Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 895: Project Punt Gun | 12 in '26

Transcript

Ep. 895: Project Punt Gun | 12 in '26 · The MeatEater Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Mediater podcast. I'm Spencer new Art, joined
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: today by Seth Morris and Max Barta. Today's episode is
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: a little different. We are going to be talking all
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: about punt guns. If you're not aware, we bought one
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a few years ago, then we shot it. We filmed
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: the whole process, and you can go watch that right
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: now on the meat Eater YouTube channel. This is our
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: fifth installment in the twelve and twenty six series that
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: we're doing this year. That's twelve long form films that
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: we're dropping in twenty twenty six. This film is probably
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the most different of everything that you'll see on our channel.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: The other episodes have more traditional outdoor adventures where Yanni
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: does an archie bear hunt, Clay chases mountain lions with hounds.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: The only thing that we hunt in the punt gun
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: episode is clay, pigeons and watermelons, so very different. And
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: some balloons and some balloons and some paper targets and
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: some hats. Yeah, we'll talk about in a little bit.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: So this is a story, you know, about conservation and
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: a very badass gun. Today we are going to be
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: answering your questions about the punt gun. Although Steve and
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: I host the film. Max and Seth were there every
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: time we shot the thing, so they got real familiar
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: with it. And then Seth and Max even got to
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: shoot it. We had six shells with us. Steve and
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I shot five of them. We had a sixth one.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: We said what should we do with this thing? Should
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: we just throw it in the river? And then Max
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: and Seth they said no, no, no, let us shoot it.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: So they did. And so we have a piece of
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the film here that didn't make the final cut. This
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: this is behind the behind Max and Seth shooting the
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: punt gun.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is really bonded our friendship.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: I'll tee it up with this real quick. Sorry. We
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: only had one shell left, but two people who wanted
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: to shoot it. So they were going to pull the
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: rope together. That's how you fire the punt gun. You
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: pulled this rope that's like, I don't know, two feet long.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And so they they were very kind and they pulled
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: the rope together. But I noticed something in the film
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: play it for us film. Seth brings back the hammer
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: he got that on it on Three's what I what
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: I wanted to bring up is Seth has his hand
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: on the rope, and then Max trumps him and reaches
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: in front of hand to get to grip further up
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the rope, and then Seth says, hold on, and then
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: he reaches in front of Max's hand again. It was
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: just like a little that's right, they were doing a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: totem pole of hands. Whoever got to be closer uh
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to to the trigger? Who do you think actually shot it?
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Which one you pulled the rope?
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I felt like I had more than it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: It felt pretty equal, even think so I was more
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: on your hand.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, almost, hold.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: Phil, Can we see it again? Could you like really
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: slow it down. Let's get a good look at who
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: maybe and the film you help us decide? Here which
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: one of these two shot the punt guna Hamm's back.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: Going to grab Max grabs in front of him.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Yep, cute, And now.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: I had the majority. I had that little anger point.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, now we're gonna shoot it. Here we go. I
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: think both It looks pretty slacky.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that looks it looks like Seth. It looks like Seth.
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: Jacket starts the motion first.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Okay there, but then I felt like Max had a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: more aggressive hole. We'll call it fifty to fifty. I'm
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I'm going to.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Say I've shot a punk gun, whether Seth Polden or not.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was thinking about this. I think I
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: don't think there's ever been a punt gun in Montana
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: before this. Would you say, that's a pretty fair point.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is not punk gun country. These things
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: were used way east the Chesapeake Bay in Europe. That's
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: a good point, Max, If I had to guess if
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: one came through here, No, yeah, you know.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: We're gonna talk to Rock Island Auction later in the show.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Those are the guys who sold us the gun that
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: are then going to resell it. All that money is
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: going to go back to the med Eater Land Access initiative.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: But leading up to us buying the punt gun, they
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: had mentioned that sellers will come to them and say,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I have a punk gun that I want you guys
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: to sell. But in reality it's not a punk gun.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: It's what they would call to be a pigeon gun
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: or a fort gun. Now ours like hits the nail
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: on the head for the definition of a punk gun.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: I bet there they were obviously fort guns here at
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: some point, maybe some pigeon guns, even though I don't
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: think that was in Montana's culture either. But as far
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: as the only punt gun, that's a good point.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: Max.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: We're gonna call that the first punk gun, I would.
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: Say, so unless there's some like private collectors, you know.
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, probably not though.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So on today's episode, we're going to answer your
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: questions and then we have that interview with Rock Island Auction.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: So those guys are the expert on old firearms that
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: we're gonna chat with them. That's gonna be a lot
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of fun. Here's the first question. This is from Nick Sikowski.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: He says, feels like ages ago when first discussed. Exactly
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: when was the first conversation about it? Nick is referring
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to the punt gun. He's right, this has been a
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: long time coming for Nick. I tried to get us
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the cleanest timeline of the punt gun leading up to
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: us buying it. The first time it was discussed it
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: was in December of twenty twenty one on an episode
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: of med Eater Trivia. Trivia was still in its infancy.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: It was so young, in fact, that the episode that
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: this happened on it was just called Game on Suckers.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: That episode didn't even have a number after it. For context,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: the episode that came out this week is CCXXII. That's
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: what is that, Max and Roman.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Don't ask me, take.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: No clue.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Two hundred and twenty two. I was gonna say, that's
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: two hundred and twenty two in real numerals. So the
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: episode we talked about this on didn't even have a
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: real ma numeral. It was literally the first episode that
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: said game on Suckers Now, Like, wasn't our technically our
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: first episode of meat Eatter trivia because there was a
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: period where we would do trivia and it was like
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a kangaroo episode inside of a regular episode. This was
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: the first time we pulled that away and made its
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: own show. Anyway, just some background for you. What was
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: the question do you remember Phil's going to play it
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: for us again? This is that on that episode in
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty one clip Phil.
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so Spencer for this question, Spencer, I actually showed
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: the room a picture of the punk guy that asked
• 6:42
  Speaker 5: what it was called. So here's the audio of the rest.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: Oh the correct answer is the punt gun, oh Man.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: The average punt gun ranged from a two gauge to
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: a four gauge and could fire over a pound of
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: pellets at once. Wow. They are very rare and hard
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: to come by, though. I was able to find a
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: few in online auctions, ranging anywhere from four thousand dollars
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: to ten thousand dollars.
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: You can buy one.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: You could buy one. Are you going to buy one? No?
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not seeing you like pony up five thousand bucks? Yeah?
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: On my how serious you were?
