Guns & Outdoors Forum

Sorry for not posting for a while but the death of my younger brother in May has been taking up a lot of my time recently sorting all his affairs out. Anyway, I should start to have a bit more time so I thought I would post this: I have been collecting a few things and bought up some old cartridges and loading tools. Among them were two punt gun cartridge cases ready for loading. They could be obtained as capped cases from Eley-Kynoch but sadly no longer and you have to have your own made from brass etc. The photograph is alongside a 'pip-squeak' 3 1/2" 12 bore magnum round for comparison. The cases are for the 1 1/2" punt gun; a mid size and the most commonly encountered. Length of case is 9 3/4" and the primer is a .32 pistol blank. The charge for this round is 3 to 3 3/4 ounce of coarse grain black powder and 16 to 20 ounces of shot. Sadly wild bird protection legislation limits the bore to just 1 3/4" bore although they did run to 2 1/8" which would fire double the load of the case shown here. There are not so many 'Punt-gunners' about now but a few still practice the art. The second photo is of a selection of such cartridges that I took some time back at the Birmingham Proof House Museum.

Fist off, my condolences to you and your family on your loss.

Now, on to the rest of your post...

WOW!!!
Thanks for posting this. Interesting stuff. Thanks for posting!

Sorry to hear of your loss.
That think must rock the boat when firing

Well. . .if the folks managing HMS Victory won't let you shoot canister through their 68-pounder carronades, you make do with what you have.

My deepest condolences. And thanks for continuing to post stuff I’ve never seen before.

My condolences Mike. I was wondering why you haven't been posting. You always have the most interesting things in you collection.

I haven't read about punt guns in years. IIRC you can no longer use them for waterfowl in the USA.

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/punt- ... y=relevant

Thank you for your kind messages. Don't worry Freezer I'll get posting again as time permits.

Sorry the hear about your brother, my condolences.

I’d hate to shoulder that “thing!”
We have a power plant here locally that uses 10 ga shoguns to clean the inside of a furnace. They use to have flats of shell delivered to the shop, now I’m betting they are just delivered there.

Sorry about your loss.

As for the Punt gun... I'd love to shoot one of those. At least once. Just to experience something like that.

Elk Creek, most of those guns for cleaning the slag off the inside of kilns etc. are 8 gauge and fire a 3 ounce slug. They are made by Remington, Winchester, CIL and Fiocchi and possibly others. I use these as a source of cases for my 8 bore shotguns. There is a step in the case head to prevent their use in shotguns and this has to be swaged out first before loading. Here are some I prepared earlier:
I also collect old post cards depicting shooting scenes; this is one of a punt gunner. A bit of an odd subject for a post card.

I have an 8 ga industrial shell in my cartridge collection

For years I just knew I had a 10 ga shell somewhere. However, when I started mounting the cartridges and shells I could never find it. One day I’ll get one and put it next to the 8 ga.

I have a couple hundred 8 ga Winchester industrial shells and about 1500 Remington green shells.

Rugerfan, 8 Gauge shotgun cases run in a wide variety of lengths; never understood why. The shortest is the 3 1/4", then they go up in 1/4" increments through 3 1/2", 3 3/4", 4" and 4 1/2". You should be able to trace a 10 Gauge cartridge the shortest here were 2 5/8" and 2 7/8" then 3" and 3 1/4" but the latter were usually brass cases.
rberg, they go through thousands knocking slag of the inside of kilns. I source mine through and ICI works. They are the only really practical way of making 8 Gauge shotgun rounds. I generally use the Remington ones as shown.

I worked for Calportland cement company for 35 years and have shot many thousands of 8 gauge shells nocking out build up in the kiln.
My 8 gauge are all live rounds.