1″ Bore Punt Gun
1″ Bore Punt Gun
1″ Bore Punt Gun. Circa 1890’s Percussion 1″ bore punt gun in excellent condition. Some 67″ long with a 53″ barrel. There is no visible serial number or maker’s markings.These are rare these days.
Why kill two birds with one stone when you can bag 50 in a single shot? A 19th-century megafowler designed by the market hunting industry to take down ducks and geese on a massive scale.
A punt gun is essentially an enormous shotgun that was mounted to the front of a shallow draft duck boat called a punt, hence the name of the weapon. Being custom firearms, the first punt guns were fairly crude compared to some later examples, usually hand-built muzzleloaders designed to spray hundreds of pellets over a wide area.
Shooting a punt gun effectively requires a solid mount, and the most popular method was to attach the cumbersome weapon to a long, wide bottom boat. Hunters would lie flat and use hand paddles or long poles to silently ease their craft toward a flock of unsuspecting waterfowl. Once in range, the entire boat would need to be positioned to effectively aim the punt gun.
The idea of manoeuvring what amounted to a miniature cannon in the general direction of a resting flock, showering them with hundreds of pellets, and spending the rest of the day collecting the fallen and wounded birds doesn’t measure up as ethical by today’s standards, but in the 1800s it served a valuable role in delivering meat to market before the widespread availability of refrigeration.
The numbers didn’t lie, and punt gun hunters developed coordinated strategies with up to ten boats at a time to further increase the efficiency of their deadly weapons.
** Ammunition, Firearms and any Licensed components are not available to order online. Due to current Firearms Legislation these items are collection only and can only be purchased upon production of the necessary Firearms Permits. If you would like to purchase this item then please contact us on info@guntopia.hu or call +36 30 304 3036 **
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€ 5 026,00
1" Bore Punt Gun
Punt guns were usually custom-designed and varied widely, but could have bore diameters exceeding 2 inches (51 mm) and fire over a pound (≈ 0.45 kg) of shot at a time. A single shot could kill over 50 waterfowl resting on the water's surface.
They were too big to hold and the recoil was so large that they had to be mounted directly on punts used for hunting, hence their name.
Hunters would manoeuvre their punts quietly into line and range of the flock using poles or oars to avoid startling them. Generally, the gun was fixed to the punt; thus the hunter would manoeuvre the entire boat in order to aim the gun.
The guns were sufficiently powerful, and the punts sufficiently small, that firing the gun often propelled the punt backwards several inches or more. To improve efficiency, hunters could work in fleets of up to around ten punts.
Additional information
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