• 7:13
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because we could shoot it. I would love to
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: have that.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: That's the gents gun.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: That's the beginning of it. You know, Max knows this,
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Seth knows this. If you want to get something done immediate,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: or you just need to get Steve excited. Yeah, so
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: as you can hear, Steve was excited about it. And
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: it didn't take long until like those sort of maybe
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: should we could we to Steve was like, yes, let's
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: let's get a punt gun. So here's the rest of
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: that timeline again. That was December twenty twenty one. January
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two, I found some punt guns online. They
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: range in price from four thousand dollars to eight thousand dollars.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I talked to one seller. He said that him and
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: his buddy shot theirs. They stood back to back, and
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: what they did was they had one guy who stood
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: in front and he let the barrel rest on his shoulder,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and then the other guy stood behind him and he
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: sort of pressed the butt of the punt gun against
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: his shoulder, just like if you were shooting a regular shotgun.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: When they pulled the trigger, that guy said that his
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: buddy had his collar bone broken.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, just like an episode of Jackass.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: It's exactly like that.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: That sounds like a terrible idea.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, bad idea. We didn't buy any of those punt guns.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I think some of them floated closer to the category
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: of pigeon gun, which we'll learn about later. Just didn't
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: love any of those, so we didn't buy him. But again,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: this is the timeline of how it unfolded. February of
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. I found a five footer at an
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: antique mal in Wisconsin. I called them. They wanted fifty
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: five hundred dollars for it. The seller was unsure if
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: it would shoot, didn't want to change the price, and
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: that was an important thing to us. We wanted to
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: buy a punt gun that we thinked would work. And
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: so because we couldn't figure out if that one would
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: actually fire. We walked to way there. February twenty twenty two,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: someone reaches out to me with a hot tip that
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: Rock Island Auction has two of them coming up for
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: sale that summer. Again Rock Island, they're the biggest auction
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: house when it comes to historic guns. Here's some examples
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of the guns that they have sold in the past.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Han Solo's DL forty four heavy Blaster that sold for
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: one million dollars. They sold two Remington Revolvers that were
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: owned by Ulysses S. Grant. Those sold for five million dollars.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: And then they sold a Winchester eighteen eighty six with
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: the serial number one, so literally the first ever Winchester
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty six that sold for one point two million dollars.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Just to give you an idea of like the kind
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: of guns that they traffic. That's who had two of
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: these punt guns for sale March of twenty twenty two.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Here are some emails with Steve. Here was one where
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: he said, quote, as my dad always said, you can't
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: lose your ass on punt guns. I don't know if
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Steve's dad actually said that, yeah, but I like, you know,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: be like, as Abraham Lincoln said, you can't trust everything
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: you read on the internet. Like I feel like that's
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: what Steve was doing. But I'm just like trying to
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: give you more context of how excited Steve was about this.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: The next day he says, I can't wait to mount
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: it to a boat and set out some soda bottles
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: like ducks. Here's an email from a few weeks later,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: he says, we gotta buy the damned punt gun. We're
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: poised and ready. And then a week after that he
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: says this will change our lives, and then he put
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: in parentheses for the better. So Steve is now excited.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: And I ended up getting approved a budget here at
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: meat Eater of twenty thousand dollars to buy a punt gun.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And as we talked about on that old podcast from December,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: Steve was interested when it was like four to eight
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. So some strong negotiating by me to get
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: us up to twenty thousand dollars. Okay, May of twenty
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: twenty two, this is the day of the auction again,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars budget, not a penny more. Rock Island
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: has two punt guns up for auction. First punt gun
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: this was the one. If I just got to pick,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: like which one we were gonna have, I would want
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the second one. That's the one we ended up getting.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: The first punk gun. It was a smaller model, less
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: prestigious brand. Rock Island estimated that it would sell for
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: between twelve thousand dollars and eighteen thousand dollars. I bid
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: up to our ceiling of twenty thousand dollars. Two bidders
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: blow right past me. The gun sells for twenty five thousand,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: seven thousand, more than the high end estimate.
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I wonder what those people are doing with it, you know,
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: like why do they want it so bad?
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm gonna ask. I'm gonna ask Rock
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Island Auction later, like who is the buyer? What does
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: this person look like? What are they gonna do?
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: Because we have a reason, yeah, yeah, we goal.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they're probably not gonna shoot theirs, you know,
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: probably not. Yeah. So that was punk Gun number one,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: seven thousand dollars over its high end estimate. Second punk
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: gun this is the one that we want. It's much bigger,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: it's older, it's from a more prestigious brand that's Holland.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: In Holland Rock Island estimated that one would sell were
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: between sixteen thousand and twenty two thousand, five hundred. So
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: if it follows the pattern is the last punk gun,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: that means this one's gonna sell for thirty thousand. It's
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: basically me and one other bidder, and I assume that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: this other person is the odd man out from the
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: last punt gun auction. They went back to back these
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: two auctions. Bidding goes fast. I quickly get to the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: ceiling of twenty thousand dollars and then it just ends.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: The other guy doesn't go anymore, which I was kind
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: of shocked at at the time. I didn't think it
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: was going to work out, but it was a big
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: relief because that was the gun that we want.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: This guy went past twenty grand for the first punt gun.
• 12:38
  Speaker 6: I don't know.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know that it was him who was competing.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: I just assumed that he was the odd man out
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: who didn't win the smaller one for sure, and if
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: he would have went to twenty thousand dollars and one penny,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I'd have been out, and he didn't do it.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Come on no, you wouldn't.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: You would have pitched in of.
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: Like your one hundred bit right.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: You know what I think I could have I could
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: have explained it away to later. I'd be like, Steve,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: it was gonna get away.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: What do you want me to do?
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly? So that that is the origin, That is how
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: we got the punt gun back in May of twenty
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: twenty two. All right, next question here, this is from
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: outdoors Biggie. He says, what are the punt gun's stats?
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: All right, it was made by Holland and Holland in
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five, so that makes it one hundred and
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: forty years old. One hundred and forty one years old,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I think, uh, six years younger than the light bulb,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a decade older than the radio, and it's actually older
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: than the state of Montana. Just to give you some
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: context of like the technology that we're working with. This
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: would be the equivalent of someone taking a gun out
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: of Max's safe that he just bought today and then
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: shooting it in the year twenty one sixty six. You
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: can't even fathom, like, well, what's the world going to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: look like in twenty one sixty six? I have no idea.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: But that'd be like if someone took Max's brand new
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: gun that he got today and then shooting it down.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: I was gonna say it hopefully like my kid's going
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: to be doing that, But I was like, oh no,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: I got to add a couple more gades. Maybe kids kids.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Get you know, great kids, they'll be talking about how
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: you know, great great great grandpa Maxwell shot a punt
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: gun back in.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: The day old wow.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Hopefully they'll still be able to look up the video
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: may it's right, yeah, who knows more stats. It's a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: two gauge shotgun. If you listen to trivia, you know this.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: But when something is listed as a gauge, if you
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: have a twelve gage shotgun, that means you take twelve
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: balls that fit in twelve lead balls that fit in
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the end of a twelve gauge barrel, and that equals
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: a pound. So that means that if you had two
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: lead balls that fit in the end of our barrel
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: of our punt gun, that would make one pound. That
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: that is like as big as a punk gun gets
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: seven and a half feet long. Sixty pounds. It's an
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: awkward sixty pounds though, Like this is always being carried
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: by a couple people around here. Nine and a quarter
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: inch shell. It's a original walnut stock, and then it
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: has a gray paint that Rock Island told this is
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: the original gray paint and it has about ninety five
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: percent of that left on it. So those are the
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: punt gun stats, all right, Chase Howard says, if you
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: can answer what's the overall cost per shot? We had
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: six shells, Max and Seth take a guess as to
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: each what each one of those shells costs?
• 15:23
  Speaker 6: Was in it?
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: Right?
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: It was filled with It was a little over half
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: a pound of number six bismuth, and the shells were
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: made of brass that I think was nickel plated. So
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that's that's the what we're working with. And yet it
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: was a nine inch shell half a pound of number
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: six bismuth. What do you think that cost us forty
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: five bucks a pop for way way more? Take another guess.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I'll give you some more context. The punt gun came
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: with one singular spench shell that seemed to be original
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: to the gun. Like that shell that came with the
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: gun was probably fired out of that gun. It was
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: made for that gun. You know, one hundred and forty
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: years ago. That's we had that thing to work off of.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: We had to pay a machinist an engineer to do
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: some cad drawings for us to figure out what the
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: best materials are ship this thing across the country, which
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: they didn't ship. They actually drove it over here personally
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: because it was like basically an explosive. At that point.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: We joked about this. I don't think it was ever
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: in the film, but like when you're handling one of these,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: you're like, do not drop that?
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah for sure.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, so take another.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: Guess you said one. Wow, after all that, imagine if
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: it was TSS in there.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: Imagine like, what does a TSSHLL cost right now? Twenty bucks?
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: It's very around that fifteen buck yeah.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: Like two twenty.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: One thousand dollars. It was one thousand and thirty two
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: dollars shell. Oh god, okay, so that's roughly here.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Here's waste that much money on a shot.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I don't think I didn't know it until Chase Howard
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: asked this question. I I was like, I don't know,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: probably like, you know, two hundred bucks a shell. And
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: I went and looked up our invoice. It was four
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: hundred This is per shell, four hundred and seventy dollars
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in materials, four hundred eighty dollars in fabrication and assembly,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: and then a five hundred dollars flat fee for doing
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: the cad work to make it all possible. So divided
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: by six, that's another eighty dollars per shell, for a
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: grand total of over one thousand dollars a shell.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: We're way off.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but surely they didn't cost that much back then,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: and when people were actually using punk.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, I can't fathom.
