"Scattergun"

I have heard of a smooth bore shotgun that early market hunters used for waterfowl. If I recall correctly it was called a punt gun, and was approximately 4 gauge. It was mounted on the front of a boat and the hunters would float down River and shoot into the sitting flocks of ducks. Rumor had it they used shot, nails, rocks, scrap metal bits. Not sure about improvised projectiles being commonly used, but I could see a desperate use of rocks when the market was down being plausible, but not likely.
 
I think

I think the boat mounted guns used by the market hunters were larger than 4 bore.
Seems like I have seen pics of shoulder held 4 bore guns.

The guns mounted on rowboats were huge and heavy, way more than a man could hold up and fire, not to mention the recoil.

James Michener's book Chesapeake mentions a bit about market hunters and the boat mounted guns. Great read BTW.
 
I can't google recent details, but there were 45 active punt gunners in England in 1995. I saw brief mention of punt gunning in 2016.

The maximum allowable modern punt gun bore is 1.75", but Greener refers to a 1.5" with 1 1/2 pounds of shot as standard in his day; or the 1.25" with 1 1/4 pounds of shot.

Best carry along a 12 bore to finish off the cripples.

I saw a picture of a gimmick gun, a double barrel with one percussion lock and one flintlock. The theory was that when pulling both triggers the percussion barrel would shoot the flock on the water and the longer lock time and recoil of the gun in the breeching rope would catch more of the ducks as they flushed.
 
A "Punt" is a certain size/type of boat. A "punt gun" was a large, smoothbore gun, usually a muzzle loader, mounted on the boat, used for shooting flocks of waterfowl on the water. Bore diameter was usually 1.5-2" but there were many variations.

Used by market hunters, NOT sportsmen. In a time when there were essentially no rules and very few laws governing the taking of wild game.

The punt would be rowed or drifted within range of a flock on the water, then the punt gun fired, killing a dozen or more with a single shot. Today this practice is not just illegal, it is morally indefensible. Back then, it was just "business as usual".
 
"Morally indefensible"?
I wouldn't mind a few punt gunners around to knock down the Canada goose population around here ..
They are out of control
 
There was more to it than meets the eye. First, you only got one shot, so you better make it count. You couldn't reload it in the boat but had to go back to shore to do it. Second, you had to skull the boat out close enough for a good shot without scaring the ducks away.
So they make the law about how large a gun you could use, 10ga, when all that was needed were laws about how many water foul could be taken. There are a number of guys with old 8ga guns who would love to be able to shoot a couple of ducks or geese with them, but can't. Funny how you can use a .410 to hunt ducks with, and wound as many as possible, but not use a larger gun and kill em dead.
 
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