Posted on 06/13/2019 4:58:07 AM PDT by w1n1
Everyone likes to shoot big guns that goes boom. We’re talking a gun that you can shoulder and fire not a howitzer.
Back in the days of “commercial harvesting” you can hear large guns roaring in the marshes as waterfowl drop like rain. The use of punt guns was very effective. Back in the 1800 the use of punt guns to shoot down birds for market meat at cash value, which eventually was banned as waterfowl populations were in heavy decline.
Punt guns were not the average sporting shotgun. First use were over sized black powder shotguns in which well over a pound of shot could be fired at once. These could be made into gigantic flock slayers of different gauges. Yes, days of lead belching mammoth are gone.
Here is a video shared by Ryan Stille highlighting a punt gun unleashing on some clay pigeons. These single shot long gun form in huge sizes such as 4 gauge and even at a big 2 gauge size.
These punt guns were normally mounted on small boats. Hunters would paddled towards unsuspecting flock of waterfowl in the water. The boat was aimed by paddle so the punt gun was lined up and in range. With one huge kaboom, dozens or more ducks were put down. Read the rest of punt guns of yesterday.
I saw of couple of these at an old historical village in New Jersey about 40 years ago and had never heard of them before that. Read Richard Meinhertzhagen’s Diary, he talks about using them when hunting with his brother. He also talks a lot about many other very interesting things that make his Diary a must read for conservatives.
My friends dad was an illegal market hunter for ducks during the depression. He had a browning A5 instead of a punt gun and plied his trade on the great South Bay on Long Island. He supplied south shore restaurants with ducks. ( he also captained a fishing trawler for many decades…him and his buddies were sea cowboys doing whatever needed to be done to feed his family including rum running in the 20s)
He died in ‘79 and spoke of punt guns of his youth and how they were used
Thank you for that video!
There is a punt gun diorama at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, but I have never seen one actually fired!
Did he ever take you out on those low-lying salt marsh islands there?
He was very old when I knew him. I had a cottage on a creek for a few years. Kept a boat in the canal. Fished in and around those flats. Also out of fire island inlet into the ocean. Used to set up a skeet machine on those low islands and shot skeet.
Nice. I always wondered about who lived in, or used, those houses in the bay.
James Mitchner’s “Chesapeake” has a good chapter of harvesting geese using these. The hunter used hand paddles to “aim” the gun (cannon?).
I’ve taken broad Bill. Only on the north shore of Long Island. A bit gamey but edible
Shooting Pom Pom ducks.
My Grandfather was a commercial / sustenance hunter in I.T. on the Verdigris River. He used a punt gun. He also hunted crows for bounty locating a rookery and detonating a barrel filled with pea gravel and some dynamite.
Fyi, PUNT GUNS & “gunning skiffs” are still LEGAL for waterfowl hunting in the UK & in some Latin American nations.
(I’ve emailed back & forth, for a while now, with a Brit who built his own BREECH-LOADING Punt Gun & the gunning skiff to carry it from scratch. - He hunts ducks/geese with it & has taken many.)
Btw, the last time that I was in DC the Smithsonian’s American History Museum had a great exhibit on “The Big Guns”.
Note: I became interested in punt-gunning after reading James A Michener’s & John Moll’s book, THE WATERMEN.-
Yours, TMN78247
Actually they were fired from boats made specifically for that purpose called ... wait for it ... punts.
The name of the gun is derived from the boat.
Another swing and a miss from American Shooting Urinal.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punt_(boat)
You are 100% CORRECT.
IF you would like to have a Gunning Punt of your own (with or without a BIG GUN), THE CHESAPEAKE BAY MARINE MUSEUM sells GREAT original plans CHEAP from circa 1890-1910.
(I paid 9.00 for my set.)
Btw, to my knowledge there are NO plans for building a Punt Gun, but as they are black-powder, single-shot, guns (and quite similar to a shotgun “on steroids”) & basically just a piece of pipe with a lock/trigger, they are NOT hard to construct.
(Fwiw, I helped design/construct a percussion-lock Punt Gun strictly for a museum display about 25 years ago, using a 8ft piece of 2.25-inch ID steam-pipe for the barrel. = NOT a hard project. I have no doubt that it would have worked FINE for waterfowling, had the museum allowed us to fire it with a real load of shot/powder.)
Yours, TMN78247
You are 100% CORRECT.
IF you would like to have a Gunning Punt of your own (with or without a BIG GUN), THE CHESAPEAKE BAY MARINE MUSEUM sells GREAT original plans CHEAP from circa 1890-1910.
(I paid 9.00 for my set.)
Btw, to my knowledge there are NO plans for building a Punt Gun, but as they are black-powder, single-shot, guns (and quite similar to a shotgun “on steroids”) & basically just a piece of pipe with a lock/trigger, they are NOT hard to construct.
(Fwiw, I helped design/construct a percussion-lock Punt Gun strictly for a museum display about 25 years ago, using a 8ft piece of 2.25-inch ID steam-pipe for the barrel. = NOT a hard project. I have no doubt that it would have worked FINE for waterfowling, had the museum allowed us to fire it with a real load of shot/powder.)
Yours, TMN78247
You are 100% CORRECT.
IF you would like to have a Gunning Punt of your own (with or without a BIG GUN), THE CHESAPEAKE BAY MARINE MUSEUM sells GREAT original plans CHEAP from circa 1890-1910.
(I paid 9.00 for my set.)
Btw, to my knowledge there are NO plans for building a Punt Gun, but as they are black-powder, single-shot, guns (and quite similar to a shotgun “on steroids”) & basically just a piece of pipe with a lock/trigger, they are NOT hard to construct.
(Fwiw, I helped design/construct a percussion-lock Punt Gun strictly for a museum display about 25 years ago, using a 8ft piece of 2.25-inch ID steam-pipe for the barrel. = NOT a hard project. I have no doubt that it would have worked FINE for waterfowling, had the museum allowed us to fire it with a real load of shot/powder.)
Yours, TMN78247
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