Topic: Air Rifles

[Kcboats]

So interesting discussion with my pops this Christmas about a rifle I had never heard of...the Giardoni air rifle.  Famous for being carried by Lewis and Clark, and used by the Austrians against Napolean.  Basically a .46 caliber rifle that was either 22 or 20 rounds that used a small tank that was pumped 1500 times to achieve a pressure of approximately 800 psi!  Would fire about 40 rounds and used a bicycle type pump to refill the tank.  So his question was why do we not utilize this technology today?  I mean if the Government wants to stop guns by making brass, powder, etc hard to get why not use this as a viable means of protection?  Any thoughts or experience with this?

[ida83704]

Air guns that charge off a SCUBA tank are the way to go.

don't recoil like a spring gun, plus you don't have to 'pump' at all.

[9Shooter]

There's an older thread on this here: http://www.boiseshooters.com/index.php/topic,11924.0.html

Check out the youtube vid posted at the top.  Pretty interesting.

[XDMHMMWV]

Part II of the video in the first thread.
Diagrams on how it worked:http://www.beemans.net/Austrian%20airguns.htm
I wounder if there would be a market for these things?