• 17:37
  Speaker 7: That they did, just if you adjust for although my
• 17:40
  Speaker 7: bet it was expensive because a lot of a lot
• 17:42
  Speaker 7: of punk guns back then were loaded through the barrel
• 17:46
  Speaker 7: right like you drop down a scoopful of gunpowder and
• 17:50
  Speaker 7: then like a probably a cardboard wad, and then a
• 17:54
  Speaker 7: handful of pellets.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Ours is breech loading, so it's loaded more like a
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: traditional shotgun. I bet those things were expensive to make
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: back then as well.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: I wonder if you get, if you get a flock
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: of ducks on the water, how many rounds of like
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: twelve gage bismuth would it take to kill the amount
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: of ducks one shot of the punt gun killed?
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: Good we'll never know.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, twenty thousand dollars punt gun, and then you know
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: it only takes twenty shells to equal the price of that.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Now with our auction, when we auction this thing off
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: in August, you are getting one of the spent shells.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Actually you're getting two. You're getting the OG one that
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: we based our modern ones off of, and then you're
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: getting one of those modern spent shells. That way, if
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: you want to shoot this thing, you can go have
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: your thousand dollars shells made as well. All right, eighty
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: six Spencer says, did you figure out approximately how big
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: the spread would be or it's lethal distance? Our first
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: shot was to determine exactly that. I think we wound up.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: It was like an eight foot by eight foot spread
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: at thirty yards. If you were gonna shoot a twelve
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: gauge at thirty yards, max would like a thirty inch spread.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: Is that what you'd expect? Yeah, I mean, I know
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors and.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, different chokes and stuff, but yeah, I mean you're probably,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: if not maybe like a forty.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Inch okay, thirty or forty inch spread at thirty yards
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: or the twelve gauge, So we were like three or.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Four that's probably a pretty open choke probably, Yeah, So like.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Four x that was our spread. As you'll see in
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the film. We do some different tests to be like
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: if we were shooting ducks on water, which which we
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: replicate with balloons, we put balloons from like twenty yards
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: out to eighty yards. We pop the balloons out at
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: eighty yards lethal distance. I bet you could kill a
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: duck with a BB in the right place at one
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: hundred yards, don't you think. Yeah, like if one of
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: those found the brain of a mallard, Yeah, that's a
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: dead mallard at one hundred yards.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it would have been interesting to.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Maybe do like a water melon at one hundred yards,
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: just to see like how, yeah, the penetrate of those
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: pellets or you know something that could you can measure
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: the penetration or ballistics jail or something, yeah at one
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: hundred Yeah.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: I think if if a punk gunner used this, they
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: would like kill some ducks dead dead at twenty yards,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Like those things would be obliterated, probably not even gonna
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: make it to market, and then they would have some that,
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: you know, just get one BB in the right place
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: beyond one hundred yards, but I bet they were wounding.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And I was thinking about this earlier. I
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, so after like one or two shots
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: of the punk gun, is like, what are they gonna
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: do with all the cripples? You know, they have to
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: like round those up too.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: Or maybe they had some shotguns in the boat.
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I would have to imagine.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I imagine at the edge of that spread, it's
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: just like you're probably wounding maybe as many as you're killing.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: At that point. There's just a lot of ducks that
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: aren't probably flying away from that scenario, but aren't dead either.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Silas Hayes says, do you think your punt gun was used?
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: If so, and where We're gonna talk about this with
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Rock Island a little later. But the peak punt gun
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: era was roughly from eighteen eighty to nineteen ten. That's
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in both North America and Europe. Our gun is from
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: eighteen eighty five, so it comes around like right at
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the beginning of when punt gunning was really hot. Now
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: our gun shows some signs of use, like there's a
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: little chipping in the paint, it's missing a screw, it
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: has signs of where it places where it would be
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: attached to something. A lot of punt guns at that
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: time like wound up just in the bottom of lakes,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: in the bottom of rivers and the bottom of estuaries.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Ours survived one hundred and forty years, so I don't
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: think it was used a ton, but I bet it
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: shot into some flocks of birds. And someone along the
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: way thought that the engraving was potentially a custom job
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: on our punt gun. It got a handle, it's got yeah,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: so it's got a walnut stock that's like, I don't know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: twelve inches long or so, that's got some engraving. And
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: then there's some engraving around where the barrel meets the
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: stock as well, and someone pointed that out and there
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: like that that looks like it would be custom. You know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: that was a special order to Holland.
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: In Holland.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: The other thing I learned is when you look at
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the punt gun history, you'll find there were obviously like
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: these were used by blue collar hunters that were making
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: a living off of selling ducks and geese. You'll find
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: instances though, where they're sort of like punt gun tourists
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: who are, you know, a well off newspaper owner in London.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: In London, like a well off banker in England who
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: just wants to experience the thrill of doing a punt
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: gun hunt without any evidence at all. I think that's
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: who bought this punt. I think it's one of those
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: folks who like they weren't doing this for a living,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: but they enjoyed, you know, hunting and the outdoors, and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: they wanted to go try this sporting thing, so they
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: like you know, commissioned Holland and Holland to make them
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: a beautiful punk gun with some customer engravings, and then
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: I bet they went and used it a few things.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: But I don't think this was used by like a
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: market hunter who was living in a shack and this
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: was like his bread living. Yeah, for making it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: I wonder you said Rock Island said that that paint
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: on there was original.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: They said it was original, which I think when most
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: people look at that, they're like, no, that came around later.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: Rock Island said it was rigil and they estimated ninety
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: five percent of it was left.
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: I wonder, see when I looked at it and I
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: just it looks like someone put it on there. It does,
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: and I wonder if that is the case that this
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: punk gun was used, like maybe Chesapeake Bay salt water.
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: Sure if they put that paint on there the ceiling
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: from getting rusty.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: You're right, yeah, it's it's almost. Yeah, it's kind of
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: shocking to hear that that's original paint because you're like, no,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: somebody came around in like nineteen sixty and thought they
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: were like sprucing it up. And it's like, I don't
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: have any way to confirm this, but it looks like
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a thick amount of paint too, like multiple coats of
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: gray paint went on that barrel.
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: So to answer the question from Silas about was it used,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I think it was used, uh, but not used a
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: ton r next question was from Mike Stefan, How did
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you know it wasn't going to explode and were you
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: worried about it exploding?
• 24:16
  Speaker 6: Uh?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Seth and Max were there every time we shot
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: it that first time. Were you guys worried?
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: I was? I was behind a vehicle.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I was not.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: I was film and Steven Spencer their reaction, so I wasn't.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: My back was to the gun and everything is just
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: like fingers crossed. This doesn't explode.
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: I was worried.
• 24:36
  Speaker 4: I wasn't worried like the the barrel was going to
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: explode or anything. I was worried about the integrity of
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: the breach. Yeah, like stuff blown out the back.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a little bit of this shows up in the cut.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: But the first time we went to shoot the gun,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: it was like a pretty cold day, and I guess
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: we hadn't fully confirmed that the shells fit inside of
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: the barrel at that point. So we get there and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: we realize that it's just like very very close, but
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: it's not making it in the barrel. So Steve starts,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: you know, taking gunk out of the barrel, which is
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: why we also thought it was used, because it had
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: some build up as though it had been shot in
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: the past. And I'm sandpapering the shell and We're just
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: like trying to get rid of some millimeters to make
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: this thing work and eventually work. But that's what you
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: were concerned about.
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: Seth Yep.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, we're just like doing a lot of manipulating
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: in the field trying to make it come to Yeah.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: After that first shot, we like slowly trusted the gun
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: more and more. You know, we like our rope trunk
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: a little bit.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: You know, we got by shell number six. When Seth
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: and Max shoot, they're like touching the gun full trust.
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wasn't so much concerned about an explosion. But
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I guess what I was mildly concerned about was the
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: recoil of it. You have to let a gun like
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: produce recoil, You have to let it buck a little bit.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: If you don't, if you just clamp everything down as
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: tight as possible, you're just like stressing out the mechanics
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: of the gun. That's that's not good for it. And
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: so we're like, I feel like walking a tightrope trying
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: to let the gun recoil, but not recoil too much
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: where it like becomes a danger to us. And so
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that felt like a balancing act. What we ended up
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: doing was we I found out later it's called a trunnion.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: A trunnion is what that connecting point is called.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: We had a fabricator, uh Travis Fabrication here in Bozeman
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: who made us Spartan, Travis bart Barton Fabrication. He built
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: us a mount that we get attached to a trailer
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: and then we had some sandbags on that trailer. Uh
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: and and my concern with the recoil wasn't warranted. It
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: all worked out well. The gun was able to rise
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: when it shot. We had to go back and cite
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: it in each time, so worried about it exploding a
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: little bit. And and as you see in the film,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: like the first time that we shoot it, Steve attaches
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a rope to it. That was his dad's tree stand rope.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Like his dad would be in a tree stand he
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: needs to bring his bow up. That was the rope
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: we used. And as you guys point out, and then I.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Think we tied another rope onto that. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: get us further back.
