Punt guns

[m greeny]

6 hours ago, silver pigeon69 said:

Quite a bit north from Hastings! They even speak funny and have names like "balm cakes" for bread rolls!😂

Bread rolls don't exist either they are buns😂

[London Best]

Sorry, but round here they are “cobs”.

[derbyduck]

On 09/12/2019 at 15:16, mudpatten said:

Once again I really must apologise for what seems like a brutally disparaging comment but the Gun Punt Adventure should only be read as an example of "How Not To" do something. Both the authors had access to a lot of local knowledge about punts and guns which they chose to ignore and ended up producing an abortion of a punt and gun outfit when they could as easily have produced something functional.

Part of the problem is that, if you have no experience of punts and guns it`s easy to assume that, if it appears in a book, it must be right. Often it isn`t.

 

your right about that how not to do something , I read about a bloke firing a punt gun in his living room !

[moongeese]

11 hours ago, derbyduck said:

your right about that how not to do something , I read about a bloke firing a punt gun in his living room !

That must have been fun Tony.

Back in 1970 I had just purchased a 3-bore muzzle loader by Henry Knock. It had a barrel of 5' 7", and I had had the breech plug off to check the barrel, as I was restoring the gun. I wanted to check the ignition system, and poured a little blackpowder down the barrel, no wad, and fired off a cap,  I was left with a lovely round black mark on the white ceiling  , the size of a dinner plate,  lets just say despite being not long married, I was not popular for a long time. Lol. At the time we grew up trailing about the army training ground of Buddon , always picking up all sorts of ordinance, and a good friend of mine had picked up a couple of thunderflashes that had been used on night manoeuvres  , he sat them at the side of his open coal fire to dry off, and one exploded, that made a real mess of the living room, blowing out the coal fire. Aye the good old days. Lol 

I have added a picture of the H. Knock, the gun next to it is a T. Wild 12-bore hammer gun with 30" barrels

Edited December 18, 2019 by moongeese

[Old farrier]

2 hours ago, derbyduck said:

your right about that how not to do something , I read about a bloke firing a punt gun in his living room !

That sounds like a interesting read  I’m sure there’s plenty would love to know the full how not to do it story 

[marsh man]

6 hours ago, Old farrier said:

That sounds like a interesting read  I’m sure there’s plenty would love to know the full how not to do it story 

This thread get better as time wear on , I am sure there are many stories like that are gone for ever along with the person who made the mistake in the first place .

Before I moved, the village I lived in was on the edge of the marshes , to say there were a few rough diamonds in years gone by would have put it mildly , a lot of the wild fowlers had allotments , these were on the marsh itself and many a time they might had gone up there to dig some spuds and came back home with a pair of duck that they had walked em up on one the many dykes , it was always spoke about by the old timers about the time when the large skeins of geese flighted off the marshes to go and roost on one of the sandbanks out at sea , when one lot came over on a day of rough easterly wind someone gave them a couple of shots and one went into a glide and ended up going into someone's sliding sash upstairs window and landed in the bedroom 

In one of my books ( Wildfowling At Wells , The World Of Frank Southgate ) it tells of a similar story but the other way round , one chap was staying in a boarding house along the quayside at Wells and shot a wading bird from the upstairs window , the landlady wasn't to happy but it was very soon forgot about , another mention in the book was about shooting three geese from what is now the village green and one of then fell in the main village street that go down to the harbour .

No doubt some of them might be fabricated a bit , but they might be very close to what happened .

So come on guys , tell us about the ones you know .

[mudpatten]

What sort of e ffing moron would fire a punt gun in his living room?

[London Best]

I have had two similar instances with geese, both Canada’s as it happens. I once shot a goose that went into a long glide, nearly half a mile, and crashed through a little wood off my ground. I left the gun and followed up. The bird had gone clear through the wood and was dead on the lawn of the local convent only twenty yards from the windows. 
More recently I was waiting for a fox in a farm yard, so had a shotgun not a rifle. A fantastic goose flight developed over the yard, skein after skein. Unable to resist any longer, I decided to have one. I knocked a goose down, it cleared the Dutch barn, hit an empty silo right next to the road with a loud ‘bong’ and finished up in the middle of the road in the village, right outside the front door of the pub.

[derbyduck]

10 hours ago, moongeese said:

That must have been fun Tony.

Back in 1970 I had just purchased a 3-bore muzzle loader by Henry Knock. It had a barrel of 5' 7", and I had had the breech plug off to check the barrel, as I was restoring the gun. I wanted to check the ignition system, and poured a little blackpowder down the barrel, no wad, and fired off a cap,  I was left with a lovely round black mark on the white ceiling  , the size of a dinner plate,  lets just say despite being not long married, I was not popular for a long time. Lol. At the time we grew up trailing about the army training ground of Buddon , always picking up all sorts of ordinance, and a good friend of mine had picked up a couple of thunderflashes that had been used on night manoeuvres  , he sat them at the side of his open coal fire to dry off, and one exploded, that made a real mess of the living room, blowing out the coal fire. Aye the good old days. Lol 

Bill when I was building my 2 bore I used some reworked Orlican case  and after seating a primer tested it by sitting the gun in a cheap wellie and blew the heel off it ! I didn't think the primmers had that much humph Lol  atb  Tony

[derbyduck]

On 12/12/2019 at 09:58, silver pigeon69 said:

Quite a bit north from Hastings! They even speak funny and have names like "balm cakes" for bread rolls!😂

on the same lateral line there Cobs .

