This has nothing to do with who made this shotgun, it is about what NOT to do with it.
I hope the statuette of limitations has gone by.
When I was a teenager (60 years ago) and not very knowledgeable about guns and reloading my neighbor (I'll call him Mike to protect the young and stupid) had one of these 40" barreled single-barreled shotguns, I think it was a Savage. Mike was a couple years older than me and had his own 12 ga. reloader. I thought he knew everything about reloading ammo. Mike had just read an article in one of the gun rags about the "Punt Guns" used on the Chesapeake by the market gunners. We lived in the Connecticut River valley in western Mass. In the spring the river would overflow the banks and flood some of the pastures. This coincided with the spring migration of the ducks. The ducks would stop in the flooed pastures. Mike decided he would like to try some punt gunning. He had an old wooden rowboat that we used in the river. His idea was to have me paddle the boat with him lying on the bottom with the barrel of the gun only about a foot over the water and when he saw a bunch of ducks lined up he would shoot.
This is where it gets interesting. He decided we would need something more than a standard 12 ga. load. He loaded a 12 ga. shell with a double powder charge and just put a wad over it. This was back before plastic wads. After chambering the shell he poured a double shot load down the barrel followed by a wadded up piece of toilet paper. He settled in on the bottom of the boat with the barrel resting on the transom and I paddled the boat backwards until we had about a dozen ducks lined up about 40 yds away.
KA_BOOM!! I think he slid back a foot on the bottom and the boat stopped moving. He rolled over holding his shoulder and said a few choice words and than wanted to know if he got any. Somehow the shotgun was still in one piece. I paddled over and we found a few ducks waiting for us.
He decided that a standard load was enough after that. We did keep using the tactic though and ended up with a bunch of ducks in his family's freezer.
I don't know what load they proofed that shotgun with but it was a strong old gun.
I hope the statuette of limitations has gone by.
When I was a teenager (60 years ago) and not very knowledgeable about guns and reloading my neighbor (I'll call him Mike to protect the young and stupid) had one of these 40" barreled single-barreled shotguns, I think it was a Savage. Mike was a couple years older than me and had his own 12 ga. reloader. I thought he knew everything about reloading ammo. Mike had just read an article in one of the gun rags about the "Punt Guns" used on the Chesapeake by the market gunners. We lived in the Connecticut River valley in western Mass. In the spring the river would overflow the banks and flood some of the pastures. This coincided with the spring migration of the ducks. The ducks would stop in the flooed pastures. Mike decided he would like to try some punt gunning. He had an old wooden rowboat that we used in the river. His idea was to have me paddle the boat with him lying on the bottom with the barrel of the gun only about a foot over the water and when he saw a bunch of ducks lined up he would shoot.
This is where it gets interesting. He decided we would need something more than a standard 12 ga. load. He loaded a 12 ga. shell with a double powder charge and just put a wad over it. This was back before plastic wads. After chambering the shell he poured a double shot load down the barrel followed by a wadded up piece of toilet paper. He settled in on the bottom of the boat with the barrel resting on the transom and I paddled the boat backwards until we had about a dozen ducks lined up about 40 yds away.
KA_BOOM!! I think he slid back a foot on the bottom and the boat stopped moving. He rolled over holding his shoulder and said a few choice words and than wanted to know if he got any. Somehow the shotgun was still in one piece. I paddled over and we found a few ducks waiting for us.
He decided that a standard load was enough after that. We did keep using the tactic though and ended up with a bunch of ducks in his family's freezer.
I don't know what load they proofed that shotgun with but it was a strong old gun.
