Tag Archives: 1500s

How powerful were the big bore airguns of the past?: Part 2

Posted on by ↓ 69 Comments

by Tom Gaylord

Writing as B.B. Pelletier

A history of airguns

How powerful were the big bore airguns of the past?: Part 1

  • My knowledge base
  • Quackenbush Brigand
  • Air cane
  • Farco air shotgun
  • Splatology
  • Powerful enough to kill?
  • Conclusions

This report is for reader Zebra who asked me last week about the power of the antique big bore airguns. He said he read that some were used in battle and had the power to kill soldiers. I answered him and gave a link to the very first report of this airgun history series (Part 1, linked above). It was done way back on August 21, 2015 when this section was started. But I read that report and discovered that it really didn’t answer his question. I had explained how big bore airgun power was determined, but not how powerful the guns actually were. So I’m adding this Part 2 to get to the heart of the question. read more

The timeline of airguns

Posted on by ↓ 96 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

The history of airguns

This report covers:

  • Table of contents
  • What is an airgun?
  • The first airgun
  • What we do know
  • The load-compression airgun
  • What came next?
  • Bellows gun
  • How rare were they?
  • Multi-pump pneumatics
  • Spring-piston airguns
  • Catapult guns
  • CO2 guns
  • Single stroke pneumatics

Table of contents

Before we begin today’s blog, I want to tell you there is a link to the History of airguns table of contents at the top and bottom of this pager. Go there and you will see all the historical report linked.

Today’s report will sound like a continuation of Friday’s report on the power of big bore airguns of the past, but that is just a coincidence. Today we look at the timeline of airguns.

What is an airgun?

Before we proceed we need to agree what an airgun is, or the rest of the discussion will be meaningless. Most books about airguns start with the primitive blowpipe, which is also called a blowgun. Does that make you think of natives on tropical islands, hunting birds and monkey in the trees? Would you be surprised to learn that the blowgun was also very popular in Europe during the middle ages? There are tapestries that show hunters using blowguns in exactly the same way as the islanders in the tropics, only they are doing so in European and English forests. The blowgun has been a very popular air-powered weapon all around the world. read more

How powerful were the big bore airguns of the past?: Part 1

Posted on by ↓ 283 Comments

by Tom Gaylord
Writing as B.B. Pelletier

The history of airguns

This report covers:

  • New blog section — History of airguns!
  • How powerful?
  • Wood was first
  • Iron and steel
  • How fast — Spaltology
  • Velocity of the big bore airguns of antiquity
  • Available air pressure
  • Why this is important

New blog section — History of airguns!

Today I announce a new section of the blog that will be dedicated to the history of airguns. Monday’s posting about the Rise of the BB gun was the inaugural report for the series — History of airguns. Today is the second in what Pyramyd Air and I hope will become a favorite of blog readers.

My goal is to document the history of airguns in these reports, and the really neat thing is, we will keep track of all these reports on a special page that holds the table of contents. The articles listed will be links, so all you need to do is hover your cursor and click to get there! read more