Girandoni Air Rifle
- Category
- Rifle
- Barrel
- 833 mm
- Weight, empty
- 4.50 kg
- Introduced
- 1780
About
What it is, and why it matters
The Girandoni Air Rifle is a repeating pre-charged pneumatic rifle designed around 1779 by Austrian gunsmith Bartholomäus Girandoni. Firing a .46 caliber lead ball, it used a detachable, club-shaped iron air reservoir for a buttstock that could deliver roughly 20 to 30 full-power shots before needing to be re-pressurized with some 1,500 hand-pump strokes. A spring-fed tubular magazine held 22 balls that were chambered one at a time by a transverse sliding breech block, letting a soldier fire all 22 rounds in under a minute, far faster than the muzzle-loading muskets of the era, while producing little smoke, flash, or report. Adopted by the Austrian Imperial Army as the Windbüchse, it was one of the earliest repeating military firearms and was famously carried on the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
When Captain Meriwether Lewis demonstrated the Girandoni's rapid, smokeless, near-silent fire to Native American tribes during the 1804-1806 expedition, it astonished onlookers who had never seen a gun fire repeatedly without reloading and may have deterred hostility along the route.
Mechanically a magazine-fed repeater operated by a transverse sliding breech block rather than a single-shot or muzzleloader; powered by compressed air rather than a powder charge, so no powder-era action_type or firing_mechanism enum applies. Sources disagree on caliber (commonly cited as .46, with .51 examples also recorded) and on shot count per reservoir charge (roughly 20-40 depending on how velocity falloff is measured).
Specification
Everything measured
IdentityWhat it is, who built it and when.
- Manufacturer
- Bartholomäus Girandoni
- Category
- Rifle
- Country
- Austria
- Status
- Discontinued
- Produced
- 1780 to 1815
DimensionsAs issued, without a magazine or an optic.
- Barrel
- 833 mm
- Overall length
- 1200 mm
- Weight, empty
- 4.50 kg
ActionHow it cycles, what trips it, and what feeds it.
- Trigger
- Single action
- Capacity
- 22
- Magazine
- Tubular
MaterialsEach swatch is the material itself, not a colour chosen to stand for it.
- Frame
- Iron
- Barrel
- Iron
- Stock
- Iron air reservoir
- Finish
- Blued
BallisticsFrom the service cartridge, not a handload.
- Muzzle velocity
- 150 m/s
- Muzzle energy
- 111 J
- Effective range
- 125 m
- Maximum range
- 150 m
- Rate of fire
- 22 rpm
Trajectory
What the round does downrange
Solved from the muzzle figures and the bullet. The dashed rule is the effective range on the record, and the crosses are the steps the solver returned.
No load solved for this record yetThe flight path is computed from a cartridge and a bullet. This record has no ammunition filed against its chambering, so there is nothing to solve.
Features
What it has
What the record lists as fitted, drawn from the catalogue.
Pre charged pneumatic
Detachable air reservoir buttstock
Spring fed tubular magazine
Transverse sliding breech block- Smokeless operation
- Low report
Standing
How it compares
Each figure against the firearms of the same type and cartridge that record it, or of the same type where that cartridge has too few. Positions are read to the nearest tenth.
| Measurement | This firearm | Median | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empty weightAmong 1,612 rifles | 4.50 kg | 3.50 kg | Heavier than about 90% |
| Overall lengthAmong 1,557 rifles | 1200 mm | 1080 mm | Longer than about 80% |
| Barrel lengthAmong 1,659 rifles | 833 mm | 584 mm | Longer than about 90% |
| Magazine capacityAmong 1,611 rifles | 22 | 5 | Holds more rounds than about 90% |
Answers
Questions about the Girandoni Air Rifle
How much does the Girandoni Air Rifle weigh?
The Girandoni Air Rifle weighs 4.50 kg (9.92 lb) empty.
What caliber is the Girandoni Air Rifle?
The Girandoni Air Rifle is chambered in .46 Caliber Ball.
How many rounds does the Girandoni Air Rifle hold?
The Girandoni Air Rifle holds 22 rounds, fed from a tubular magazine.
How long is the Girandoni Air Rifle?
The Girandoni Air Rifle is 1200 mm (47.2 in) long overall, with a 833 mm (32.8 in) barrel.
Who makes the Girandoni Air Rifle?
The Girandoni Air Rifle is made by Bartholomäus Girandoni (Austria). It was designed by Bartholomäus Girandoni.
When was the Girandoni Air Rifle introduced?
The Girandoni Air Rifle was introduced in 1780 and discontinued in 1815.
Compatibility
Which parts fit this firearm
Studio
Every part that mounts on this, resolved
Not a list the maker typed out: the answer comes from the mounts this firearm exposes and the interface each part needs, so it stays right when either one changes.
- Every part that mounts on any firearm in the catalogue
- Interface standards, platforms and fit overrides
- The same answers through the API and the MCP server
Requires a signed-in GunSpec account on the Studio plan. The answer is computed per part, so it is not part of the public record.
Provenance
What the record holds
Every figure above was taken from one of these pages. The confidence reflects how much of the record came from a page a claim can be checked against.
In service
- Austrian Imperial Army
- 1780
- Lewis and Clark Expedition
- 1803
Provenance
Confidence in this record
78%
Stockists
Where to buy
Offers link straight to the shop. GunSpec never takes the order.
No shop has listed this firearm yet
Stock and prices come from the shops themselves. If you sell this firearm, you can list it and it appears here.
List a firearmMCP
Ask an assistant about it
The same record, reached the way a person asks for it rather than the way a program does.
Ask GunSpec
Works with
Point an MCP client at GunSpec and it answers from the catalogue rather than from memory. A free key covers the read tools.
API
The call that returns this record
The same fields, in the same units, from the same endpoint the page reads.
curl --request GET \ --url 'https://api.gunspec.io/v1/firearms/girandoni-air-rifle' \ --header 'X-API-Key: your_key'{ "id": "girandoni-air-rifle", "name": "Girandoni Air Rifle", "manufacturer": { "id": "girandoni", "name": "Bartholomäus Girandoni", "countryCode": "AT", "foundedYear": null, "website": null, "logoUrl": null, "description": null, "status": null, "defunctYear": null, "stateOwned": null, "makesFirearms": null, "parentId": null, "predecessorId": null, "createdAt": "2026-06-21 23:00:46", "updatedAt": "2026-06-21 23:00:46", "version": "54d7e5fc3652f1e630e990cce9356375ff1eaeacb0a20ca20ea2b2481bd89033" }, "category": { "id": "rifle", "name": "Rifle", "description": "Long-barreled firearms designed for accurate shooting" }, "country_of_origin": "AT", "year_introduced": 1780, "barrel_length_mm": 833, "weight_empty_g": 4500, "action_type": null}