slower to load, due to the need to force the lead projectile down the barrel against the resistance of the rifling.
I couldn't remember if it was 3 or 6, so I went with the larger #.
Thanks for the correction - it makes the air gun even more impressive in that case!
Plus, the "standard" rate wouldn't be maintained in the rain. Or on a really windy day. Or when it's really cold. It took a lot of effort to keep a muzzleloader in fighting form under real field conditions.
More info:
It was Austrian made, and issued to their army in limited numbers.
It was the first repeating firearm.
It was the first gun to use a tubular magazine.
It was phased out because brazing the reservoir with early 1800's technology was extremely difficult.
All in all an amazing and forgotten piece of gun lore.
One word. WANT.
Bill beat me to it... And I got to see it last weekend at NRA. :-)
Fortunately, Lewis & Clark didn't have to take them through Massachusetts...
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