The Power of the Punt Gun

There was a time in America when market hunting was a popular endeavor, and some Western hunters went out armed with a .45 or .50 caliber Sharps rifle to follow a buffalo herd and pick off a “stand” of perhaps 70 animals in the course of a day’s firing. But the best example of getting the most return for a single shot had to be the punt gun.

Paddling out to a flock of ducks resting on the water, a stealthy punt-gunner would have prepared his gun with a hefty charge of powder and an equally formidable load of shot. Enough of a load could be placed into this muzzleloading arm’s barrel so that up to a hundred ducks might be harvested in a single blast. On the Chesapeake Bay, the thunderous roar of punt guns came to an end in 1900 with the passage of the Lacey Act, which outlawed the transport of wild game across state lines. Restaurant owners in Baltimore or Washington, DC, had to seek other means to get their duck dinners supplied, as possession of punt guns became felonies in certain jurisdictions.

This relic example of a punt gun in the National Firearms Museum collection was hidden away in a quarry, and was recently donated by the William Salem family of Ohio. Weathered from exposure, and with a cracked stock from firing recoil, this 6½-foot-long piece weighs in at about 40 pounds. It can be traced back through the Salem family to 1893.

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