[mudpatten]

In response to a pm. Go to Library and scroll down to no. 16.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwjVjJyLrMLmAhWOY8AKHdGyDCIQFjAAegQIBhAC&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ladwaca.com%2F&usg=AOvVaw0oF-mEVy2SpC-KGbChXlIk

[Dave at kelton]

Interesting discussion with a friend last week talking about a few puntgunners test firing steel shot due to the cost of other non toxic like bismuth. I would be interested to know if anyone is using steel on a regular basis yet. I am certainly happy with it on the shore save for my English eight.

[panoma1]

I have a vague recollection of a report of someone letting a puntgun off in his living room? Lol! 💣

[Penelope]

On 18/12/2019 at 19:20, mudpatten said:

What sort of e ffing moron would fire a punt gun in his living room?

😂

[Old farrier]

14 hours ago, Dave at kelton said:

Interesting discussion with a friend last week talking about a few puntgunners test firing steel shot due to the cost of other non toxic like bismuth. I would be interested to know if anyone is using steel on a regular basis yet. I am certainly happy with it on the shore save for my English eight.

Been experimenting with it and with the help of a member of the formum and a plastic shot cup have had some good patterns and as yet no damage to the barrel 

currently firing 17 oz of steel shot  

working on something else that’s promising at the moment but that’s still underdevelopment 

the pink helps with the recovery of the shot cup as it doesn’t travel that far 

[London Best]

Well done, sir.
Nice to see people making the effort to keep the old guns alive.

[Dave at kelton]

8 hours ago, Old farrier said:

Been experimenting with it and with the help of a member of the formum and a plastic shot cup have had some good patterns and as yet no damage to the barrel 

currently firing 17 oz of steel shot  

working on something else that’s promising at the moment but that’s still underdevelopment 

the pink helps with the recovery of the shot cup as it doesn’t travel that far 

Excellent well done

[mudpatten]

As an aside, quite a few punt guns are actually quite modern. Two friends of mine have recently completed a double barelled muzzle loader and a single barreled hybrid breech/ML is nearing completion.

O.F.- I`d be interested to hear how your trial with steel progresses. Both of the above guns were built with steel in mind but we`re fortunate to have accrued a lot of tungsten based shot over the years.

[Manish]

On 18/12/2019 at 18:48, marsh man said:

In one of my books ( Wildfowling At Wells , The World Of Frank Southgate ) it tells of a similar story but the other way round , one chap was staying in a boarding house along the quayside at Wells and shot a wading bird from the upstairs window , the landlady wasn't to happy but it was very soon forgot about , another mention in the book was about shooting three geese from what is now the village green and one of then fell in the main village street that go down to the harbour .

 

And just to think a few years back the butcher in wells (forgotten the name now) had to stop hanging game in the window due to second homers complaining. It the f$%king country if you dont like it **** off back to the smoke. 

Edited December 21, 2019 by Manish

[Wildfowler]

On 20/12/2019 at 18:43, mudpatten said:

As an aside, quite a few punt guns are actually quite modern. Two friends of mine have recently completed a double barelled muzzle loader and a single barreled hybrid breech/ML is nearing completion.

O.F.- I`d be interested to hear how your trial with steel progresses. Both of the above guns were built with steel in mind but we`re fortunate to have accrued a lot of tungsten based shot over the years.

I only fire steel through mine. A few pattern shots were time well spent to get the balance between powder and shot, to give a good quick pattern with good penetration and blowing the centre of the pattern out.

I make shot cups from plastic coke bottles and a hardboard base.  No noticeable marks to the barrel and have had some good shots so seems to work!

[Big Mat]

22 hours ago, Wildfowler said:

I only fire steel through mine. A few pattern shots were time well spent to get the balance between powder and shot, to give a good quick pattern with good penetration and blowing the centre of the pattern out.

I make shot cups from plastic coke bottles and a hardboard base.  No noticeable marks to the barrel and have had some good shots so seems to work!

What shot size did you go with for steel? Kept shot weight same as using tungsten or upped it?

[Wildfowler]

2 hours ago, Big Mat said:

What shot size did you go with for steel? Kept shot weight same as using tungsten or upped it?

I use BBB and I use the same weight of steel as I would tungsten but obviously that means you get more shot volume. I can 14oz of steel or 16oz of tungsten in a cartridge. To get 16oz steel the cartridge is part way up the forcing cone. I do push it with more powder though to get the speed and therefore kinetic energy.

[mudpatten]

Any issues with the recoil from the larger powder charge and increased volume of shot?

[Big Mat]

13 hours ago, Wildfowler said:

I use BBB and I use the same weight of steel as I would tungsten but obviously that means you get more shot volume. I can 14oz of steel or 16oz of tungsten in a cartridge. To get 16oz steel the cartridge is part way up the forcing cone. I do push it with more powder though to get the speed and therefore kinetic energy.

It obviously sounds the way to go for the future, especially with lack of ITM these days. I'm not a punt gunner at the moment, but like to learn these things as when I finally get set up, any stocks of ITM will be prohibitively expensive in the rare case they come up for sale.

 

[Wildfowler]

11 hours ago, mudpatten said:

Any issues with the recoil from the larger powder charge and increased volume of shot?

It can make it a bit lively. I did have a shot with a slightly heavier powder charge which resulted In the recoil pulling back on the breaching rope to such an extent that when it sprung forward it ripped the check rope eye clean out of the wash board and broke the gun crutch!😳

it made a cracking shot though so was worth it!🤣

since then I’ve dialled it back a bit and can’t say it’s particularly made a difference to the effectiveness of the gun but the recoil is noticeably better.