Air rifles “new” you say? Um…not so much. Apparently, these were all the rage, back in the day. That day being the days of Lewis & Clark. As in “Lewis & Clark Expedition.” There. Now you’ve got something to stump your friends and amaze your enemies. These days, airguns are experiencing something of a renaissance. And no wonder . . .
They’re cheap. Relatively safe. And free from the bureaucratic morass that sucks time and money from owners aspiring towards “real” guns. (Except in New York City, where they’re banned).
You can set up an air rifle range in your basement and practice your trigger control without any hassle or much expense. At the high end, eleven-hundred plus feet per second is damn fast for any ammo. Deadly for varmints.
Which brings up a question: if they could use air guns to put a .46 cal. round ball through a pine board at 100 yards, why isn’t the military looking at this technology for today’s snipers?
For that matter, why aren’t manufacturers looking at it for places like California that are all about banning lead (most of the dangers of lead for shooters come not from the bullet, but from the lead in gunpowder that is released into the atmosphere when the gun is fired).
You could end noise pollution, lead pollution, and reduce the need for explosives by, oh, 100% with this kind of technology. Sounds like somebody needs to get to work on this stuff STAT.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fRu5tYH-4Q
Marines with air guns? What’s next? Mountain rangers with Flexible Flyers?
Funny (as usual). But I’m not recommending they replace the M-16s and such with air rifles. But if you could snipe somebody without giving away your position with an audio signature or muzzle flash, wouldn’t it be worth adding a (air) gun to your arsenal?
I vaguely recall Australian snipers using air rifles in WW-I to some effect. I believe the Germans had orders to execute on sight any captured soldier carrying an air rifle.
Actually it was the Austrians who used air rifles against the Italians in WWI so the Germans probably didn’t care. On the other hand the Italians might not have been too pleased but then any sniper in WWI unfortunate enough to have been captured with his equipment was likely to be shot out of hand regardless. I don’t recall how effective they were compared to standard rifles, but a silent weapon has its advantages and the Austrians also tried spring powered mortars as well.
My bad, it was something I remembered hearing years back and not too clearly to begin with. Austrian. Australian. Kinda the same. At least I got the right war. I think.
Air rifles can’t shoot supersonic, so the range is very limited by modern standards.
Cool.
It’s interesting that you can get 40 shots on a single fill, with little to no loss in power. That’d be some fast firing “airpower” compared to muzzleloaders of the day.
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