The Girandoni air rifle in American history

With that much pressure (was it 800PSI?) someone (workcover?) would declare it unsafe for the user.

How ironic.

while watching the video as it became clear to me that the rifle would need recharging. I spent about 15 seconds thinking How the fk did they drag a compressor all that way in that day and age. then how did they power the compressor? two stroke engine?
Then it dawned on me that compressors prolly wernt even invented yet. Facepalm! Get the bike pump


a bunch of soda water canisters prolly wouldnt weigh much.

I'm surprised at how efficient an air pump (yes it's a larger version of a bicycle pump, that Mr. Girandoni made with the limited tools available at that point in time, though it was only meant for use in the field to top up the charge, rather than to fully charge the cylinders.

For combat purposes, a compressor unit charged the cylinders, which were carted in behind the frontline troops, and bought in by runners. The changing of the cylinders was simply screw off the old, and screw on the new.

With the advances in battery tech today (I'm still waaaaaaay impressed with my 18 volt grinder and impact driver and recipro saw) a small compressor unit is not that big a stretch. My little cheapo Chinese tyre inflator maxes out at 300 PSI, and it only cost twenty spondoolas at soopacheep. It's not that big a stretch to envisage an all-ceramic compressor unit that fits inside the rifle stock, alongside the battery, to supply the 800 PSI or greater.

Bite me, asshole . . .

A compress of the type used to recharge divers tanks seem to be call for.

Eight hundreds plus PSI is similar to divers tanks and it would not be all that small in my opinion as if nothing else you need to get rid of the heat of compressing air to that level.

Second if you are going to get the energy from batteries and compressor build into the weapon it might be simpler to go to a rail gun technology and forget about compressing air.

No matter how must pressure your velocity also is limited to around 840 FPS in an air gun.

I was looking at the kind of pump Girandoni made for the original weapon. Long and slender, with simple valves. It could be part of the barrel assembly, with a geared drive within the stock, alongside the storage tank. Slow-moving, but giving a constant flow, with a pressure sensor to stop the motor. With ceramic parts, heat would not be a problem.

The FPS of the original weapon was around 1000, as I recall. With today's materials, I'm sure we could achieve more than that.