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The .46 Caliber Semi-Automatic Rifle That Changed the World

hypocritexposer

Well-known member
Be sure to check out the NRA National Firearms Museum video on this rifle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pqFyKh-rUI


Behold the Girandoni air rifle, a 20 round high capacity tubular magazine and air reservoir which fired at roughly the same velocity as a modern .45 ACP. It can punch straight through a 2x4 at 100 yards.

Invented by Tyrollean Bartholomaus Girandoni around 1779, this revolutionary rifle is four feet long and weighs a manly 10 pounds. It's semi-automatic rate of fire and, for the period, its immense firepower reserve made it a fearsome thing to contemplate in battle. No appreciable bang, no smoke and at least 20 rounds before its punch began to diminish.

Well, it did take roughly 1,500 strokes on a bicycle pump-looking contraption to bring it up to full pressure. But other than that....

Lewis and Clark carried the Girandoni across what would become America during their expedition and their journals state that of all they had with them the Girandoni was what both impressed natives they met along the way and convinced those same natives not to fool around with these strangers.

The natives witnessed a single man stand deliver killing firepower round after round after round without having to reload. More than anything else this demonstration of superior firepower convinced them to leave the expedition be. No profit in going after these men and their repeating rifle. And no way to overcome that kind of firepower. Peace, through superior firepower. Reminds me of Thomas Paine; "...Arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace."

Lewis and Clark passed without incident in large part due to simply demonstrating the Girandoni.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/01/the_46_caliber_semi-automatic_rifle_that_changed_the_world.html#ixzz2JDP1aUpo
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