Umarex’s NXG APX: A Different Kind of Lever Gun

People are often surprised to discover that air rifles are among the oldest multiple-shot firearms in the world.

Intended as serious hunting guns, they were mostly large-bore arms resembling a flintlock in design and chambered to fire lead balls ranging in size from .30 to .75 caliber. One of the most famous of these early air rifles was carried by Captain Meriwether Lewis from 1803 to 1806, during his expedition of the Pacific Northwest with Lieutenant William Clark. The original journals of Lewis & Clark’s Corps of Discovery contain 19 references to this air gun. The .46 caliber Girandoni air rifle was built in Philadelphia by Isaiah Lukens and resembled a Kentucky long rifle fitted with a buttstock-shaped air reservoir. These primitive large-bore air rifles were very expensive and complicated to manufacture…read more