This round was outlawed back in 1912-18 (?) for the use of hunting waterfowl

however I saw a gun show on tv, that stated that Remington was still loading this ammo.

Does anyone know who in the US is still using this large bore, or
is the ammo ment for over seas, shooters?

I know the 10 Ga. is alive and well but thought the 8 Ga. was long gone and just a wall hanger.

8 GA shotguns are used for descaling in foundries.

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The only 8 ga loads I know of are for cement kiln clinker guns.

8 Gauge Kiln System - Industrial Cartridge SA

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Would love to shoot one. Without any real experience I can only assume it would be a top-notch quail gun.

If the quail are that big in Colorado you are a better story teller than a Texan. Larry

Back when I guided waterfowl hunters in Maryland I had one hunter who brought an 8. He kilt his 3 geese and a pair of Mallards with it. I didn't realize it was a 8 till almost lunch time. It surely wasn't overwhelming on the birds. I have an old friend near Cody who was also from Maryland who owned and shot waterfowl with an 8 gauge Parker gun. Pretty but fairly heavy. Except for a couple of Win M-21s and an early Ithaca or two I am not a fan of SxSs...definitely no 8s. I did shoot Ithaca and Remington Mag 10s though. I also knew an old fellow back in the 60's who had and used a Punt Gun shooting about 4-6 ounces of shot. That ol guy could sure scull a skiff too

I have shot a 10ga in my younger days but can't a imagine shooting an 8ga, especially today.

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SWCA #3437

All the game laws here in Illinois state you can't go bigger than 10 gauge. Now, after all these years, I know why.

The 8 ga was never a ga used by most sportsmen(women). It was a niche gun back in the commercial gunner's days. It wasn't esp all that powerful carrying IIRC about 2 ounces of shot. The 10 ga at the time was 2 7/8 inches and shot 1 5/8 ounes. the Super 10 was brought out approx in the 30s with 1 7/8-2 ounces...

Have to add the original 3 in 12 ga came out with 1 3/8 ounces....an eighth of an ounce more than the heavy 2 3/4 inch 12...and to be honest it was as much a marketing ploy at the time as much stuff is now days. Mo money mo money!

Every year at the Great Northern sxs shoot in Medford WI they have the 8 ga world championship. Just bragging rights. Whoever shoots the best 5 stand score wins. Once you get one swinging they are hard to stop.

An 8 Gauge shell (second from the right) isn’t that much bigger than a 3-1/2” 10 Gauge. A 4 Gauge (far right) is another story. You probably wouldn’t want to shoot one of those from the shoulder!

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That 5 stand 8ga event in Medford is fun.....to watch. I've shot a Parker 8ga and it's not as bad as you might think. IIRC the barrels were 36 inches long and the gun weighed about 15 lbs. The only 8's available that I have seen are older SXS's. The are still legal for waterfowl across the pond.

You are correct and by now EVERYBODY should know this.

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For 12 years I worked in a factory that made porcelain insulators for power transmission.
We once used a 30-30 to clear a piece of ware that fell into the tracks in the kiln. The kiln was about a block long.
The ware racks ran on tracks like railroad tracks. The racks were built by stacking. If a rack collapsed, the whole kiln had to be shut down and cooled, which was a major, major operation.
One day a piece of ware fell off a rack and landed on the tracks. They stopped the haulage system to decide what to do. Old Bob, (his son Bobby worked there too) went out to his truck and got his 30-30. He blasted the piece of ware out of the track and they turned the haulage system back on and continued running porcelain through the kiln.

This is a good thread.

The industrial 8ga hulls can be used to reload into 'sporting' rounds for an 8ga single or SxS.
The industrial rounds do have a belt around the base much like a belted magnum CF rifle round.
That is so the industrial kiln rounds can't be chambered in a sporting arm and fired which would bring disasterous results.

Mosre than a few orig sporting arms in 8ga have had their chambers altered by cutting a recess in the chamber to allow the use of the 8ga industrial hull.
It's considered a real sin to do that alteration. But many a Parker, LCS and foreign made SxS's show the operation.

I repaired a W&C Scott high grade 8ga SxS a few yrs back that had that chamber alteration done on it some time in it's life.

What most dedicated vintage SxS shooters/reloadeds do now is make or purchase a swage die set that you run the industrial hulls into. It swages down that extra ring at the base of the hull and makes them straight walled so they can easily be used in unaltered guns.

The Forum Admin over on the AH Fox forum is into the 8ga SxS of late. I understand he got a maker of the industrial 8ga hulls to make a run of them (empty/unprimed) w/o that ring.
He shoots a Parker 8ga that I know of.

