Indians For Guns

Taken from here

I have seen the 8 gauge industrial shotgun shell before. It was used to clean out industrial smokestacks -- the ones that are very tall. Here's a brief page on the industrial use:

http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/201 ... tguns.html

Those big ones remind me of the punt gun you shot, Vikram!

Interesting that the only 8-bore shell they could find is an industrial example. I know that the largest shotgun bore legal for hunting in the US is the 10-Bore so I guess that industrial shell was all that could be found. Olin Winchester still make those industrial 8-Bore cartridges in various loads :

Product Name: SHOTSHELL 8 GAUGE INDUSTRIAL ROUNDS
Chemical Name: Mixture – Metal Alloy
Synonyms: Slug Loads: 3 oz.(85 g) lead (CE8S, CE8SPW, CE8RVPW, CE8LVPW); 3 oz.(85 g) zinc (CE8Z,
CE8ZPW, CE8ZRVPW); 2-7/8 oz.(82 g) zinc (CE8ZLVPW); 2 oz.(56 g) zinc (CE82Z, CE82ZPW); 2
oz.(56 g) steel (CE8FEPW); 1-5/8 oz.(46 g) iron (CE8FRPW).
Shot Loads: 00-Buckshot 20 pellet 2-1/4 oz.(64 g) lead (CE8B2P); 00-Buckshot 24 pellet 2-3/4 oz.(78 g)
lead (CE8B2LVP); #2 chilled shot 3 oz.(85 g) lead (CE8LV2P, CE8HV2P); #4 chilled shot 3 oz.(85 g) lead
(CE8LV4P, CE8HV4P); 8 pellet 1-1/8 oz.(32 g) zinc shot (CE8B2ZP).

It`s a shame that they couldn`t make limited numbers available in the UK for wildfowling ( with appropriate shot ) because 8-Bores are legal here....and prized. As it is, reloading is necessary using all-brass cases.
By the way, the best 8-Bore double that I`ve ever seen was a Parker which was offered at a Holts sale a few years ago. Strange that the best 8-Bore double I`ve seen was an AMERICAN Parker !

What would a 4ga be used for?

Wildfowling - ducks and geese.

I take it more birdshot in the 4ga means more chance of a hit?

Basically yes ..... although the hope with a 4-Bore is that more than one bird would be brought down.
Punt gun have even larger bores - up to 2 inches ( 50.8mm ) - and are legal here .... and there are stories from the past of over 50 birds being killed with one shot.

Good lord....50 birds!! What a boom that gun must have made!!

How Are 4 ga guns on recoil?

I`ve only shot a 4-bore once and the recoil was hefty but slow - a combination of blackpowder and a very heavy gun .... and a not particularly heavy load. That was a percussion gun built by an acquaintance. The recoil from 4-Bore rifles was brutal.....although the majority were not in fact rifles but smooth bored. The they fired ball or conical bullets in the range of 1400-2000 gr propelled by up to 1 oz of powder.

The larger punt guns fired shot loads of up to 1 1/2 lbs ( c. 680 gms )

timmy wrote:I have seen the 8 gauge industrial shotgun shell before. It was used to clean out industrial smokestacks -- the ones that are very tall. Here's a brief page on the industrial use:

http://firearmshistory.blogspot.com/201 ... tguns.html

Those big ones remind me of the punt gun you shot, Vikram!

Thanks for posting this. The link brought back some very earky memories from my childhood - but it's not about shotguns. My late father used to work in a factory in Porbandar that had huge lime kins that required cleaning as described in your link. And of course in India this was done manually after it cooled and not by using a shotgun.

Lme kilns are huge affairs in which limestone (mainly Calcium Carbonate from fossilized sea shells) is heated and the product Calcium Oxide, or "Lime" gets caked inside. Lime is a reactive chemical and if you add water to it it creates extreme heat and something like that recent explosion in Texas (was that in Waco?)

Anyhow one Sunday my father was urgently called to help at the factory. It turned out that there was a lime kiln that was caked with lime and one supervisor, impatient about needing to wait many days for the kiln to cool and then get workers to chip away the caked lime decided to use a high pressure spray of water to remove the caking. This caused the lime to heat up and crack and several tons of the stuff came crashing down, killing the supervisor who flouted safety regulations

I was a very little child then - maybe 4 years old. I did not know any English and I recall clearly that I knew only two English expressions - both of which I had heard my father use on the telephone - "Lime Kiln" and "hello"

Grumpy wrote:The larger punt guns fired shot loads of up to 1 1/2 lbs ( c. 680 gms )

At birds? What do you reckon the shot spread would have been?

Smooth barrelled 4 bores were also the ubiquitous elephant gun in africa and ceylon of yore. Dont know if they were used in India much

Thanks Vikram for posting. The 4ga is awesome.

I took some pictures of 8 Ga hunting ammo I have with some others for comparison...





Herb

Nice pics, Herb. Some good old Eleys. Do you happen to have an 8 Bore gun too? Thanks for sharing.


Best-
Vikram