News headline: "Snowmobile Season Opens in Vermont"

[jhetley]

I wonder, what would be the best choice of guns?

Comments

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Nothing smaller than a .338 Winchester magnum. I'd recommend a .375 Holland and Holland in most cases, and .460 Weatherby wouldn't be out of the question.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

The wife was suggesting an area-effect weapon. Problem is, most of those aren't really suited for wing-shooting of the faster game. And then there's the question of leaving enough intact for the mount....

Well, most taxidermists are good at reconstruction.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... one of those old market-hunter's shotguns? They were prodigous monsters. Something like an four-bore, which would hold four pounds of shot, would probably do it. The trick is in the shot selection.

If you ever happen to be in Maryland, there are some big market guns at the old Decoy Museum in Havre de Grace. The hunters would mount them on pintles that were bolted to the gunwales of their skiffs. They'd row out into a raft of sleeping ducks, and just blow the whole flock to kingdom come.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I think she was looking for something more on the lines of a 105.

To digress into potential nit-pickery, I thought a four-bore loaded balls at four to a pound. Not that some of those swivel guns weren't legally classified as artillery, but you seem to be talking about a four-pounder, not a four-bore.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

The way it's been explained to me is that X-bore means that the gun is bored to accept a single round shot of X pounds of lead. X-gauge means the gun will accept a single round shot of 1/X pound of lead.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Well, the way it was explained to _me_ was that "bore" and "gauge" were different words for the same measure. Along those lines, I doubt if Kipling would have loaded a protagonist with a "double four-bore" if your measure governed in the Raj....

Dunno if we are discussing regional variations or what.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

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.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

That was in the days of manly men. Not like the girly men we have now.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

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.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

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....

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

one of those old market-hunter's shotguns?
Sounds like the "punt gun" I saw several years ago at the Higgins Armory in Worcester. This beast must have been twenty feet long; almost looked like a straightened-out Alpenhorn. Although, according to memory, this monster wasn't trainable at all; you "aimed" it by steering the boat itself...

[edschweppe.livejournal.com]

I think she was looking for something more on the lines of a 105.
Now that's even more overkill than my thought (either a .50 or a 20mm Vulcan).