I believe there used to be an 8-guage shotgun called a “punt gun” that was used for waterfowl hunting. It was mounted on a swivel on a small rowboat.
First time I ever heard of them was when I was reading James Michener's novel "Chesapeake".
“I believe there used to be an 8-guage shotgun called a “punt gun” that was used for waterfowl hunting. It was mounted on a swivel on a small rowboat.” [IronJack, post 10]
8-ga guns were possibly the smallest punt guns.
The shotshell chapter in _Cartridges of the World_ used to contain descriptions of shotguns as large as 4-ga and 2-ga, though the editors cautioned that specimens of that size were so rare that it was difficult to determine general dimensions: some rated as large as 2-ga appeared to be smaller.
Naming conventions also applied to muzzle loaders, before shotshells for breechloaders were developed.
Punt guns were used by market hunters in the days before hunting came under state regulation. Too heavy to carry easily and near-impossible to shoulder and swing, they were designed to take out the maximum number of birds possible in one shot, to give the hunters a better chance to get their “harvest” to market earlier.
They were civilian knock-offs of swivel guns and wall guns - shoulder arms or small cannon fired from mounts on warships or on walls of fixed fortifications, respectively. More easily loaded and more quickly aimed than artillery, they out-ranged and out-powered standard shoulder arms of the day. The mounts helped soak up the stout recoil.
Examples date to well before the flintlock period.
In the days before hydro-pneumatic recoil-absorbing systems, artillery was mounted on wheeled carriages or inclined-plane systems, allowing the gun tube to dissipate recoil energy by moving backward. Then it had to be loaded and hauled forward into place, usually by raw muscle-power of the crew, and aimed all over again for the next shot.