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Uh huh. It didn't feel like the original rope was
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: going to be the difference between us, like losing an
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: arm or not. Okay, next question was from Billy the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Kid Rock that's a great name. He says, do you
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: think the punt gun would be good for hunting anything
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: besides ducks?
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: What snow geese?
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: Yeah?
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: I mean just another form of waterfall. But I don't
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: know anything else.
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: What's those like starlings or sparrows that are invasive? They're
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: always all bunched up. I bet you could you could and.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: They do those big waves.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you can hurt on those things.
• 27:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you can do a hurting on the flock of
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: winter turkey.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: I thought that was the absolute perfect thing. Like any
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: short of an elephant, You could kill anything with a
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: punt gun. But the ideal scenario is using it what
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: they use it for, which is like, you know, sneaking
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: into a flock of ducks on the water and doing
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: one shot that brings down a hundred of them at
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: a time. Some historians think that that is where the
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: phrase get your ducks in a row comes from. It's
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: from punt gunners waiting until they felt like they were
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: at the perfect spot in the flock to pull the trigger.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: But I was thinking about what else it would be
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: good for turkeys in like the fall or the winter.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: I can recall it a deer hunt I was in
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: in the Black Hills in late November, where all of
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a sudden, I found myself in the middle of a
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: flock of turkeys that must have been like one hundred
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: to two hundred turkeys, and they were just all around me,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: and they were moving past me, and they were like
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: mildly aware of my presence, but obviously they felt some
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: comfort in their numbers. If you had a punt gun
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: in that situation, you'd been eating turkeys for years, lots
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: of Thanksgiving meals.
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: I one time back in Pennsylvania, we had a hard
• 29:00
  Speaker 4: winter and it was like a deep, crusty snow, and
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: there was this one farmer that was spreading manure on
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: the fields, like on top of the snow.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: Huh.
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: And there was a winter flock there that I like
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: quick counting at like nine hundred birds.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Like birds came from all over just to
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: be there.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: That would be the perfect scenario to use a punt gun.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: Or if you were like baiting feral hogs for example.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I think anything that you were baiting and like creating
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: a congregation of critters in one spot, that would be
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: the ideal use.
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: Ye'd imagine you could size up shot in those things
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: and put like buckshot in there, right definitely.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, you could probably do like a turkey load equivalent,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: you know, where it's like different varying sizes of pellets
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: all at once. Now, like the punt gun thing, though
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it fought, they become illegal in North America in nineteen eighteen.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: That's when the Migratory Bird Act comes around, the reality
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: is they start to fall out of fashion. Before that,
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you have pump pump shotguns show up in the eighteen eighties,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: Semiato shotguns and the early nineteen hundreds, and the market
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: hunters who were using these they kind of learn that actually,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: we can be more efficient, we have to plan less logistically,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: it's cheaper, it's easier to use if we just go
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: out with a shotgun we can hold against our shoulder, like,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: we can be better market hunters in that case. So
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: when you're talking about like the punt gun being outlawed,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: folks were starting to go away from it, like before
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: it actually becomes illegal, and now you know this has
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: been the case since nineteen eighteen or ten gauge is
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the biggest shotgun that you can use if market hunting
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: was still allowed today, though, I don't think you'd see
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: guys out there with the punt gun.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just not efficient.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: No, as you can see when you know when they
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: cost one thousand dollars per shell.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: It doesn't worry. Okay, crank Jobs says, what was the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: most un expected thing you learned from the experience? You
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: guys have any thoughts on this when we were shooting it.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: Honestly, the the damage it did to the watermelons was
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: a little unexpected.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: You thought, more or less.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: I thought I thought it would be less for some reason.
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: I just thought the pattern wouldn't be that.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: I don't remember how far we were away from.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Them, he was like thirty yards thirty.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: I just thought the pattern would be more spread and
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: it would just be like a bunch of holes.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: That. And another thing I did not expect was how
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: like I expected it to be way louder.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was kind of like a soft boom.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. With that said, though, there were still I think
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: we experienced this and I don't know which shot, but
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: pellets came back at us.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I think it was pigeons.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And someone someone noted that like, yeah, I got
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: hit in the shoulder with the one, Like oh, I
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: heard it bounce off the vehicles. So there was there
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: was a certain amount of that. Anything surprised you max
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: when we shot it, I would say, just the pattern
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and how good it was, you know, Like I was
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: very impressed at thirty five yards, Like when we get
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: those paper light up targets, I was very impressed.
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: I was like, Wow, that could do some damage, you know,
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: like I could see why people use that right, you know.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, Seth brought up the water moltain. That's
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the final thing in the film that we shoot, and
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: that kind of goes back to the genesis of the
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: punt gun. Immediately four or five years agoing to start
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: talking about this, Steve was like, we gotta shoot water melons.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: We gotta do the Gallagher bit. We got we gotta
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: go blow up a bunch of watermelons. And then that
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: also allowed Steve to explain to people who Gallagher is,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: which I think he enjoyed equally as much as actually
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: calling you trigger to shoot the way He's like.
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: You don't know Gallagher?
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: What Gallagher?
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: You know?
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: It's not how much Steve talks about Gallagher. I think
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: that's the only comedian.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: I don't think anyone knew what he was talking about.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: I will admit I did not know what he was
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: talking about, and then like figured it out.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I would only like my exposure to Gallagher was
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: from secondhand references, like your family guy would do a
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: bit about Gallagher, I'd be like, well, I don't know
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: who you know Gallagher?
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: He famously walked out of a Mark Marrin podcast it
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: was and got really mad. Oh yeah, it's a fun listen.
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: He lasts like twenty minutes and then storms out.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: What would possibly make him so because what wasn't this
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: thing was?
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: But it was just sort of like, what's the deal
• 33:24
  Speaker 5: with all the water? Like he was just kind of
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: he was kind of poking him, he wasking the bear.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I don't think we wouldn't be doing this
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: podcast today. We wouldn't have bought the punt gun if
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: Gallagher didn't exist, just because Steve was like so excited,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: infatuated with the idea of.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: I think you got to tell people who galligator Gallagher is.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: I think what he does.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: Steve has said this million times. He would smash watermelons
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: on stage, and you would like, you know, wear a
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: raincoat if you were in the front row because you
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: were going to get you know, covered in watermelon. Am
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: I getting that right? Phil?
• 33:54
  Speaker 8: Yeah?
• 33:54
  Speaker 5: I mean I think it was more than watermelon. That
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: the watermelon was the thing that that that caught on
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: and that's what people remember. But it was all kinds
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: of fruit, Spencer, not just water milk.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, well, we shoot watermelons in the film. Most unexpected
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: thing for me was like during this research, I was
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: I was learning, you know, about the market hunting era,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and when it comes to ducks, there was only a
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: little bit of value with the feathers. The meat was
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: the main product. If these ducks didn't have the meat
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: that they had, like this market would not have existed
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: because the feathers weren't valuable enough on their own. The
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: duck meat is what paid the bills, and there was
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: like a very clear hierarchy in the prices. What would
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: you say is like the best tasting duck Max in
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: North America?
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you asked someone it's going to be something,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: and then you ask another person it'll be something different.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Mask and Max.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: I'm just explained myself, But yeah, I think wood ducks
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: and mallards are my favorite.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Would you say the same thing? Okay, Well, the prices
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: like kind of show you what the American palette was
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: at that point. A plover that's a shore bird that
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: you'd see it's, you know, like a little marshmallow with
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: toothpick legs out on a gravel bar in the Missouri River.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Those cost twenty five cents per plover is what you
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: would get to see that is nine dollars per plover
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: in twenty twenty six. Appetizer an appetizer, sure, yeah, not
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: a highly respected bird, which is the other thing you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: learned is that these guys weren't just killing ducks and geese.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: They were killing herons, seagulls, shore birds, all kinds of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: different stuff. So a plover was worth a quarter nine
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: dollars today, a snipe was only a little more valuable
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: at thirty cents a snipe teal wood ducks and wigeons,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: that's what Max said would be his top pick would
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: be a wood duck that was seventy five cents per pair,
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: so less than forty cents per wood duck, which is
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: only slightly more valuable than a snipe.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know, I don't agree with that. The
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: prices should have been a little higher.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So black ducks those were a dollar, mallards
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: were a dollar twenty five, and then the ones that
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: everybody cared about was canvas backs and redheads. Those were
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: a dollar seventy five apiece, which is the equivalent of
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: sixty two dollars today.
