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

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Spencer Neuharth gives behind-the-scenes details and answers viewer questions about his “12 in '26” punt gun experiment with crew members Seth and Max. They're also joined by Joel Kolander of Rock Island Auction, who will be auctioning off the punt gun with 100% of proceeds going back to Land Access Initiative. Watch the film now on MeatEater's YouTube channel. Connect with MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips Subscribe to MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Join me every week to see just how high up. Up this goes on the Spotify podcast, conspiracy theories. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Meadeer podcast. I'm Spencer Newark, joined today by Seth Morris and Max Barta. Today's episode is a little different. We are going to be talking all about punt guns. If you're not aware, we bought one a few years ago, then we shot it.

We filmed the whole process. You can go watch that right now on the Mead eater YouTube channel. This is our fifth installment in the 12 and 26 series that we're doing this year. That's 12 long-form films that we're dropping in 2026. This film is probably the most different of everything that you'll see on our channel. The other episodes have more traditional outdoor adventures where Yanni does an archery bear hunt. Clay chases mountain lions with hounds. The only thing that we hunt in the punt gun episode is clay pigeons and watermelons.

So very different. balloons and some balloons and some balloons uh and some paper targets and some hats yeah we'll talk about in a little bit so this is a story you know about conservation and a very badass gun so today we are going to be answering your questions about the punt gun although steve and i host the film max and seth were there every time we shot the thing uh so they got real familiar with it uh and then set and max even got to shoot it we had six shells with us um steve and i shot five of them We had a sixth one. We said, what should we do with this thing?

Should we just throw it in the river? And then Max and Seth, they said, no, no, no, let us shoot it. So they did. And so we have a piece of the film here that didn't make the final cut. This is behind the scenes. This is behind the scenes.

This is a real look behind. Max and Seth shooting the punt guns. This is a nice moment. Yeah, this is really bonded our friendship. I'll tee it up with this real quick. Oh, sorry. Sorry. We only had one shell left, but two people

who wanted to shoot it. So they were going to pull the rope together. That's how you fire the punt gun. You pull this rope that's like, I don't know, two feet long. And so they were very kind and they pulled the rope together. But I noticed something in the film. I know what you're going to say. Play it for us, Phil.

Okay. Oh, he unnamed it. Oh, that's good. Unnamed it. Seth brings back the hammer. He got that on it. Ready? On three. One, two, three.

So what I wanted to bring up is Seth has his hand on the road. And then Max trumps him and reaches in front of Seth's hand to get to grip further up the rope. And then Seth says, hold on. And then he reaches in front of Max's hand again. I didn't even notice that. It was just like a little patty cake or whatever it was. That's right. They were like doing a totem pole of hands, whoever got to be closer to the trigger.

Who do you think actually shot it? Which one of you pulled the rope? I felt like I had more on it. I felt pretty equal, I thought, even. I think so. I was more on your hand, not on the road. You were like almost holding my hand, too. Phil, can we see it again?

Could you like really slow it down? Let's get a good look at who may be. And then Phil, you help us decide here. Okay. Which one of these two shot the punt gun? Okay, so the hammers back. It's going to grab. Yep.

Max grabs in front of him. Yep. Cute. And now, and now Seth, hold on a minute. I had the majority. I had like the little anchor point Okay, now we're gonna shoot it Here we go

I think both It looks pretty slacky Yeah, it's kind of That looks like Seth It looks like Seth's jacket Starts the motion first Okay, but then I felt like Max Had a more aggressive pull

We'll call it 50-50 Wow, look at the fire I'm still gonna say I've shot a punt gun Whether Seth pulled it or not Oh yeah Yeah I was thinking about this I think I don't think there's ever been

a punt gun in Montana before this, would you say? That's a pretty fair point. I mean, this is not punk gun country. These things were used way east of Chesapeake Bay in Europe. That's a good point, Max. If I had to guess if one came through here, no. Yeah, I don't think so.

Yeah. We're going to talk to Rock Island auction later in the show. Those are the guys who sold us the gun that are then going to resell it. All that money is going to go back to the Meteor Land Access Initiative. but leading up to us buying the punt gun, they had mentioned that sellers will come to them and say, I have a punt gun that I want you guys to sell,

but in reality, it's not a punt gun. It's what they would call to be a pigeon gun or a fort gun. Now, ours like hits the nail on the head for the definition of a punt gun. I bet there were obviously fort guns here at some point, maybe some pigeon guns, even though I don't think that was in Montana's culture either, but as far as the only punt gun, that's a good point max we're going to call that the first punk go i would say so yeah unless there's some

like private collectors you know yeah probably not though yeah so on today's episode uh we're going to answer your questions and then we have that interview with rock island auction uh so those guys are the expert on old firearms that we're going to chat with them that's going to be a lot of fun here's the first question this is from nick sikoski he says feels like ages ago when first discussed exactly when was the first conversation about it. Nick is referring to the punt gun. He's right. This has been a long time coming. For Nick, I tried to get us the cleanest timeline of the punt gun leading up to us buying it. The first time it was discussed, it was in December of 2021 on an episode of meat eater trivia. Trivia was still in its infancy. It was so young,

in fact, that the episode that this happened on, it was just called Game On Suckers. That episode didn't even have a number after it. For context, the episode that came out this week is CCXII. That's, uh, what is that max in Roman Numerals? Don't ask me. Take a guess. No clue. 222.

