With the expedition over, the Corps of Discovery returned tired and ragged but exuberant about having accomplished their mission with only a single fatality, Sergeant Charles Floyd, who  apparently died of acute appendicitis and was buried near the site of present day Sioux City, Iowa. After the finish of the expedition, the Girandoni air rifle disappeared into the mists of history—that is, until recently.

Discovering and Duplicating the Lewis and Clark Girandoni

Enter Dr. Robert Beeman, a distinguished university professor, first chairman of San Francisco State University’s Department of Marine Biology and former fellow of the National Science Foundation at Stanford. As a youngster, Beeman had received a Daisy BB gun as a gift, and the weapon stirred a lifelong passion for air rifles. In time, Beeman’s name would become synonymous with air rifles after his boyhood interest led him to found the world-famous Beeman Precision Airgun company. In addition to designing and promoting air rifles, Beeman began collecting every sort of unusual and historical air rifle he could find during travels taking him to various arms factories, museums and private collections around the world. One such acquisition was a Girandoni air rifle in remarkably good repair.

In 2004, Beeman was contacted by master gunsmith Ernie Cowan, who wanted to duplicate the Girandoni weapon in his collection (Beeman’s was the sole representation of the weapon in North America). Beeman agreed. Cowan and his collaborator, Rick Keller, in carefully disassembling the weapon, made an electrifying discovery. In their careful dissection of the Girandoni, Cowan and Keller found evidence of repairs made to the piece that noted gun historian Mike Carrick confirmed as corresponding precisely to entries in the journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition recounting such repairs. Perhaps the most significant repair they discovered was a replaced mainspring. Lewis noted exactly such a repair in his June 10, 1805, journal entry: “[Expedition gunsmith John] Shields removed the main Spring of my air gun.” The repair was made with a farrier’s file ordinarily used to trim horses’ hooves. Other repairs included a new forward pin lug, middle thimble, and scarph joint in the rifle’s forearm, which replaced European walnut with good American walnut.

To his surprise and gratification, Beeman found himself the proud owner of the famous Lewis and Clark Girandoni. Beeman concedes that the Girandoni has a very peculiar and significant place in American history, but adds scrupulously: “We must avoid the very misleading thought that the Girandoni opened or won the West. Rather it was the key to Lewis and Clark returning alive and promoting the West.”

Beeman’s Girandoni has been extensively studied and field tested repeatedly to ascertain its capabilities. Without a doubt it is a stunning instrument. To spare the original repeated wear-and-tear, four exact copies of the weapon have been produced by Cowan and Keller. Recognizing its historical significance, Beeman donated the original weapon to the permanent collection of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. It is now on loan to and on special display at the Pentagon. Despite great scientific and technical advances in weaponry, few single weapons can rival the Girandoni for the peaceful promotion of American interests. That lack of violence, in itself, makes the Lewis and Clark Girardoni a truly singular western weapon indeed.

Originally Published November 14, 2018.

This article originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons