Air Rifles

[Jose50]

I have an old Sheriden pump that I used to use on woodchucks. Now I just trap them.

[Kurt Knispel]

I have a Sheridan 22 caliber air rifle I bought at Wall Mart 25 years ago for 99.99. It is very powerful. The more you pump it the more power but I found that 5 - 6 pumps is fine and can penetrate completely through a sheet of 1/2 inch plywood from 30 meters. Plenty enough to kill squirrel's with.

The Sheridan is an American classic. The model I have has not changed in some 40 years or more. I use the pointed "Varmint Killers" .22 for ammo. Mine is still accurate and works flawlessly.

http://www.airgunwarehouseinc.com/py-205.html

[MarkV]

The first application that can defeat the supersonic fluid compression wave (shockwave/sonic boom) will probably be an SST. There is money if it can be done $$$

It will also probably require some engineering solution like the cavitation problems that supersonic torpedoes need to overcome...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation
https://www.popsci.com/scitech/artic...tating-torpedo

Similar concepts of pressure differentials, but different in the engineering and physics specifics of shock fronts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_wave

Not some physics a simple ballistic projectile can overcome.

A solution has already been found in that there is a design that can go supersonic without creating a significant shockwave but it isn't very practical for a small arms projectile. A double annular missile would do it - that is to say a tube within a tube. The concept was tested in the 60s - I remember reading an article. You could build a quiet SST that way provided it had no wings! Analogue ran a story about an SSZ (super sonic zeppelin) project designed on this principle but this was more a chance to be sarky about the way in which Federal defence projects are set up and run than a serious story.

[Pirate-Drakk]

Perfectly true but it has nothing to do with suppressing the sound made by the round passing through the air. Indeed I don't think anyone has solved this problem on any weapon yet.

The first application that can defeat the supersonic fluid compression wave (shockwave/sonic boom) will probably be an SST. There is money if it can be done $$$

It will also probably require some engineering solution like the cavitation problems that supersonic torpedoes need to overcome...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supercavitation
https://www.popsci.com/scitech/artic...tating-torpedo

Similar concepts of pressure differentials, but different in the engineering and physics specifics of shock fronts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_wave

Not some physics a simple ballistic projectile can overcome.

[johns624]

The compression wave pushing the round out of the barrel is also supersonic (as it leaves the barrel). The projectile can't move faster than the thing pushing it...

A suppressor just slows the expansion of the propellant gases as they leave the barrel. Think of the difference between letting air slowly out of a balloon vs popping it with a needle...same concept. Suppressors do absolutely nothing to the sonic crack of the bullet since it's already long gone.
PS-If you get a spring-air gun, you'll have to get a special scope since the reverse recoil impulse of one will trash a riflescope made for a regular firearm.

[MarkV]

The compression wave pushing the round out of the barrel is also supersonic (as it leaves the barrel). The projectile can't move faster than the thing pushing it...

Perfectly true but it has nothing to do with suppressing the sound made by the round passing through the air. Indeed I don't think anyone has solved this problem on any weapon yet.

Perhaps the earliest semi automatic weapons used on the battlefield were air rifles. From about 1700 air guns were the province of rich hunters but at the end of the eighteenth century (in 1790) Austria had equipped a unit of Jaeger with repeating air rifles with the butt containing the air reservoir.. The guns were the invention of Bartolemeno Girandoni an Italian ex clockmaker whose first gun had appeared in 1779. Some 1,500 were produced.

Some fantastic claims have been made for the rate of fire and range of these weapons, it has been suggested that 500 men could fire 300,000 rounds in 30 seconds and be deadly at a range of 150 yards. These claims are just that, fantastic. Firstly the effective range of the weapon was 100 yards but only for the first ten shots fired, after that the pressure in the reservoir had dropped so much that the next ten shots would only be effective at 80 yards. After that the range dropped so drastically that the reservoir had to be recharged if the gun was to remain effective. Charging the reservoir required over 200 vigorous strokes with a heavy hand pump. Even with a fit soldier this could take over six and a half minutes, loading more rifle balls into the magazine would take perhaps another minute. This meant that whilst the soldier with an air rifle could loose off 20 rounds in a minute it would be another seven and a half minutes before he could repeat this. The hourly rate of fire for 500 men would therefore be about 75,000 rounds. As an alternative to having each soldier pump up his own reservoir wheeled pumps driven by a hand turned wheel were introduced in the ratio of one every ten men and runners were supposed to supply the troops with fresh recharged reservoirs. This would substantially reduce the flexibility and manoeuvrability of the unit.

