Where does the air rifle come from? - Types of Air rifles - Types of Sights - Field Target - Hunter Field Target - Shooting Positions - Shooting Tips

What is the air rifle and where does it come from. Few people will realize that the first appearance of an air rifle was in the mid-1500's. Back then air guns were often shrouded in mystery and even reviled as tools of the Devil. They were usually of very large caliber and almost as powerful as the firearms of the day - albeit without the deafening noise, flash and smoke - it is easy to understand why the air guns of the time were feared by many.

In the late 1700's, powerful pneumatic guns even found their way into the ranks of the military. The Austrian Army had an entire regiment armed with .44 caliber repeating air rifles. All surviving accounts indicate that the Austrians used those air guns with deadly effectiveness against Napoleon's army. Rumor has it they were so feared, that any Austrian soldier captured with an air rifle was summarily executed as an assassin. Imagine a rifle that you only had to load the lead ball to fire as apposed to the procedure of loading a musket!

Added to that most are not aware that the famous American explorers, Captains Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, carried an air gun during their famous expedition of 1803-06 into the Pacific Northwest to aid with hunting once the black powder ran out. Below the rifle used by Lewis and Clark during their adventure. The but was used to store compressed air in a cylinder.