They had an 8ga event at the NorthEastern SxS event in PA last year.
Probably will follow through again this June.

Interesting guns and gauge for sure.
The big bore stuff always draws attention
Never owned an 8ga.
10ga Ithaca NID Magnum SxS was my big bore vintage shotgun for a time.

[B]Who still shoots an 8 Ga. shotgun ??/B]

Elmer does, and it's not all that on a duck.

Viggo Mortensen - Appaloosa

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An 8ga was also featured by the actor that played the accountant with James Garner who played Texas Ranger Woodrow Call in The Streets of Larado

The 8gauge industrial ammo comes in different projectiles for different uses.The Winchester 8g magnum in picture is loaded with a zinc slug. This was to tap pots in alloy mills. Pot had a tap hole that was plugged with a ceramic cement. When ready to tap pot would be glowing red, except for that dark spot that was the. Plug. Guns were mounted with splatter shields, not shoulder fired.
If you notice the 8g brass has a band just like a magnum rifle cartridge. This is to keep idiots from putting these in the old Damascus 8s. I wouldn’t want to be around when they touched it off. 12g slug is for scale.
Most of the guns used to scale boilers and such are 12g and shoulder fired. 8g is not portable or flexible enough for that work.
You can shoot 8g all day long with no I’ll effects. I once shot over 100 8g at junk in plant yard. I also fired a couple boxes of 12g slugs at clinkers in boilers, from inspection doors. Brutal, from the position you have to shoot from. Those guns were WINCHESTER M37industrial singles.

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Seems like the 8 bore rifles are more common than the 8 gauge shotguns. I have a 4 bore rifle that I shoot fairly often. These monsters are a lot of fun. These big ones are all custom made now. Prices tend to be very high.

I once shot an over-under Ferlach 4 gauge shotgun, ONCE. The shotgun weighed 16 pounds and I felt like a six year old shooting grandpa's 12 gauge. However, it was a memorable experience.

Never even heard of it before this thread.

A 8ga. would be unique indeed.
I briefly contemplated a 10ga. for geese back when steel shot was mandated. Didn't need it because 12ga. goose steel loads improved dramatically. I knew guys that had 10's, but I never bought one. Just had to get em in closer until shotshell tech improved.
I've never physically even seen a 4ga in the wild, ever. And I'm a big shotgun fan.

4 bore rifle is about 1 inch bore diameter. I typically use a 450 grain powder charge. It has over 11,000 ft/lbs of muzzle energy and about 340 ft/lbs of recoil energy. It was the standard elephant gun of the mid 19th century. Mine has no recoil pad. Just a brass butt plate. On a well designed rifle the recoil is not painful, but it will knock you back a good 5 or 6 feet. I have never gotten a bruised shoulder from shooting it. It does not spin you around AT ALL. It does not give you detached retinas or an incurable flinch. The stories of shooting one from horseback are nonsense. You could shoot one from horseback but you won't be on the horse anymore afterwards.

^^^ You couldn't make me shoot that.^^^

LOL … You could MAKE me shoot that, but you’d have to.

Does not sound enjoyable.

How would you know if you hit the quail?

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The pink mist.

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Bert Gummer uses an 8 gauge

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I’d like to see it tested in ballistic gelatin. Might need a pretty large block of it.

A souvenir I got/was given back in the 70s'.

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Shot a lot of 10G out of an SP10 back in the 90's when lead was outlawed for duck hunting. Those first steel loads were not good at all. Switched over a Benelli with 3.5-inch chambers when they came out. That gas 10 never bothered me at all with 1 7/8 of steel. It was a gas auto and weighs in about 10lbs. The Benelli had more of a punch with the 3.5's since the gun only weighs in around 7.5

I would like to shoot the 8 just to say I did, but when the gun is so heavy it is more of a push than the sharp kick of a rifle or lighter scattergun. I was always told market hunters used them to clean up large numbers of cripples after the initial punt gun shot, but that may just be a yarn.

I run across this video now and then and it never gets old!! It is a 4 gauge shotgun.

It works, but you have to click on "Watch on YouTube" Not sure what the problem is since most videos load properly?

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Gary
SWCA 2515

A very interesting post. This is the first time I have heard of an 8 gauge . Apparently it's not something new to many here.

I’ve killed thousands of geese with a Spanish SxS 10ga. I only use it in pit blinds in MD or VA where duck opportunities are very rare.

A 10ga is remarkably more effective than a 3 1/2” 12ga.

If all you saw were feathers remaining.

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