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, sixty two dollars for me, I feel like I
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: used to do some hunting on the Chesapeake Bay Back
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: I live in Pennsylvania, and like the duck to kill
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: was a canvas.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: Back king of ducks.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like people are still after him.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so these ducks. If you were a market hunter
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: in Chesapeake Bay and say you went, you know, punt
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: gunning for a night and you killed one hundred and
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: fifty ducks, those ducks would then either be salted or
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: iced and then put on a train, and then they
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: would wind up in some of your premier cities in
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the Midwest and East coast, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, New York.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: And then these would go to like the finest dining restaurants,
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: and what they cared about were canvas backs and redheads
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: also read. And those prices, I should explain, those came
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: from a Good Housekeeping magazine in eighteen eighty six, that's
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: one year after our punt gun was made, and they
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: said that's what you would sell them for in New York.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: But the other thing I learned is that ducks fetched
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: a higher price if they came from a place with
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: lots of wild celery. Apparently they thought that like a
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: duck eating wild celery ate better? Is that your experience, Max, I've.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: Never experienced a ducking wild celery, but I remember hearing
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: about that, just like that East Coast region, Like that's
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: what those diver ducks would do.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: The three premier regions that I saw, like, if you
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: kill a duck in this zone, that's gonna fetch the
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: highest price. That's what the restaurants want. It was the
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Upper Chesapeake, Wisconsin's Lake kanash Kanang, and then Texas's Lake Surprise.
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Really apparently those were like all sorts of different regions though.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, what I feel like when I hear people
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: talk about wood duck being the best tasting duck, which
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: is that's not an uncommon opinion that Max has. People
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: would say it's because they eat a lot of acorns.
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Is that like what you would think it is?
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I've had ducks that eat pond scum
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: tastes like crap, But then also ducks that eat corn
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: taste really good, you know, So I feel like some
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: of that has to play a factor in it. But
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: I think the wood ducks there's just a good ratio
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: of meat to fat. Okay, just because they're a smaller duck.
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: I think the biggest ratio of meat to fat is
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: obviously a teal, like a big fat green wing teal
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: is just like just a small small amount of meat
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: and just like lots of fat and a lot of
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: people like this.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: Is it different for like a blue wing or a cinnamon.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Well, I said the green wing teal just because they're
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: the most hearty, and a lot of times, like during
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: the migration, you'll see the cinnamon teal, the blueing teal
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: go first all the way down to southern Texas, this
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: even down to parts of Central America, and then the
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: green wing till they'll be up here hanging with the
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: mallards in December, some of them, not all of them.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: So they just get more fat, yeah, they later.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: Well, the wild celery is what was driving the market
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: back then. Max. If you were a punt gunner, I'll
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: explain how they were used a little bit. A lot
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: of times it was used like either just after dark
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: or just before sunrise, so that the punt gunner could
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: like paddle into the area and be real stealthy without
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: being seen. They had to allow for four yards of
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: water behind them because that's how much recoil these produced.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: If you were a punt gunner, no rules, Max. You
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: can be in a national park in August if you want.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Where are you taking that thing? Uh?
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Probably somewhere in the Central Flyway during the springtime hunt
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: snow geese. Oh okay, Yeah. I don't know if I
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: could do it it on ducks because I like him
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: so much, but snowgee's are already a new sense, you know,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and so I feel like I would just go carp
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: the sky. Yeah, I would go after snowgies just because
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: like they're knowing to roost in large numbers, and I
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: feel like it would be a good time. But I
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: would have three punt guns, oh okay, one on the water,
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: one slightly above and one slightly aimed above that like a.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Twenty degree angle, and then like yeah, so.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: You smoke them on the water, they all get up,
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: get another one, and then a third shot off.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: What if you were trying to play the market though,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: and have a bunch of canvas backs or red.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, then I would definitely go to the chestapeak
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: and you would find some canvas backs.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, set any thoughts on if you were a
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: punt gunner.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: Where I'd go?
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: Where you take that thing?
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: I'd go that little hole that I hunted with you,
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: Max at one time.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Okay, I could even say what state you were in. No,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: I like that, Max.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: No, there's it's just a small warm water creek that
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: well it was a pond, but there was a warm
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: water creek flowing into it. I don't think you could
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: fit another Mallard into it.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Could you get a punk gun there if you had to?
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: You couldn't have a boat, you can, ye, it.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Would be like a canyon or just like roll it
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: up on wheels, okay, like a fork gun.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: So the things we shooting, we don't get to shoot
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: any any live animals, uh in the video, but we
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: shoot some paper targets to show you it'd spread. We
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: shoot the clay pigeons. There's there's sort of a clay
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: pigeon disaster that that you'll watch on the video. We
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: shoot the water melons, and then we also shoot some hats. Uh.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: These are hats that say this hat was shot by
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: a punt gun. And and now we are going to
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: sell those in the auction House of Oddities. The Auction
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: House of Audities is going to be happening sometime in
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: early July. Here they're not going to be auctioned off
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: the hats. They're just going to have a buy it
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: now price. There are only seventy three of them, and
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: when they're gone, they're gone. And when you do buy one,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you just get a random hat. Some of these were
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: absolutely destroyed that they have, you know, twenty five pellet
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: holes in them. If you if you shake them a little,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: you'll hear the bebes that are still in.
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: Like the bill, you can you can see some of
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: the bebes too.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. The hats they have a leather patch
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: on them. That's where it says this hat was shop
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: by a punk gun. Some of those leather patches just
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: like absorbed the bb It looked like, you know, somebody
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: was the hand of God and just put it there
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: and pressed it in with their thumb. So anyway, we
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: have these hats for sale. There's other ones that only
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: got one or two straight pellets in them. If you
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: want to go buy one of these, when they're gone,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: they're gone. There's seventy three of them in the auction
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: house of bodies. You're just getting a random hat. Probably
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: going to sell them for seventy five dollars a piece.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I know that sounds steep, but every penny is going
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: into the land Access Access Initiative, so you're funding a
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: good cause. We're also selling the punt gun shells in
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: the auction house as well. We're gonna have three of
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: them that are for sale again. This will be in
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: early July when that's happening. You guys have any other
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: thoughts before we do our interview with Joel from Rock Island.
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: Glad to be a part of it.
• 43:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that might be the I'm assuming it will be
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: the last punt gun I ever shoot.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this person last, first and last. And you guys
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: got a video of you doing it together.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: It's teamwork, all right.
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: The video is available right now on our YouTube channel.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Now let's do our interview with Joel Calander.
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: All right.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Joining us on the line is Joel Calander, the interactive
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: production manager from Rock Island Auction. Rock Island is who
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: will be selling our punt gun later this summer, with
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: proceeds going to the Meat Eater Land Access Initiative. Joel,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: welcome to the show.
• 43:53
  Speaker 6: That's good to be back. Good to talk to you again.
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: Now our punt gun will be for sale at the
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: August premiere Firearms auction, tell us about that event.
• 44:02
  Speaker 8: Sure, that's our big summer premiere auctually have three premiere
• 44:05
  Speaker 8: auctions here. This one's August twenty first, twenty third. It's
• 44:09
  Speaker 8: gonna be about seventeen hundred items. It's a three day sale.
• 44:12
  Speaker 8: It's an absolute, absolute event at our in person venue
• 44:16
  Speaker 8: there in Bedford, Texas. So if you're in the area, heck,
• 44:19
  Speaker 8: even if you're not in the area, come on down
• 44:21
  Speaker 8: it is. They're always open to the public. If you
• 44:23
  Speaker 8: can't make it down like and if someone wants to
• 44:25
  Speaker 8: bit on the punk gun or see better photos of it,
• 44:27
  Speaker 8: of course, you can always go to the website for photos,
• 44:30
  Speaker 8: for more information, of course, to place bids on those items.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, so a few months away from selling the thing,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: give us a guess as to what the punt gun
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: will sell for.
