The Lewis and Clarke air rifle was more of a machine gun if I remember correctly?
It saved their butts from indians a couple of times.

There is a guy who sells some really first rate air guns here in saskatchewan to pay for his Olympic sharpshooting training and I have been considering getting a beautiful CZ air gun from him. It costs as much as a nice .22 though. It would probably be worth it to help my technique and because it is much less hassle to use an air gun than a rimfire here in Canada. It is quite capable of harvesting small game like gophers(evil little monsters) partridge(delicious) and even racoons. The Olympics guy would make one hell of a sniper if he wanted.