Quote Originally Posted by DT Fletcher View Post
Hoff is Danish.

At the intro of chap three, Hoff explains how he came to use the term "strike pump."

'Systematically different from the bellows gun is a type which is generally called a spring gun, where the momentary air pressure is created by a spring-propelled piston rushing forward in a pump-cylinder. The term spring gun is rather unsatisfactory as it ought to indicate a gun where the projectile is expelled by the direct action of a spring. In the following, the gun with spring-propelled piston will, therefore, be called strike-pump gun.'
That explanation would apply to virtually all spring piston airguns!

I'd say 'strike pump' is a weak term for a spring piston design and there must be a better way to distinguish spring piston airguns from direct spring guns. It's the sort of thing a Dane with English as his second language might come up with!

'Spring-powered air compression' would be more accurate, though it's a bit of a mouthful... 'Spring air' gun would be a possible compromise.

I suppose that at the time Hoff was writing, he was thinking of those horrible anti-poacher spring guns, which I think did not employ air at all to drive a missile, more like a spring-powered animal trap.