You Think Your Gun Recoils Hard?

[Muley Hunter]

Try one of these.

 

[hawgslayer1]

:scratch: :scratch: :scratch:

What are they used for besides scaring the hell out of people :?: Are those the shotgun that duck hunters I think mounted to their row boats and shot at flocks of ducks in the water :?:

Ray........... :?: :?: :?:

 

[Muley Hunter]

Yup! Originally, they were suppose to be shouldered, but at 17lbs nobody could do it that well. So, they mounted them on boats. Then they were outlawed.

 

[hawgslayer1]

Pete,
What is the guy in the middle holding? Are they the sections of ram rods?

Ray

 

[Muley Hunter]

No idea, but I believe that's a picture of the guns when they were confiscated. Those guys have badges.

 

[patocazador]

Those are punt guns .. used by market hunters for waterfowl. They're still legal in England.*

Chesapeake Bay was one of the places they were used when canvasbacks were bringing $1.50/brace.
The method used by the hunters, called marketmen, was to go out on moonless nights and shine the rafts of ducks with a candle reflector. The ducks were confused by the bright light and they would touch off the punt gun and kill dozens with one shot.

A larger swivel gun, a small cannon, was sometimes used.

* "Punt gun use continued into the 21st century in the UK, though laws limited bore size to 1.75″ or 44 mm, as opposed to the more common 2″-50 mm.  Ever since Queen Victoria’s 1897 Diamond Jubilee, there has been a celebratory punt gun salute over every English coronation and jubilee.  Several sporting manufacturers in the UK commercially produced small runs of punt guns, which were of better overall quality than those custom (read, homemade) jobs in the US.  Though ours were often crudely built and hard on the eyes, the guns had to be sturdy and made to withstand rigorous hunting use."

 

[patocazador]

Pete,
What is the guy in the middle holding? Are they the sections of ram rods?

Ray

I think that could be a battery of several barrels connected together.


Pete, my gun doesn't kick much. I shoot a gas-operated 20 ga. shotgun because I hate recoil.

 

[Muley Hunter]

Here's a punt gun with info on it.

[font=Georgia, Times, serif]RARE Confiscated Southern Made 7 Gauge Market Hunter's Punt Gun
[/font]​

[font=Georgia, Times, serif]

[/font][font=Georgia, Times, serif]This amazing gun was built in Alexandria, Virginia, before the Civil War. It was intended to be shoulder fired, but the massive 17 lb fowler was apparently too much for the gunner, and it shows signs of being strapped to his boat around the wrist; a true Punt Gun. At some point after market hunting was deemed illegal, the outlaw gunner's luck ran out and he was caught, and the gun was confiscated by the local game warden. [/font][font=Georgia, Times, serif]Two holes were drilled into the breech, and the muzzle leaded shut so it could never be used again to hunt ducks[/font][font=Georgia, Times, serif]. In 2012 for the first time since the gun was built, it left it's home in Virginia to join our collection here in Connecticut.[/font]​

 

[Muley Hunter]

Here's the info on the first picture I posted. Those guns are way bigger, but still punt guns. I'm guessing they weighed much more than 17lbs.

[font=Georgia, Times, serif]Virginia Game Wardens with Confiscated Punt Guns from The Chesapeake Bay, 
[/font]​

[font=Georgia, Times, serif]ca. 1920[/font]​

 

[patocazador]

This is a fanciful painting of a punt gun being used to hunt ducks. To my knowledge, they were fastened to the deck and not elevated. They were used to shoot rafted ducks on the water, never in the air. After the punt gun did its work, the gunner used a SxS 10 or12 ga. to finish off all the crippled ones.

 

[Muley Hunter]

It's no mystery why they were outlawed.

 

[exMember]

Just a big shotgun IMO. No biggy at having one.

 

[Muley Hunter]

Sure, and you can use a cannon for deer. It's just a big .22.

 

[patocazador]

Owning them isn't a problem, it's hunting with them that's illegal.

 

[exMember]

they were used back in the day for feeding folks in this country. High numbers of people call for high numbers of fowl that need to be taken. Now we get to eat fowl thats injected with hormones to fatten them up faster. Mmmmmm!!!