• 44:41
  Speaker 8: So the good news is you have kind of an
• 44:42
  Speaker 8: idea already right within the last couple of years. That's
• 44:45
  Speaker 8: a pretty good comparison because the actual gun sold in
• 44:49
  Speaker 8: twenty twenty two. That said, our estimate now is a
• 44:52
  Speaker 8: little bit higher. We got believe a pre auctionssment at
• 44:55
  Speaker 8: least could change. We're still we're working on that sale
• 44:58
  Speaker 8: right now. Between twenty and thirty thousand. Okay, I think
• 45:02
  Speaker 8: there's there's a couple of things that go into that
• 45:04
  Speaker 8: one tied to you guys, and you know, you guys
• 45:07
  Speaker 8: are a pretty popular thing now do it's uh, I
• 45:12
  Speaker 8: got evidence that it's a that it's a functional unk gun,
• 45:16
  Speaker 8: which there are too many of these.
• 45:18
  Speaker 6: I mean, there are too many punt guns. In general.
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: They're a rare item.
• 45:20
  Speaker 8: So to have one that's documented and functionals has a.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: Piece of brass with it, that's always a plus.
• 45:26
  Speaker 8: And it's actually surprisingly good condition for a punk gun.
• 45:30
  Speaker 8: As you know, those things are often in a quat
• 45:32
  Speaker 8: environments and often salt water environments. So to have one
• 45:35
  Speaker 8: like this with that paint and it's a Holland and Island,
• 45:38
  Speaker 8: I think that's that's all going to help the value
• 45:41
  Speaker 8: for that. Oh and it's appearing alongside a lot of
• 45:43
  Speaker 8: really just top of the line sporting arms, both for
• 45:47
  Speaker 8: wing shooting and for a big game.
• 45:49
  Speaker 6: So start sporting arms go this August.
• 45:51
  Speaker 8: That punt gun is gonna be a headliner and it's
• 45:53
  Speaker 8: it's in very good company.
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, very excited. I'll be tuning in for that action paint.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Just a picture for the type of that is looking
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: to spend twenty thousand or thirty thousand on a punt
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: gun that they may never shoot. Who is that person?
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: Sure, we actually seek quite a bit of this.
• 46:10
  Speaker 8: Of course, collectors is the easy answer, right, we're at
• 46:12
  Speaker 8: auction house for find a historic firearms, so colectors is easy,
• 46:16
  Speaker 8: and we'll kind of collectors. Well, of course you have
• 46:18
  Speaker 8: sporting arms collectors. You see that with premier brands today,
• 46:21
  Speaker 8: Holland and Holland, Purdy, Rigby, some of those more famous names,
• 46:25
  Speaker 8: Kriegof and what have you. So sporting arms specifically though,
• 46:29
  Speaker 8: you may find ones for British sporting arms. You might
• 46:32
  Speaker 8: find one specifically for British best quality firearms or even
• 46:36
  Speaker 8: London gun makers. You may also find someone who just
• 46:40
  Speaker 8: loves wing shooting, whether that's you know, American, there's a
• 46:43
  Speaker 8: bunch of publications of course here Stateside to focus.
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: On just wing shooting and hunting. You might find that
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: as well.
• 46:50
  Speaker 8: And then there's just people who like big display pieces
• 46:53
  Speaker 8: or things that go boom. You know, a functional piece
• 46:56
  Speaker 8: has going to kill to a lot of people as well.
• 46:58
  Speaker 8: So there's pretty good again, pretty good gamut of the
• 47:01
  Speaker 8: cross sections of colectors there.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, we hope it's competitive that day. Give us some
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: history of Rock Island auction and punt guns. How often
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: do you have one come up for sale?
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: So the short answer is not very often.
• 47:15
  Speaker 8: And you know, way back when I first started, I
• 47:17
  Speaker 8: think we said we sold, you know, some right around
• 47:19
  Speaker 8: forty thousand guns a year at auction. We been here
• 47:23
  Speaker 8: thirteen years, so that number is if it hasn't double that,
• 47:26
  Speaker 8: I'd be very surprised. That's the number one in the
• 47:28
  Speaker 8: world for what we do. But throughout checked our records
• 47:31
  Speaker 8: prior to this and just to see how many punt guns,
• 47:34
  Speaker 8: it's barely barely over two dozen.
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: Wow, the coming Yeah, if you're.
• 47:39
  Speaker 8: Selling tens of thousands of guns year and that few
• 47:42
  Speaker 8: are punt guns, so not a lot of them remain
• 47:45
  Speaker 8: one because again we mentioned already those those kind of
• 47:47
  Speaker 8: initial rough conditions. These are guns that are they're working
• 47:50
  Speaker 8: guns in saltwater conditions. And then two, of course, it
• 47:53
  Speaker 8: speaks to the to the legislation. If you can't use
• 47:56
  Speaker 8: these punt guns, you know what, what are they for
• 47:58
  Speaker 8: a lot of people lose the sort of luster of ownership.
• 48:01
  Speaker 8: So at least when they weren't in practical use anymore.
• 48:05
  Speaker 8: So I'm not not too many punk guns floating around anymore.
• 48:09
  Speaker 6: Even that comes through our doors.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think when we bought ours, there were two
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: punt guns up for sale that week, and previously we
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: bought it in twenty twenty two. Prior to that, I
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: think someone there had told me that twenty sixteen was
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: the last time you guys had sold one. So less
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: than one punt gun a year, it seems like.
• 48:28
  Speaker 6: That's fair. I mean, you know, you get ones like that.
• 48:30
  Speaker 8: We have two and a sale most likely a single
• 48:33
  Speaker 8: collector who's had more than one. So yeah, but less
• 48:37
  Speaker 8: of one punk good here as since we've opened, and
• 48:39
  Speaker 8: we've been opened since nineteen ninety three, that's a that's
• 48:43
  Speaker 8: a safe estimate.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Now, how does the size of our punt gun compared
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: to the other ones that you guys have sold.
• 48:50
  Speaker 8: There's so many jokes to be made here, but I
• 48:54
  Speaker 8: will say it's.
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: Bigger than average.
• 48:59
  Speaker 8: I mean, we have the there's a lot of the
• 49:01
  Speaker 8: seven eight, there's a lot of the seven foot range.
• 49:03
  Speaker 6: There's a lot of the eight foot range.
• 49:05
  Speaker 8: Not of course, you know any source you read, they
• 49:08
  Speaker 8: always want to site the biggest, right, you know, these
• 49:10
  Speaker 8: are twelve foot guns. These are ten foot guns, and
• 49:12
  Speaker 8: they're the forger an inch wide, and they killed you
• 49:15
  Speaker 8: know this, many hundred things at once.
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: You know, those are those are the exceptions. That's one
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: end of the scale.
• 49:20
  Speaker 8: But punt guns, I mean, just as a genre, are
• 49:23
  Speaker 8: so varied because they were in use for so long,
• 49:27
  Speaker 8: I'm sorry for through so many sort of periods of development,
• 49:29
  Speaker 8: right by so many different groups of people, through so
• 49:32
  Speaker 8: many different firearm technologies on. So it runs the gamut.
• 49:36
  Speaker 8: I mean, you get people who were using them more commercially,
• 49:39
  Speaker 8: so very very large, you know, the many the most
• 49:41
  Speaker 8: birds you could take down, the more money you were
• 49:42
  Speaker 8: bringing in, yeah, during those commercial hunting days. And then
• 49:45
  Speaker 8: you had people who are just trying to in their
• 49:47
  Speaker 8: earlier days, just trying to make an extra buck and
• 49:50
  Speaker 8: maybe put some meat on the table for their family too,
• 49:52
  Speaker 8: So they're a little bit smaller at that point. Here's
• 49:55
  Speaker 8: I didn't have the full measurement. I have a barrel
• 49:57
  Speaker 8: measurement eighty five and a half inches, which puts it
• 50:00
  Speaker 8: about seven foot. You know, once you add that sort
• 50:03
  Speaker 8: of tiller or or stock that's on the back, that
• 50:06
  Speaker 8: saturn extra twelve eighteen inches so, uh, it's right in
• 50:09
  Speaker 8: there with a lot of good seven and eight footers.
