They didn't teach this in history class

slimjim

This will make you rethink air rifles!

www.network54.com/Foru...ead+around

Vince

WOW...that is wild mate. Never realised the air rifle had such a long history.

Cheers, Vince

SingleShotLover

There's reference to this rifle in the journals of both Lewis and Clark as well as a very few histories of the expedition. From all accounts it wasn't as effective as they would have liked and accuracy was pretty erratic. It also required an elaborate charging device that was pretty labor intensive...which may be why they took Clark's slave York along!

Suzanne

Yeah NDNs are good for sumthin.... Rolling Eyes

Suz

DallanC · Site Admin Joined: Jan 18, 2005 Posts: 3572 Location: Utah

SingleShotLover wrote:

There's reference to this rifle in the journals of both Lewis and Clark as well as a very few histories of the expedition. From all accounts it wasn't as effective as they would have liked and accuracy was pretty erratic. It also required an elaborate charging device that was pretty labor intensive...which may be why they took Clark's slave York along!

All good points, but the fact it fires in any rainstorm, and has a firing rate of just over 1 round per second is absolutely stunning for the time.

-DallanC

Ominivision1

Thanks Slim, that was a great history lesson, never knew they had air rifles on the louis & clark expo. Read Book

Suz
Yup, Indians are very good for something. My wife is 1/3 and wouldn't trade her for nothing.

Here's a Link for more info on the rifle.

slimjim

Wow, OV1, that is very detailed information contained in that link! Some amazing technology for the time. One other aspect of the L&C expedition was that they did not loose one member of their party. Considering what they faced, that is amazing.

SingleShotLover

DallanC wrote:

All good points, but the fact it fires in any rainstorm, and has a firing rate of just over 1 round per second is absolutely stunning for the time.

-DallanC

Absolutely...and by most accounts it stunned the Native Americans that not only was rate of fire far in excess of what their old "fusils" were capable of, but the relative quiet and lack of smoke had them scratching their heads.