I was going to say that's 22 in Roman numerals. So the episode we talked about this on didn't even have a Roman numeral. It was literally the first episode that said game on suckers. Now, like wasn't our technically our first episode of meat eater trivia because there was a period where we would do trivia and it was like a kangaroo episode. inside of a regular episode. This was the first time we pulled that away and made its own show.

Anyway, just some background for you. What was the question? Do you remember? Phil's going to play it for us. Again, this is that on that episode in 2021. Steve versus you. Yeah. So Spencer, for this question, Spencer, actually showed the room a picture of the pun guy

and then asked what it was called. So here's the audio of the rest of the correct answer. The correct answer is the punt gone. Oh, man, I'm glad I got it. The average punt gun range from a two-gauge to a four-gauge and could fire over a pound of pellets at once. Wow. They are very rare and hard to come by, though.

I was able to find a few in online auctions ranging anywhere from $4,000 to $10,000. You could buy one? You could buy one. Are you going to buy one? No. Unless you're like pony up $5,000, yeah. I didn't know how serious. I didn't know how serious you were, you know.

Yeah. Because we could shoot it. I would love to have that in the ball in this room. That's the genesis of the punt gun. That's the beginning of it. You know, Max knows this, Seth knows this. If you want to get something done immediately, you just need to get Steve excited.

Yeah, true. So as you can hear, Steve was excited about it. And it didn't take long until like those sort of maybe, should we, could we? Steve is like, yes, let's get a punt gun. So here's the rest of that timeline. Again, that was December 2021. January 2020, I found some punt guns online. They range in price from $4,000 to $8,000.

I talked to one seller. He said that him and his buddy shot theirs. They stood back to back. And what they did was they had one guy who stood in front and he let the barrel rest on his shoulder. And then the other guy stood behind him and he sort of pressed the butt of the punt gun against his shoulder. Just like if you were shooting a regular shotgun. When they pulled the trigger, that guy said that his buddy had his collarbone broken. It's like an episode of Jackass.

It's exactly like that. God, that sounds like a terrible idea. Yeah. Bad idea. We didn't buy any of those punt guns. Just, I think some of them floated closer to the category of pigeon gun, which, which we'll learn about later. Just, just didn't love any of those.

So we didn't buy them. But again, this is the timeline of how it unfolded. February of 2022, I found a five-footer at an antique mall in Wisconsin. I called them. They wanted $5,500 for it. The seller was unsure if it would shoot. Didn't want to change. price and that was an important thing to us we wanted to buy a punt gun that we think would work

and so because we couldn't figure out if that one would actually fire we walked away there uh February 2020 someone reaches out to me with a hot tip that Rock Island auction has two of them coming up for sale that summer again Rock Island they're the biggest auction house when it comes to historic guns here's some examples of the guns that they have sold in the past Hans Solo's DL.44 heavy blaster. That sold for $1 million. They sold two Remington revolvers that were owned by Ulysses S. Grant. Those sold for $5 million.

And then they sold a Winchester, 1886 with the serial number one. So literally the first ever Winchester, 1886, that sold for $1.2 million, just to give you an idea of like the kind of guns that they trafficked. That's who had two of these punt guns for sale. Dang. March of 2022. Here are some emails with Steve. Here was one where he said, quote, as my dad always said, you can't lose your ass on punt

guns. I don't know if Steve's dad actually said that. But I like, you know, it'd be like, as Abraham Lincoln said, you can't trust everything you read on the internet. Like, I feel like that's what Steve was doing. But I'm just like trying to give you more context of how excited Steve was about this. The next day, he says, I can't wait to mount it to a boat. and set out some soda bottles like ducks.

Here's an email from a few weeks later. He says, we got to buy the damned punt gun. We're poised and ready. And then a week after that, he says, this will change our lives. And then he put in parentheses for the better. So Steve is now excited. And I ended up getting approved a budget here at Meat Eater of $20,000 to buy a punt gun.

