bearcat6

This should work for stuff like rabid squirells etc.

TommyGunn

But can it kill a sick mouse?

Really? .950 caliber? What is this for .... Apatosaurus??

Jaeger

.950" cartridge. Interesting.

Do any of you remember a similar video of guys firing a similar rifle with a cartridge called the "577 T-Rex?"

Here's a Youtube link to a video of that:

Charlie Petty

wouldn't be more fun to stand in front of a truck...

stand watie

CrarliePetty,

almost as fun to shoot as the 8-foot long, 40+#, "market hunter's special", muzzleloader that a friend owns in the Chesapeake Bay area, which once belonged to his great-grandfather. = 2 INCH bore, loaded with 2 handfuls of FG black powder & 2 handfuls of #4 shot.
(can you say, CANNON, children? SURE you can!)

shooting it (after dark) was, to say the least, SPECTACULAR!

yours, sw

Charlie Petty

I'd have loved to see that.

I've read about the punt guns and seen a couple in museums.

Actually Michener has a lot about them in Chesapeake

stand watie

CharliePetty,

as i'm in TX & not any longer in VA/MD/DC, i don't know how i could make that happen.-
Michael is more than a little afraid of (unknown to him) people even SEEING the BIG gun.
(i'm not even sure that you can lawfully even possess such a "cannon".)

and YES Mitchener was FASCINATED with the oldtime market hunters (and their gear) & wrote about them in at least 2 other writings, besides CHESAPEAKE.

fwiw, there are at least TWO punt guns, including the "volley gun" (that one of the two "good 'ole boys" supposedly built) from CHESAPEAKE in the Smithsonian's American History Museum & while you cannot fire them, you could certainly see them, when in DC.
(to me as an unknowledgeable "amatuer" in such matters, that "volley gun" LOOKS about equally as dangerous on one end as the other. - it LOOKS like a sovereign recipe for a "blow-up".)

btw, somewhere in my books, i have a photocopy of an actual period plan for a MD gunning dory (which was given to me at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum.), circa 1910.

NOTE: the barrel of Michael's gun is welded together out of "strips" of 1/2-inch thick wrought iron. - the muzzle is 9-sided, with the odd strip facing up. - Michael says that he thinks the "top strip" is supposed to be used as "a pointing aid".

yours, sw

stand watie

to all,

speaking of punt guns, the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum has a punt gun on display that was used to SINK a VA "oyster raider" during "the oyster wars". - according to the writing from a Eastern Shore MD weekly, the owner fired the punt gun at the deck of the VA boat (clearing the deck) & then fired again at the waterline of the "raider", blowing a large hole in the port side of the VA boat.

fwiw, those "good 'ole boys" from MD "weren't no pussycats".
(CHUCKLE)

NOTE: during WWII, some "buy boats" & "arster drugers" were armed by the US Navy and/or by the USCG with (mostly) WWI-era MACHINE GUNS, including MAXIMS, Colt's "potato diggers", 1919 Brownings, TSMG, BARs & perhaps other weapons.= such vessels were called "auxiliary naval defense boats".
(according to a museum curator, those MG were NOT "surrendered" at war's end. - one wonders what happened to them!)

yours, sw