• 50:11
  Speaker 6: The biggest one that we had.
• 50:12
  Speaker 8: Was like just over just over nine foot nine foot
• 50:18
  Speaker 8: seven and a half inches. So there's somehoozies come through
• 50:21
  Speaker 8: the direct for sure.
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: Now, at some point before we bought the gun, someone
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: from your team told me that you will often have
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: sellers that come to you guys with what they call
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: a punt gun, but in reality they have a pigeon
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: gun or a fort gun. So what is the difference
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: between those three things, a pigeon gun, a fort gun,
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: and a punt gun.
• 50:42
  Speaker 8: We're getting into the collecting knitty GrITT here, and that's
• 50:45
  Speaker 8: what we're here for.
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: I love it. Pigeon guns.
• 50:49
  Speaker 8: They're gonna there's gonna be some intersection too, because eventually,
• 50:53
  Speaker 8: when people were punting, anything that you could use that
• 50:56
  Speaker 8: would get you close to ducks on a punt and
• 50:58
  Speaker 8: take down more than one duck at once could have
• 51:01
  Speaker 8: seen used as a punt gun. Right if you were
• 51:03
  Speaker 8: just trying to put again beat on the table or
• 51:05
  Speaker 8: make a couple extra bucks, you weren't really picky about
• 51:08
  Speaker 8: what it was in form it was did it function,
• 51:11
  Speaker 8: But pigeon guns early on are for the early pigeon shoots,
• 51:15
  Speaker 8: like literal trap shooting. You have five trap houses. They
• 51:17
  Speaker 8: released pigeons. They could go any which direction and you
• 51:19
  Speaker 8: had to knock them down within a circle a giant
• 51:23
  Speaker 8: sort of area to get killed to get credit for it.
• 51:27
  Speaker 8: If you want to knock those pigeons down fast, you
• 51:29
  Speaker 8: wanted a big gun. So eight bars aren't common, Very
• 51:33
  Speaker 8: long barrels aren't uncommon, and very very high end as well.
• 51:39
  Speaker 8: There was a lot of money on these pigeon shoots
• 51:41
  Speaker 8: back in the day. So here you have this size.
• 51:43
  Speaker 8: You have really well put together pigeon guns. They could
• 51:47
  Speaker 8: often be confused for a large punt gun. You also
• 51:50
  Speaker 8: both you know, smooth board shotguns.
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: Did you have a wall gun? Or what was a fort.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Gun that I had heard? I heard some of them
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: referred to as fort gun. What would that be?
• 52:00
  Speaker 8: A fork gun, a wall gun, a rampant gun, sort
• 52:05
  Speaker 8: of lots of different names all for the same thing,
• 52:07
  Speaker 8: and it's exactly what it sounds like. These are guns
• 52:09
  Speaker 8: that are mounted on walls. A lot of times they
• 52:11
  Speaker 8: will be large, very seldom if I see like an
• 52:16
  Speaker 8: actual rifled example, but oftentimes through some sort of fork
• 52:20
  Speaker 8: with as like a pintle or something on the bottom,
• 52:24
  Speaker 8: because you're actually gonna set that on top of a
• 52:27
  Speaker 8: wall to defend your fork castle, you know what have you.
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: And they're really sort of an intermediate range weapon.
• 52:34
  Speaker 8: You know, you had your small arms for closed up,
• 52:36
  Speaker 8: you had artillery and mortars for far away targets. But
• 52:40
  Speaker 8: right in the middle, well, you could use a really
• 52:42
  Speaker 8: big wallgun to make an impact on some enemy troops
• 52:45
  Speaker 8: that might be you know, sieging your position or your
• 52:47
  Speaker 8: or your building. The last one or two punt guns,
• 52:52
  Speaker 8: as you discussed on the podcast, these are large guns
• 52:55
  Speaker 8: to be put in a boat, mounted in a boat,
• 52:59
  Speaker 8: or a punt very gallow because essentially you are sneaking
• 53:03
  Speaker 8: up on ducks on their own turf, trying to be
• 53:07
  Speaker 8: as undetected as possible, getting within a certain range for
• 53:11
  Speaker 8: you to really love that shot across the water and
• 53:14
  Speaker 8: take out as many ducks as possible. Those are again
• 53:19
  Speaker 8: large caliber, no surprise there, shotguns you're trying to take
• 53:22
  Speaker 8: out as many as possible. But the range of a
• 53:24
  Speaker 8: true punt gun is everything from pre flintlock to the
• 53:29
  Speaker 8: cartridge guns like the screwbreach Holland and Holland that y'all bought,
• 53:32
  Speaker 8: and so everything in between.
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: It's it's such.
• 53:34
  Speaker 8: A fantastic genre of collecting once you start diving into it.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, have you guys ever sold a punt gun that
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: is confirmed to work like ours?
• 53:42
  Speaker 6: Is? No?
• 53:44
  Speaker 8: Okay, there have been a lot of quote unquote duck guns,
• 53:49
  Speaker 8: which are again these sort of large.
• 53:51
  Speaker 6: Bore it's like four board. We have a lot of
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: four board duck guns.
• 53:55
  Speaker 8: Shouldn't say a lot, but there's when they do come
• 53:58
  Speaker 8: through very high end. You're dealing with very high end
• 54:01
  Speaker 8: custom make from like John Dixon and Son or again
• 54:04
  Speaker 8: Holland and Holland. People are using these as shoulder mounted
• 54:08
  Speaker 8: four bore shotguns. And again they're they're for duck would
• 54:11
  Speaker 8: they are they the type to be like mounted or
• 54:14
  Speaker 8: secured in a boat?
• 54:16
  Speaker 6: You know? But they're definitely being used for essentially the
• 54:18
  Speaker 6: same purpose, and they would be a flock shooting ducks.
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: So there are.
• 54:22
  Speaker 8: Those that are capable and find enough condition or I
• 54:26
  Speaker 8: wouldn't worry a bit about them being fired. Yeah, But
• 54:28
  Speaker 8: as far as a true punt gun like yours with
• 54:31
  Speaker 8: you know, pintle mounts on it and everything in the
• 54:34
  Speaker 8: recoiled device on the bottom, all this fun stuff. No,
• 54:37
  Speaker 8: I've never seen one even thought about being fired.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: Great, very excited. Now, what was any part of you
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: nervous about us shooting the one that we purchase?
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: Now? The funny answer is no, because it's not me. Uh.
• 54:51
  Speaker 6: But the second answer is no, not at all.
• 54:53
  Speaker 8: I mean, if there's a group of guys that I
• 54:55
  Speaker 8: and I trust to do the research with the outdoors
• 54:58
  Speaker 8: and sporting its, it's the folks that meat eater. Now,
• 55:01
  Speaker 8: if you were two guys in a row boat taking
• 55:03
  Speaker 8: it out, I might I might be a little more concerned.
• 55:06
  Speaker 8: You'll still have a quality maker like Holland and Holland. Yes,
• 55:09
  Speaker 8: those are sort of like legacy arms and just they
• 55:12
  Speaker 8: laughed in their heirlooms. So you started out with good
• 55:14
  Speaker 8: materials in good condition, and you're smart about it.
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: Everything everything wi lined up perfect.
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's also why it took us four years
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: to get to the point where we could make the
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: film about us shooting the punt gun.
• 55:26
  Speaker 8: I mean, I wasn't going to bring it up, but
• 55:28
  Speaker 8: I'm I'm sure it might come up once or twice
• 55:30
  Speaker 8: in the comment.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Now, how is selling a punt gun different
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: from your typical firearms. I imagine there's got to be
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: some real logistical challenges that you guys go through selling,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: you know, an eight foot gun.
• 55:43
  Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean the selling parts easy, right, an auctioneer
• 55:46
  Speaker 8: and banging hammer at the front of a room. But
• 55:48
  Speaker 8: everything around it is required, you know, to accommodate that
• 55:53
  Speaker 8: that massive size. So whether it's trying to take the
• 55:56
  Speaker 8: photography of it, you know, to put it in our catalog,
• 55:59
  Speaker 8: or to put it on the website, it uh transporting
• 56:01
  Speaker 8: it even around the building, run our facility, getting it
• 56:04
  Speaker 8: set up on our preview haul down in Bedford, Texas,
• 56:07
  Speaker 8: and then of course eventually shipping it to a new owner.
