A punt gun?

[GregGry]

http://media.putfile.com/Puntgun

 

[RevolvingCylinder]

Forget the .50BMG, I want that.

 

[Glockfan.45]

Yikes! But the real question is does it have a sister.

 

[harvester of sorrow]

Interesting relic from the old market-hunting days.

 

[rbernie]

Interesting relic from the old market-hunting days.

"When you absolutely, positively have to kill every motherf&*^%ing duck on the water. Accept no substitutes."

 

[redloki]

As I can recall punt guns were mainly mounted on river boats and boats in general in the early days of our nations history. I remember an old timer telling me a story about them. He said they were often used in pairs. One with a blank charge to scare the birds in the air and the second loaded with 2lbs of shot to take out an entire flock. They were so effective that they devistated bird populations in those days so much that they were no longer allowed to be used for hunting. They were too big and bulky for any other use so they stopped making them and just more or less dissappeared. You can still find a few here and there just like the one in the video. They are cool indeed.

 

[SDC]

In case anyone's wondering what a huge freaking shotgun has to do with football , "punt" is an archaic English name for a flat-bottomed, square-ended boat, of the type that a waterfowl hunter would use.

 

[Logan5]

My local gun shop has one, I was looking at it this afternoon. Not handling it, of course, since that would be a team effort and there's only one of me, so no idea what the bore is like. I doubt the local range would let me rope it down to a shooting bench to touch off, too. That video did look like way too much fun though...

 

[blackedoutharley]

I can remember as a kid seeing one of these set up in a static display with the boat and all at the gun collection that used to be inside the old Harrold's club casino in Reno, Nv. along with an enormous amount of other very fine and often rare guns.....

wonder where they went when it closed?

 

[Logan5]

If you actually want one... http://www.hansenguns.com/ Ask for Tom or Jay. I'm sure they'd love to sell it even more than they love having it.

 

[Cromlech]

What's the best load for home defense, with a punt gun?

 

[Lucky]

How were they mounted in the boats? And how are they loaded?

 

[Cromlech]

From what Tremors 4 led me to believe, they are muzzle-loaders. You pour in a lot of powder, a rag/cloth thingamabob (wadding), then a load of shot, and push it down fairly firmly with the ramrod.

 

[bthest86]

Google is great.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_gun

A punt gun is a type of extremely large shotgun used in the 19th and 20th centuries for shooting large numbers of waterfowl for commercial harvesting operations. Punt guns were usually custom-designed and so varied widely, but could have bore diameters up to 2 inches. A single shot could kill a whole flock of waterfowl resting on the water's surface. They were too big to hold and the recoil so large that they were mounted directly on the punts used for hunting, hence their name. Hunters would maneuver their punts quietly into line and range of the flock using poles or oars to avoid startling them. To improve efficiency hunters could work in fleets of up to around ten punts.

In the United States, this practice depleted stocks of wild waterfowl and by the 1860s most states had banned the practice. The Lacey Act of 1889 banned the transport of wild game across state lines, and the practice of market hunting was outlawed by a series of federal laws in 1918. There are few punt guns remaining.

 

[LoveMyCountry]

So what would be a good holster for concealed carry with that?



LoveMyCountry

 

[Autolycus]

I want a semi-auto one. The punt gun looks to be a fun toy.

 

[mrrick]

There's a great description of them and their use in James Michner's book "Chesapeake". A good read.

 

[Rovi]

Apparently, it's still practised in the U.K.
Loads of info here-
http://www.wildfowling.com/puntgun.htm

 

[Nanook]

Now THERE'S the gun you'd want when hordes of whatever came at you!

Reloads are a bit slow, though.

 

[RNB65]

The VA Dept of Game and Inland Fisheries has two punt guns on display in the little museum/display area of their Richmond headquarters office. They are huge! Almost a small smoothbore cannon.

 

[James NM]

Wonder if they offer a compact model for concealed carry?

 

[hockeybum]

load it on a rolling bench, and each night, before you go to sleep, put it in front of the door, lets see how much the basgard breaking into my house likes that surprise

 

[Vern Humphrey]

How were they mounted in the boats? And how are they loaded?

I've seen two or three in Tidewater Virginia (when I lived there) and one in Maryland. The one pictured is not an especially large example.

They were usually braced against a structural member of the boat -- sometmes the stern post. This one seems to have a brace attached to the keel. The gunner put a cushion between the butt and the brace point. The gun was left free so it could be reloaded -- which was done in a semi-reclining position.

The gunner paddled the boat with very small paddles, mostly lying flat and sneaking up on a raft of ducks at night.

Now let me tell you a story of the Yank at Oxford. The poor fellow was so eager and tried to fit in, but . . . well, Yank! Really!

But he kept volunteering and trying. So finally they appointed him to the Regatta Committee and told him, "We'll need about twenty punts and two dozen canoes. Do you think you can handle that?"

"You bet I can! Sure! I'm right on it!"

At the next meeting of the Regatta Committee they asked him how he was doing.

"Well, I've got the girls all lined up, but I can't find anyone who even knows what a panoe is."

 

[RNB65]

I suggest you stick with the gun history stories.

 

[Mark K. C.]

The punt gun was cool but too bad there wasn't more footage of Tom Knapp doing some of his shotgun demonstration shooting. He is very impressive.