They've been around a long time, but in Europe, air guns above a certain energy level are treated as regular guns as far as ownership and restrictions, so not a lot of people, over there, have had a chance to shoot them. Over here, of course, the tendency has always been to go to a powder burner when you need that kind of power.
About the time black powder was giving way to smokeless, dynamite was being looked at as filler for shells in Naval guns as it was much more powerful and destructive than black powder as an explosive. It looked to have potential as a giant killer like the torpedo, something that could let a small ship destroy a bigger ship. The problem was it was too sensitive to propel with gun powder so they made some guns that used air to fire the shells from guns fixed in the hulls of lighter warships pointing ahead. You aimed the guns by aiming the ship and adjustments were limited. These were dropped when proper high explosives like TNT came along that were immune to shock and could be fired in normal guns. I think those might be the biggest airguns made.
These were called dynamite guns.
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