08/18/2026
One of the coolest early rifles ever made!!
A few days ago after presenting the Expedition’s lead gunpowder canisters, we received numerous questions about the air rifle owned by Meriwether Lewis. Apparently, there are some misconceptions about this special gun – we hope to provide clarity today.
It was no BB gun, of course. This air rifle was similar to the design attributed to Austrian watchmaker Bartolomeo Girardoni*, who first produced a working model for the Austrian army around 1779, based on earlier high-pressure air guns.
The first we learn that Captain Lewis brought such a gun on the Expedition was when the small 11-man party, which had just left Pittsburgh on August 31, 1804, stopped for a short send-off celebration on Brunot Island, in the middle of the Ohio River. After a demonstration by Lewis, an acquaintance, Blaze Cenas, mishandled the rifle and accidently wounded a woman about 40 yards away.
The stock of the Girardoni design is actually the air reservoir which detaches from the breech so it can be pressurized with a hand pump. According to Jim Garry in his book, “Weapons of the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” it took between 500 and 1,000 strokes of the hand pump to fill the air chamber to about 750 psi. Other sources state that 1,500 pump strokes were required to reach the maximum 800 psi.
The four-foot-long gun fired .46-caliber lead balls and the gun’s magazine held 22 rounds. In less than a minute, all 22 rounds could be fired, remarkably faster than the two to three rounds fired by a well-trained soldier with a traditional muzzleloader. Those familiar with the gun claim it has an exit velocity of over 500 feet per second, and a ball could pass through a one-inch pine board at 100 yards. Without patches, powder, flint, or smoke.
Throughout the journals, the air rifle is most often mentioned as a demonstration novelty which Lewis used to impress the Native peoples of the Corps’ prowess. It’s probable that Lewis would have carried it on many of his hikes or hunting trips along the banks of the Missouri River.
Unfortunately, we don’t know for certain who made Lewis’ air rifle, where he obtained it, or what he paid for it. And did he spend personal funds or government monies? In the past, it was believed that a Philadelphia watchmaker, Isaiah Lukens, made Lewis’ gun. But more recent research indicates that Lukens was still a watchmaker’s apprentice in 1803.
Since the mid-1950s, historians and gun collectors have heavily debated the whereabouts of Lewis’ gun. A Girardoni in a personal collection was believed to have been his actual rifle because of its unique, crudely made mainspring. Lewis documented that John Shields, the primary blacksmith of the Corps, repaired his gun’s mainspring during the Expedition.
The National Museum of the United States Army at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, accepted it as a donation and it's on display, listed as the air rifle used by Meriwether Lewis.
Here’s more about the Girardoni air rifle from the National Fi****ms Museum: https://www.nramuseum.org/videos/lewis-and-clark-girandoni-air-rifle.mp4.
*Also spelled Girandoni.
Image: A Girardoni air rifle on loan to the National Fi****ms Museum in Fairfax, Virginia.
