Here is another interesting tidbit from my recent road trip. The weapon at the top of the case is called a punt gun. And those rifles below it are full sized Kentucky and Tennessee rifles. Not exactly small guns themselves.
A punt gun is a huge fowling piece intended to be used while propped on the prow of a small boat or "punt". It was a smoothbore weapon of truly massive caliber that was used to shoot a large number of ducks or geese with one shot. Documents state that between ten and forty birds could be killed with a single shot. Which is good, because it probably took two guys with a ladder ten minutes to load it. This weapon was a matchlock as you can see in the above photo, and probably from the early to mid 1700's.
These photos were taken in the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis, Tennessee
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