8 gauge shotgun
 

I just saw the movie Appaloosa and Viggo Mortensen's character in the movie had an 8 gauge shotgun or at least that's what it was called on screen. Does anyone know any 8 gauge shotguns?

I always thought 10 was the largest shotguns went...

I've heard shotguns can even go up to 1 gauge, but I though that was an urban legend.

Steve (Pheonixent) built those specially for that movie. Here's the picture he uploaded for us:

http://www.imfdb.org/images/2/28/SK_1878_shotgun.jpg

Anyway, they do apparently make 8-gauge shotguns. The "elephant gun" from "Tremors", for instance, was an 8-gauge made by William Moore & Co.

I have an 8 Gauge shotgun shell, it's huge.

I always thought it stopped at 4 Gauge. One Gauge would be a freaking cannon!

4 Gauge and larger were used in what is called a Punt Gun. The are normally used on a specially crafted boat or a bench. The cartridge holds a lot of small pellets to use on water fowl. The shot pattern was very wide on that type of shell.

They make industrial kiln guns in 8 gauge and remington still produces that and ammunition for it.

The 8 Gauge fell out of popularity after 1918 when it was outlawed for hunting. They did go even bigger- in fact early blackpowder elephant rifles were measured by gauge rather than calibre.

actually, it's outlawed for federally regulated game, states may still allow it.

Wasn't Burt's 'Elephant gun' an Express rifle? I haven't seen the movie in a couple of years, but as I remember it he had to 'crank' the rifle open.

David.