I love me some recoil. Both the magazine and the force of a gun as it releases a bullet or pellets. When I shoot one of my Benelli 12-gauge shotguns, it’s like unleashing a thunderbolt. Ditto shooting my Stoeger coach gun. A sore shoulder is a small price to pay for the joy of harnessing such power. That said, I’m not sure I’d enjoy firing a 4 gauge shotgun. But, as someone who used to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, there are times you have to engage in some risky business, if you know what I mean. You game?

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44 COMMENTS

  2. Oh HELL yeah!!!
    So far, the .450 African has kicked my ass the hardest. That was some cartridge.
    10 gauge shotties are fun.
    This would be a hoot!

    • .450 Marlin is kind of an orphan round. The .458 Winchester Grand African is the more popular, as it launches a heavier projectile (25%) at the same, or better velocities.

      (And the .458 doesn’t kick that bad.)

    • Ha! Humblebrag, I like that term. 100 lbs is too light for me though, someone’s gonna get hurt……

      • “100 lbs is too light for me though, someone’s gonna get hurt…”

        H’mm. Like *you*, perhaps? 🙂

    • A healthy BMI is just unpatriotic! She can call me when she’s pushing 350 lbs and riding a power scooter. Man’s a gotta have standards, after all.

      • Yeah, 100lbs may be “healthy” if you’re 5’0″, but I prefer taller women, with some meat on their bones.

  4. Don’t think I would be effective at hitting anything, but I would pull the trigger if someone else was footing the bill. What’s the worst that could happen?

  6. It’s like a McDonald’s combo: A quarter-pounder with lead and a large side order of recoil.

  8. Shot an 8 bore double once. They guy loaded both barrels as if I might fire twice.

    The recoil pushed the butt plate down my bicep to the elbow and my own right hand busted my nose.

    Of course the dork who owned it was laughing his ass off.

    If i could have shouldered it again, he might have been in trouble.

    No Mas!

  9. What the hell kind of bird do you hunt with a 4 gauge fowling piece, the mythical Roc?

    • You don’t take the recoil from an m2 in your shoulder. And then there’s the ammo. .50 bmg ain’t cheap, but I imagine 4 bore is worse.

      • OOoo! Can we maybe get a tripod mounted, belt fed, full auto 4-bore? I’d guess it better be suppressed, as well, for fear of distant windows collapsing from fear.

  12. OK, some history of “market” and “punt” guns:

    Before modern hunting regs went into effect, there were “market hunters.” These men would row their boats into estuaries and out onto lakes, and using 2, 4 and 8 gauge shotguns would down hundreds of birds in a day. They’d take them to market (ie, butchers) and would get paid for each bird they brought in.

    Punt guns were the WMD’s of bird hunting. These guns would have huge bores, and often be mounted lengthwise in a small boat (called a ‘punt’). The hunters would have a blind on top of the boat, and work the boat into close proximity to a large gathering of ducks or geese on the water, then let loose with one well-aimed horizontal shot at birds on the water’s surface. This would slaughter dozens of ducks/geese with one shot, which they’d then pull into the boat. They’d pull back and repeat.

    Some market hunters went to town with as many as 300 to 500 ducks/geese in a day. They were slaughtering the great waterfowl flocks in short order – and this was a huge problem.

    Market hunting was outlawed as a result of the 1909 Migratory Waterfowl Act, and these huge-bore shotguns became obsolete quickly. There’s no need to be hauling around a 4 gauge shotgun for waterfowling – the largest sporting shotgun you might see today is an 8 gauge, but even those are very rare. The largest commonly seen shotgun today is a 10 gauge.

    • I’m old enough to remember where 8 could still be used on waterfowl. Last I checked, the only factory load for an 8 was from “Remington Industrial Products” and was for use on clearing slag out of an industrial furnace.

    • …and often done at night. sometimes they would put a lamp in front of a reflector on the bow so it looked like the moon reflection approaching, and sneak up on roosted flocks.

  14. But, as someone who used to jump out of perfectly good airplanes, there are times you have to engage in some risky business,
    This gun is to make sure that the perfectly good airplane you are jumping out of isn’t.

    • I so want one of those. I’m a huge fan of Cornwell’s Richard Sharpe series. Sgt. Harper strides through the fields of my imagination with that gun.

  17. I remember seeing these types of shotguns in Arkansas back in the 90’s. The 4 gauge shotgun is 40mm in diameter. It is a rediculous looking shell that gets shoved in to he breach of these guns. Where I saw these guns was at a gun shop that specialized in antique and high end firearms. The shop owned ammunition for them and was selling it by the round. The two “punt” guns that I saw were owned by a man who had a swivel type of mount of mount in the bow of his boat. Though I don’t recall if he hunted with them or not I know he shot them still. Nobody there seemed to bat an eye. I was only 13 at the time. This seemed quite far and away above any type of gun I had seen at that point in my life. I know some of you guys are making references to the M2 Browning .50 machine gun. Guys the 4 gauge makes the .50 Browning look like a .223 beside a 12 gauge. It is really something to see if you have not.

  18. I’d love a 4 gauge smoothbore percussion black powder shotgun. Loaded with buckshot, it’s like a small cannon filled with grapeshot, loaded with round ball, it’s an elephant gun to everything within 50 yards. Yeah, I’d have to buy a can of 1F powder, but after shooting it half a dozen times, that can of powder will be empty so it won’t be taking up space in my cabinet.

  19. Why wouldn’t something like this have been used in military application?

    I’m thinking antipersonnel attacks or defense like in WWI iver the top charges, or even in 1980s style Iran-Iraq War where they just threw waves of soldiers at each other.

    Maybe the barrel could be reshaped into more of a delta shape, to induce a more horizontal spread?

  21. It was simply designed to down the entire formation of Canadian Geese in 1 shell.

    No follow up necessary. And the altitude didn’t matter. Also used as a back up Anti Aircraft gun. ;-0

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