The effective range of a musket was about 80 yards; most European armies could manage a sustained rate of fire of about two rounds a minute. A well trained regiment in Wellington’s Peninsular army could manage between three and four rounds a minute (and up to six for short periods). This would give 500 men in an ordinary European army an hourly rate of 60,000 rounds and for a crack British regiment between 90,000 and 120,000 rounds.

The air rifle was capable of very high rates of fire but only for short periods after which the soldier using it needed to retire behind cover to pump up the reservoir. This meant it was best used in skirmishing, which is exactly what the Jaeger were intended for. In this role the lack of smoke to reveal a rifleman’s position would be a bonus. Unfortunately Austrian tactical doctrines of the time was very rigid and focussed primarily on the movement of formal bodies of men and not at all suited to the effective deployment of riflemen. The expensive Girandoni guns were also mechanically unreliable if used for any length of time and from 1800 they began to be replaced by conventional flintlocks. The gun was used against the Turks and the Russians but by the time that Napoleon’s troops marched towards Vienna the air rifle had all but vanished from the Austrian service.

During the nineteenth century the air gun was primarily viewed as an assassin’s weapon. In fiction one of Conan Doyle’s villainous characters, Col. Sebastian Moran, commits murders with such a weapon and attempts to assassinate Sherlock Holmes in the same manner. Some gunsmiths produced gentlemen’s canes that concealed powerful single shot airguns. Weapons of this type were adopted by some secret services and may still be part of their armoury to this day. In London in 1978 the Bulgarian defector Georgi Markoff was fatally poisoned by being shot with a ricin pellet fired from an air gun disguised as an umbrella. The Bulgarian secret service has been implicated in this assassination. During the Second World War Britain produced some air and gas powered weapons for use by intelligence and sabotage agents these included ‘fountain pens’ that fired tear gas. It is quite probable that other very special forces around the world have access to similar deadly ‘toys’.

The Czechoslovakian armaments industry produced a military air rifle in the 1930s.What it was used for and by whom remains unknown. It is possible that it was intended for training.

[Arnold J Rimmer]

The compression wave pushing the round out of the barrel is also supersonic (as it leaves the barrel). The projectile can't move faster than the thing pushing it...

Don't feed the troll.

[Pirate-Drakk]

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the diference between a supersonic round and a sub sonic one. A silencer can do nothing about the sonic
shock wave of a supersonic round.

The compression wave pushing the round out of the barrel is also supersonic (as it leaves the barrel). The projectile can't move faster than the thing pushing it...

[MarkV]

It reduces the rapid expansion of the air as it goes from a compressed state inside the barrel, to ambient pressure which creates a report.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with the diference between a supersonic round and a sub sonic one. A silencer can do nothing about the sonic
shock wave of a supersonic round.

[Arnold J Rimmer]

I have a Ruger Blackhawk Combo air rifle, $99 from Amazon including scope.

Single shot, manually cocked.

I got it to shoot squirrels who were breaking into my attic; I didn't want to use a .22 for fear of chipping the bricks.

It dropped the little bast*rds in their tracks.

[101combatvet]

Pneumatic so you don't have to break your position.

Nice!

[Pirate-Drakk]

I have a Feinwerkbau, it's a work of art.

Nice!

[101combatvet]

I have a Feinwerkbau, it's a work of art.

[Pirate-Drakk]

Since sound is generated by shockwave caused bt the supersonic transit of the round through the air after it has left the barrel how does the silencer help? The heavily silenced Welrod used by SOE fired a bullet that ravelled sub sonic for this very reason.

It reduces the rapid expansion of the air as it goes from a compressed state inside the barrel, to ambient pressure which creates a report.

[MarkV]

At lot of the good GAMO Air Rifles have pellet velocities well above the speed of sound, which is, 1,125 ft./sec.
https://www.gamousa.com/rifles.aspx

The silencer helps reduce the "crack" of the supersonic shock wave. For subsonic pellets, I don't think the silencer will do much as the action is probably as loud as the pellet.

I have a GAMO Bone Collector, 1250 ft/sec, and it's a hoot to shoot!

Since sound is generated by shockwave caused bt the supersonic transit of the round through the air after it has left the barrel how does the silencer help? The heavily silenced Welrod used by SOE fired a bullet that ravelled sub sonic for this very reason.