Girardoni inuenit et fecit

[DT Fletcher]

Assumptions and simple maths. It would seem reasonable to assume that the “English” copies of the military Girandoni are of similar proportions to keep the overall look. If this wasn’t the case then why bother to make them look similar. They could have just put the same mechanism in one of their own design air rifles. The tubular ball magazines on the side of the rifles being the same length, for appearance sake, the accepted military calibre of .51” Girandoni had a stated capacity of 20 and Lewis and Clarkes had 22 as described by Rodney when shown it. Why? A good guess would be that the Lewis and Clarke rifle was a civilian copy of the Girandoni which are usually of smaller calibre.
20 .51” balls in a row equal 10.2”.
22 .46” balls in a row equal 10.12”.
Probably just a load of balls but the thought occurred to me as I was having a good long soak in the bath. What do you think?

I've never been a fan of any of the magazine capacity arguments. Also, for the most part, I do not accept any civilian vs military distinction; at least not as described by Beeman.

The original Inuit et Fecit Girardoni, model 1780, was the larger caliber from original documentation and reports. This seems to have been confirmed by our one example of an original. And, yes, of course this was a military weapon. However, there is absolutely no information to support the (Beeman) contention that Girardoni ever produced any air guns for the civilian market.

The 2nd model Girandoni is based on the circa 1786 Nemetz design which is the smaller caliber. These were manufactured in England and, although I've written that they are English made copies of the Girandoni, they are more an original Austrian design that, for one reason or another, was produced in England. How this transfer of advanced Austrian airgun technology happened is not documented. My guess is that since the earliest examples of Girandoni types being produced in England (the earliest I aware of are circa 1795 Bates) comes around 1795. Just before this time, Mr. Austrian Airgun expert, FM Karl Mack, was in charge of the First Coalition war against Revolutionary France and he even made a trip to London circa 1794. My guess is that Mack transferred the technology.

This 2nd (Nemetz) model is the predominant model we see today. The exact same model was produced for Austrian military needs (the "G" guns) and for non military means. So, there really is no distinction between the military and civilian versions, other than some of the civilian guns have well known English gun makers names on them, like Staudenmeyer. Otherwise, these are all the same gun.

Note also that Austrian interest and use of the airgun did not go away until well into mid century. The airgun was still on the materials list for defensive fortress sieges in 1860. The last combat report we have of the Austrians using the Girandoni was 1809 in a defensive siege of a fortress. One of the key reasons was that the Austrians appreciated that an airgun could be used in confined and explosive environments found in fortresses: it's called the Underground War. None of this info is currently available outside of the original German texts. I've researched this and have translations which will be available when I get the book done. But, the entire Underground War aspect to the airgun is fascinating. It's the direct reason for one of the first implementations of the airgun in war circa 1750.

While I'm at it, the reason for the Austrian interest in a repeating weapon comes from fighting their traditional enemy: the Turks. The Turkish would typically attack in an unorganized mass and just rush the enemy with overwhelming numbers. In that type of fighting, rapid fire was essential. When it came time to fight the French, the rapid fire issue went away. The Austrian Army wanted nothing to do with any of these rapid fire weapons. Against the French, in the first couple of years, the airgun was only used during sieges by specialized Tyrollean Sharpshooters in the front trenches to pick off any Frenchman they could spot on the ramparts.

[greenwayjames]

I don’t know anything about magazine capacity arguments. It was just an idea that went through my head yesterday. You state as a fact that the 2nd model Girandonis were made in England. That seems rather odd. What is it based on? I would be interested to know more. This subject is beginning to fascinate me but at the same time there seems to be a lot of confusion. I should pay more attention as t said in my school reports.

[DT Fletcher]

I don’t know anything about magazine capacity arguments. It was just an idea that went through my head yesterday. You state as a fact that the 2nd model Girandonis were made in England. That seems rather odd. What is it based on? I would be interested to know more. This subject is beginning to fascinate me but at the same time there seems to be a lot of confusion. I should pay more attention as t said in my school reports.

When looking at the 2nd model Girandoni (the gun described in Baker/Currie, which is also the Nemetz model) we are faced with a fascinating situation: a whole bunch of guns with all having the exact same features down to some of the smallest details. We have the "G" stamped models, we have the exact same guns with no markings at all (like Beeman's own) and we have models marked with the names of known English gun makers (eg Staudenmeyer, Mortimer) we also have some examples that carry European maker's names (Theile.) How can this be explained? The answer comes in that these guns are products of the English Industrial Revolution. The parts were produced by a specialist manufacturer with modern production machinery, likely in Birmingham, and sold to gunmakers who then produced the finished airgun.

Why did this production have to occur in England? Could the production have occurred in Vienna as stated by Beeman? The answer here comes from history. The timeframe of production of the 2nd model Girandoni was 1795-1815. What was going on? The Napoleonic wars. One of the big drivers of the Napoleonic wars was immense size of English production of small manufactured goods (things like airguns) combined with the English control of shipping trade routes. At this same time, Austria manufacturing lagged far back and would not see anything like modern industrial production until after the wars. Austria simply was not in the business of exporting manufactured goods to the rest of the world. During the wars, Austria received large quantities of English produced firearms.

Plus, there is zero chance that an English gunmaker like Staudenmayer or Mortimer would ever have used Austrian produced parts in their airguns.


Up till now, the missing piece of the story has been the lack of any example of what could legitimately be called a true undisputed Girandoni. I've always been hopeful that a good candidate would show up, but, never in the world expected something as dramatic as finding a gun inscribed in latin to the effect "I Girardoni invented this and I made it"