Punt Gun

[musketman]

Punt Gun
In the 1880s, at the height of hunting of waterfowl for commercial purposes, market hunters used large bore shotguns of domestic manufacture. The hunters mounted these cannon-like punt guns on the bow of a flat-bottomed duck boat, called a punt...

They poled the boat quietly, at night, close to a flock of ducks resting on the water, and fired a large load of shot and powder that killed many ducks at once. Used in tandem, a group of hunters could bag 500 ducks per day...

Federal Laws banned punt guns, market hunting, and the fashion feather trade by 1920, after much of the wild bird population was decimated from decades of over-hunting...

Punt Gun Detail
iron, wood
Illinois State Museum Collection

The punt gun pictured on this page is a muzzle loader that looks crude in design, much like an iron pipe with a rough wooden stock strapped onto it. It weighs almost 100 pounds, so it would have been mounted on a boat or nestled on padding against the stern and discharged... :shocking:

In one of the English proof laws, the largest gauge shotgun was an A (approximately a 2 inch bore). Obviously, this was a punt gun, used on a small boat against flocks of resting waterfowl. The largest shoulder fired shotguns were about 4 gauge (1 inch bore).

 

Neat- Eh?- In addition to your 'report, Musketman, here's some further info that I have on the subject.
: The shot charge was usually measured as 4 ouces to 1 1/2 pounds of #1 to #3 shot. As many as 100 birds killed for each shot. W.W. Greener's article on them stated that the range of 100yds. was preferred. The gun was pointed about 4" above the birds & at the shot, the birds would rise because of the smoke, and fly into the shot cloud. This was preferred as a ducks wings protect them too well when sitting.
; Punt guns were made right up to the ctg. gun, breech loading development era.
: Cool Subject- way to go.
Daryl

 

[jtmattison]

I've seen a punt gun mounted on a boat in a museum in Vermont. They were used heavily on Lake Champlain by market hunters. The gun is surely something to see. The one I saw had about a two inch bore. They said they would stuff them with anything they could get their hands on for shot...broken glass, stones, nails...etc.

Huntin

 

[Zonie]

As some of you recall several months ago there was a Miqulet locked large bore gun which the owner was asking about. It had a large funnel on the end of the barrel. He was wondering what it could have been used for.
At the time one of the thoughts which crossed my mind was the Punt Gun but I didn't say so at the time because I didn't know if such things were used in the Mediterranean area where this style of lock was popular.
I still don't know the answers but IMO it would have made a good punt gun.

 

Well, the funnel looked like a new addition to make it look fiercer or something as it didn't line up well. The length and weight of the piece didn't match up to a punt gun, I don't think- memory's not that good about it though. The punt guns were very long in barrel - like 10' and more.
Daryl

 

[musketman]

Years ago people used to practice shooting the punt gun with nails and glass. The punt gun also used buckshot and black powder to shoot. It could kill 40 to 50 ducks at a time! The practice of using a punt gun was banned in 1918.

 

[blckhrn]

Geez, and me antsy about touching off my rebarrelled Rolling Block the first tims.

 

[musketman]

Geez, and me antsy about touching off my rebarrelled Rolling Block the first tims.

It's a monster... :winking:

 

[blckhrn]

I've seen 'em before, some were mounted on pretty heavy wood boats and were said to send them back considerable w/ recoil.

Nice wall hanger, ever fire it?

 

[musketman]

Nice wall hanger, ever fire it?

It's not mine, I was allowed to post it's picture, that's all...

Could you imagine holding that thing on your shoulder and touching it off? :shocking:

 

[blckhrn]

Cliff ws tha guy who got me started w/ ML's almost 40 yrs ago. He lent out two 32 lb bench rifles that I used to shoot offhand once in a while to make the old men jealous.

Two big differences, less weight and virtually no recoil.

 

[2172]

About 35 years ago, I had the chance to have dinner at the home of the late Jac Weller. Jac was the honorary curator of the West Point Museum, and of the British Sandhurst one.
In the '60's, his collection was valued in excess of $2.5mm..some of the older guys may remember his writing in the American Rifleman.
In his living room, the rafters contained about 5 of what I identified as punt guns....Jac told me I was wrong. He said these flintlocks were "wagon guns", and added that they were used as small unit support weapons. Each gun was mounted in an oarlock, and they "wagon" apparently had a number of oarlock receptacles on each side wall...it was the equivalent of a crew-served weapon...there'd be 3 or 4 of these guns in a "battery" and part of the crew would be loading while the gunner was aiming. I don't recall the caliber, but it was something between 1.25 " and 1.5"...the charge was a handful of balls, stones, whatever was handy.
Digging in our club backstop one day, we came up with something that looked like a bloated[url] golfball..made[/url] out of lead. Jac identified it as the kind of projectile these guns would shoot, and suggested that the range was on the site of some small unit action. Pretty likely, as this was the part of NJ near Morristown where the two sides foraged pretty heavily....Hank