Air Arms Owners Club

Well, everyone seems to think PCP air guns are a new design this is not really true PCP air guns have been with is for many years and are indeed the very first old designs air guns even before spring piston air guns. PCP air rifles were used in the war as muzzle loading black powder weapons were very slow to reload and the made large clouds of white smoke when fired so anyone around you could not see to fire their weapon and the smoke also gave away your position on the battlefield also if the black powder got wet you had no firearm. accuracy was poor as most had the smooth bore barrel.

Here bellow the Girandoni PCP air rifle is probably the very first PCP air rifle ever made that was sort of reliable and powerful enough to be used as a military weapon it was more accurate than muzzle loading black powder weapons because the Girandoni had a rifled barrel and the first onboard magazine system this must have been state of the art weapon in them days it was probably the first multi-shot rifle ever made at that time and indeed the most accurate. However, I would not like to be the guy who had to pump the thing up with air...

Here bellow the very first PCP rifle and at the time most accurate with haveing a rifled barrel and magazine system.
Remember pcp rifles came first even before spring piston air guns... spring piston is a new design really...

Seen bellow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pqFyKh-rUI

and bellow, super demonstration of how the rifle works and all the kit and charging gear... WOW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dZLeEUE940

As you can see above the rifle was very well made and one can see how it has evolved over time into the pcps rifles of today.
The air bottle used on the Girardoni rifle would be regarded as a buddy bottle and the pump is similar to the hand pumps used today.

Sorry Guys the lnks above are fixed now.

I would look at your links again

BBF

Yes, mate ... That piece of Turkish plastic - nice though it is - is definitely not a Girandoni
This however, is .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pqFyKh-rUI

Blackbaronfish wrote:I would look at your links again

BBF

WOOPS,,,, Sorry links are fixed now...

Raj wrote:Yes, mate ... That piece of Turkish plastic - nice though it is - is definitely not a Girandoni
This however, is .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pqFyKh-rUI

Sorry mate the links are fixed now...

I shouldered a riffle ver similar to that but without the brass and leather cover. It felt very well balanced and also loaded in the same way.

Nice YouTube clip.

BBF

I knew about these rifles, I read the lewis and clark books, but I had no idea they were 'multi shot'/ 'repeaters'. amazing. I believe the Austrians were looking at them for use against the French....but they refused them because they were expensive and 'fragile' compared to the 'musket'. the other main use of the infantrymans weapon was...club, bayonet fighting, the butt being a strong club. that wonderful air rifle would not have lasted long in close combat. but still, having a fill that gives you 40 quick shots in volley fire would have caused fearful damage to a advancing enemy, that the bayonet may not be needed. and two spare cylinders and speed loaders, to follow up. the pumping air would soon have evolved into a unit thing, like a huge lever attachment filling lots of spare cylinders and passing them down the line as filled ammo mags are were done later centuries....conciderin g what the Austrians lost to france, perhaps it was a false economy. we will never know what the future of air rifles may have been.