A peek around the web supports your interpretation and leads me to think the docent at the museum might not have known what he was talking about. Or, as you suggest, it might be regional variation.
I saw one web page with details of the construction of a 4-bore double rifle. The thing has 1 inch diameter barrels! That's like shooting a 25 mm chain-gun from the shoulder.
I've read accounts by professional hunters who always used .375 H&H rifles. The pros considered rifles like the big .600 Nitro Express and Jefferies custom double rifles to be fine examples of conspicous consumption by British noblemen with more money than sense. With a .375 H&H the pros could kill anything in Africa, and not give themselves a concussion from the recoil.
As for the shotgunners, I think that the largest gauge shotgun fired from the shoulder was an 8-gauge. Big monster market guns were mounted on some kind of pedestal and swivel arrangement.
Well, I'd read similar comments. That Kipling story (Second Jungle Book) I mentioned earlier _does_ give a plausible use for the four-bore, though. Explosive shells to stop a monster croc ("mugger") in his tracks.
Still qualifies as field artillery in my universe, tho....
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I saw one web page with details of the construction of a 4-bore double rifle. The thing has 1 inch diameter barrels! That's like shooting a 25 mm chain-gun from the shoulder.
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As for the shotgunners, I think that the largest gauge shotgun fired from the shoulder was an 8-gauge. Big monster market guns were mounted on some kind of pedestal and swivel arrangement.
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Still qualifies as field artillery in my universe, tho....