• 56:13
  Speaker 8: They all have they all have their their issues come
• 56:15
  Speaker 8: up with which, by the way, if.
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: You're an in person, better boy, we would encourage that.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Our punt gun when we bought it, it showed
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: up in a literal crate, I think multiple crates actually,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: So if you are the person who buys this thing
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: and it's going to be shipped to you expect a
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: giant piece of wood coming in the mail and that's
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: where your punk gun will be inside of. Now, our
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: punt gun, as most were, was made in England simply
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: because that's where this style of hunting was the most popular.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: So with that being the case, what is the most
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: what is the most English thing about our gun? Is
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: there something you look at that makes you go, oh,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: that gun? It was made in London.
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: We can't talked about earlier, but the Holland and Holland.
• 57:00
  Speaker 8: Essential best quality gun, a London gun maker that's been
• 57:05
  Speaker 8: around since with eighteen thirty five, so the first one
• 57:08
  Speaker 8: hundred ninety years, fifty last year, one hundred ninety years
• 57:12
  Speaker 8: last year, and they just airloom quality. Like I said,
• 57:15
  Speaker 8: legacy type guns the type you pass on. And of
• 57:18
  Speaker 8: course we see him come out of some pretty impressive collections.
• 57:21
  Speaker 8: Those are guns that will regularly draw six figures, high
• 57:25
  Speaker 8: artistry and embellishment. But there are also guns that you
• 57:28
  Speaker 8: should not be afraid to take out and use, maybe
• 57:31
  Speaker 8: true to form with a punt gun, absolutely fantastical and Holland,
• 57:35
  Speaker 8: So Holland and Holland is just quint essential British gun.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Somebody we showed the gun to told us that they
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: suspected the engraving around the barrel most likely made it
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: a special order or a custom made gun. What do
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: you think of that.
• 57:49
  Speaker 8: Theory, Yes, especially given when your gun was made, which
• 57:55
  Speaker 8: I believe was the late eighteen hundreds, correct.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Eighteen eighty five, is what we could come up.
• 57:58
  Speaker 8: With because the initially, you know, we have the early
• 58:03
  Speaker 8: eighteen hundreds where hunt gunning is kind of coming into
• 58:07
  Speaker 8: its own right.
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: You have a lot of sailors, you have deck guns.
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: How do we use these? What do we do when
• 58:10
  Speaker 6: we're out of the service.
• 58:11
  Speaker 8: You know, there's a lot of or mutual origins there
• 58:14
  Speaker 8: from that British sort of age of naval warfare. But
• 58:19
  Speaker 8: initially these are people who are, like you said, not
• 58:23
  Speaker 8: doing this commercially, and so it's whatever you can get,
• 58:26
  Speaker 8: and a lot of times they're very rough. Sometimes you
• 58:28
  Speaker 8: might put it together at home if you can't get
• 58:29
  Speaker 8: those materials, but very very sort of singular purpose. As
• 58:34
  Speaker 8: it goes on, it becomes essentially a score of the gentry.
• 58:39
  Speaker 8: You know, the well healed and well to do are
• 58:42
  Speaker 8: taking this very difficult, rough hunt. I mean, this is
• 58:48
  Speaker 8: cold hunting. This are cold shooting muddy went salt water,
• 58:54
  Speaker 8: like you might be out all day laying on your
• 58:56
  Speaker 8: belly and like rowing a hunt that's very physically demanding
• 59:00
  Speaker 8: there's a lot going on there, so to turn it
• 59:01
  Speaker 8: into a sport at the end of the nineteenth centuries
• 59:04
  Speaker 8: kind of what happens. And then you see more of
• 59:06
  Speaker 8: these let's say, accomplished gun makers getting into act, like
• 59:10
  Speaker 8: Holland and Holland. John Dixon's another one that made some
• 59:14
  Speaker 8: four board duck guns, and it becomes you see the engraving,
• 59:19
  Speaker 8: you see a finer quality in these guns. Yours is
• 59:22
  Speaker 8: the only one I will say that's in that punt
• 59:26
  Speaker 8: gun form that looks like essentially duck artillery for lack.
• 59:30
  Speaker 6: Of a better term. That it does have the engraving.
• 59:32
  Speaker 8: On it, that scroll work, that scroll on a canvas
• 59:36
  Speaker 8: work on there, and even a little engraving up in
• 59:38
  Speaker 8: front of the trigger underneath with a little scene of
• 59:40
  Speaker 8: the of the goose. I have no doubt that, just
• 59:44
  Speaker 8: based on it's time alone, you're looking at a their
• 59:47
  Speaker 8: premier manufacturer. Already by the eighteen eighties, Holland and Holland,
• 59:50
  Speaker 8: they're getting national acclaim in royal endorsements, and with the
• 59:54
  Speaker 8: engraving on there absolutely an order for someone well to do.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: I wanted to go out and fry fund gunning. It
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 6: wasn't essential. It wasn't to make money, but they want
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 6: to try it out.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, some real artistry on that gun. Now, besides our
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: punt gun, what other guns from that auction are you
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: excited about?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 8: So the good news is there are some. The bad
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 8: news is we have a giant auction coming this weekend.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 8: Oh and the American Sales two and fifty years celebrating
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 8: American history. So I can't talk too much about August
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 8: just yet, but I will say three things about August. One,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 8: as I mentioned earlier, you're in a host of sporting
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 8: arms that should.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: Rise and tide floats all boats.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 8: Sorry for the punt gun pun, but that should help
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 8: all the sporting arms in that sale. And that's what
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 8: we do, we build auctions. There is a second. I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 8: will say the August premiere has one item flagship of
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 8: the sale does have an estimate in the seven figures.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 8: And I will say about the August premiere that there
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 8: is a gun so famous in that sale I would
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 8: I would wager that everyone in your room right now
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 8: has seen a photograph of it.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Okay, great, that's that's a wonderful tease. And after this interview,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Joel is going to tell me what that gun is
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: so that I know and I don't have to wonder anymore. Now,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: tell folks how they can learn more about the August
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: auction where our punt gun will be sold.
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 8: Sure, actually, since that auction will be over welcoming off
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 8: to be over Saturday, go to the website on Monday.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 8: We will have essentially a sixteen page highlight portfolio that
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 8: you can flip through digitally on our website. Uh, you'll
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 8: see the big dogs front and center on the front catalog,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 8: on the back catalog. If you go to Rock Island
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 8: Auction dot com, they will have that highlight portfolio of
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 8: the catalog for anyone who wants to see the punt
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 8: gun and to place some bids on it. That to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 8: be available around mid July. Well, of course, bench make
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 8: y'all aware of that, and you can you can spread
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 8: the good words we can trying to raise some funds.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: Here, Okay, very excited, and Rock Island is graciously waving
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: all of our fees that normally come with selling a
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: gun through them. That means they are helping put as
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: much money into the land Access initiative as possible, So
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: we really appreciate that. Joel, thank you for helping US
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: fund more conservation projects, and thanks for joining us today.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 6: It's been a blast. We're happy to come back.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: Aytime, Okay, talk to you again. Thank you bye ye
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: all right, that's it for this episode. The punt gun
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: film is on our YouTube channel right now. Please go
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: watch it. It's a lot of fun. Old guns are cool,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: big guns are cool. This is as old and as
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: big as it gets. So if you like history, if
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: you like conservation, if you like firearms, you'll like this video,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: so please go check it out. It's available right now.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: Don't forget to go buy your punt gun hat at
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: the auction House of Oddities that will go live sometime
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: in July. You can also bid on the shells there.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: We have three of them that we're going to be selling.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: And if you want to buy the punt gun yourself,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: you can go do that at the Rock Island Auction
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: in August. You can participate virtually. They'll set you up
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: really well. I bought the gun from Bozeman, Montana, while
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: the auction was happening. I believe they were in Illinois
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: at that point. Now they're located in Texas, so you
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: don't even have to be there in person to participate again.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: That's Rockland Auction dot Com that is happening at the
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: end of August. All right, that's it for this episode.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: Thanks for watching, Thanks for listening.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 6: By now