Next man up, it's your turn - would you shoot it?
4 gauge shotgun - YouTube
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Next man up, it's your turn - would you shoot it?
4 gauge shotgun - YouTube
Sure. I may absolutely regret it. But I definitely would shoot it. Not many 4 gauge shotguns around. Plus I would expect a Damascus barreled gun. Probably a pretty pricey gun. That load looked stiff but manageable. Thinking he played it up a little.
I'd like to see what He shot at, or perhaps what's left of it...
Should be capable of a 1/3 of a pound payload
In Chesapeake by James Michener there were several legendary guns (I believe 5) that the old timers used to illegally shoot rafts of geese. These were essentially canons, and your story reminded me of that. The authorities were always trying to capture them. One was hidden in plain sight in front of a trailer under ceramics of the 7 dwarfs. Off topic but maybe give you a smile.
Bob
They also had market guns meant to be rested on the ground and shot into a flock of fowl.Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
Yes, these probably were market guns - the one in the story was named “The Thwomby (spelling wrong)” and was named after one of the last owners. The current owner in the story wasn’t a real upstanding citizen but went back many generations.
Bob
Certainly interesting pieces of history
I wouldn’t shoot it with my shoulders like they are, but would probably say yes when I was younger. I saw a video somewhere of a punt gun mounted on a low profile sneak boat. The operator pulled a rope like a cannon and when it went off the front of the boat raised up a good foot of more, and ducks fell out of the sky in huge numbers. Market hunters did some things that were very different than what we do today. The shot may have been steel, brass, or anything small enough to get the job done.
Gravel, pottery, almost anything they could vet stuffed down the barrel. I am sure the flocks of birds then were massiveQuote:
Originally Posted by skeetbum
That doesn’t look like fun!
I do love to shoot though, so I am guessing I would get cajoled into shooting it.LOL
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market hunters hurt our beautiful country and the native animals terribly , extinction of the passenger pigeon is a prime example.
did the same thing with free range buffalo just for fun and about pushed them to extinction .
reduced heron numbers so significantly to make ladies hats out of the feathers ,,,,,,that we still reap the massive amount of laws in place to protect the migratory birds .
unregulated trapping and hunting and the use of weapons and such that were intended to wipe out entire populations is just unthinkable to me .
imagine taking a train ride across the great plains just to whack unsuspecting buffalo for fun by the hundreds if not thousands .
or the mass harvest of hundreds of white egrets to pull out the long plumes and then toss the birds to make hats .
unregulated trapping of muskrats until some bright person decided to import nutria to help cure the problem ...
the list is long and the toll was heavy :banghead
as far as wanting to discharge a huge shotgun goes , not me ....
Hard to make the nutria extinct here. I remember hearing of bounties paid for them in an attempt to reduce their numbers and the impact they have on the environment. Much like the asian carp and zebra mussles have gotten into the lakes this far up. Market hunting for food and survival I do not believe was a bad thing. It was when coupled with the greed of man that it tool an ominous and destructive path.
There used to be one in the PPG limestone mine in my hometown. Was mounted on concrete and was used to shoot the rock to bring down the limestone for the loaders to pick up.
Sounds pretty interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Opie1
It was. PPG also injected water into the ground into the salt deposits. The brine was pumped to the plant to electrolysis cells to make sodium and chlorine. The sodium was reacted with the limestone to make soda ash for glass production. The chlorine was used to make phosgene. Plant is gone since the early 1970's. The is a small token production of certain chemicals now but nothing like it used to be.Quote:
Sounds pretty interesting.