And as we talked about on that old podcast from December, Steve was interested when it was like $4,000 to $8,000. So some strong negotiating by me to get us up to $20,000. Okay, May of 2022. This is the day of the auction. Again, $20,000 budget, not a penny more. Rock Island has two punt guns up for auction. First punt gun.

This was the one, if I just got to pick, like which one we were going to have, I would want the second one. That's the one we ended up getting. The first punt gun, it was a smaller model, less prestigious brand. Rock Island estimated that it would sell for between $12,000. and $18,000. I bid up to our ceiling of $20,000, two bidders blow right past me.

The gun sells for $25,000. Wow. $7,000 more than the high-end estimate. I wonder what those people are doing with it, you know, like, why do they want it so bad? I don't know. I'm going to ask, I'm going to ask Rock Island auction later. Like, who is the buyer?

What does this person look like? What are they going to, you know? Because we have a reason, you know, in. Yeah, we have a goal. Yeah. And they're probably not going to shoot theirs, you know. Probably not. Yeah.

So that was punt gun number one, $7,000 over its high-end estimate. Second punt gun. This is the one that we want. It's much bigger. It's older. It's from a more prestigious brand. That's Holland and Holland. Rock Island estimated that one would sell for between 16,000 and 22,500.

So if it follows the pattern as the last punt gun, that means this one's going to sell for 30,000. It's basically me and one other bidder. And I assume that this other person is. is the odd man out from the last punt gun auction. They went back to back these two, these two auctions. Bidding goes fast. I quickly get to the ceiling of $20,000. And then it just ends.

The other guy doesn't go anymore, which I was kind of shocked at at the time. I didn't think it was going to work out. But it was a big relief because that was the gun that we wanted. This guy went past 20 grand for the first punt gun. I don't know. I don't know that it was him who was competing. I just assumed that he was the odd man out who didn't win the small.

smaller one. For sure. And if he would have went to $20,000 and one penny, I'd have been out. And he didn't do it. Come on. No, you wouldn't. You would have pitched in of like your own $100. You know what?

I think I could have, I could have explained it away to Steve later. I'd be like, Steve, it was going to get away. What do you want me to do? You know, exactly. So that, that is the origin. That is how we got the punt gun back in May of 2022. All right. Next question here.

This is from Outdoors Biggie. He says, what are the punt guns stats? All right, it was made by Holland and Holland in 1885. So that makes it 140 years old, 141 years old, I think. Six years younger than the light bulb, a decade older than the radio, and it's actually older than the state of Montana, just to give you some context of like the technology that we're working with. This would be the equivalent of someone taking a gun out of Max's safe that he just bought today

and then shooting it in the year 2166. You can't even fathom like, well, what's the world going to look like in 2166? I have no idea. But that would be like if someone took Max's brand new gun that he got today and then shooting at that. I was going to say, hopefully like my kid's going to be doing that. But I was like, oh, no, I got to add a couple more decades. Maybe it's my kids, kids, kids, kid, you know.

Great grandkids. They'll be talking about how, you know, great, great, great grandpa Maxwell shot a punt gun back in the day. Oh, yeah, that'd be cool. Family story. Wow. Hopefully they'll still be able to look up the video. Maybe.

That's right. Yeah. That's, who knows? More stats. It's a two-gauge shotgun. If you listen to trivia, you know this, but when something is listed as a gauge, if you have a 12-gauge shotgun, that means you take 12-gauge shotgun, that means you take 12-12-lead balls that fit in the end of a 12-gauge barrel, and that equals a pound.

So that means that if you had two lead balls that fit in the end of the end of, that fit in the end of our barrel of our punt gun, that would make one pound. That is like as big as a punt gun gets seven and a half feet long. 60 pounds. It's an awkward 60 pounds though. Like this is always being carried by a couple people around here. Nine and a quarter inch shell. It's original walnut stock and then it has a gray paint that Rock Island told us is the original gray paint and it has about 95% of that left on it. So those are the punt gun stats. All right, Chase Howard, says if you can answer what's the overall cost per shot we had six shells max and set take a guess as to each what each one of those shells cost uh bismith was in it right yeah it was

filled uh with it was a little over half a pound of number six bismith um and the shells were made of brass that i think was nickel plated so that's that's the what we're working with and get it was a nine inch shell half a pound of number six bismith what do you think that cost 45 bucks a pop 45 bucks i was going to say 35 a pop way way way really take another guess 135 for i'll give you some more context the punt gun came with one singular spent shell that seemed to be original to the gun like that shell that came with the gun um was probably fired out of that gone it was made for that gun you know 140 years ago that's we had that thing to work off of we had to pay a machinist, an engineer,

to do some CAD drawings for us to figure out what the best materials are. Ship this thing across the country, which they didn't ship. They actually drove it over here personally. Yeah, you can't. Because it was like basically an explosive at that point. When we joked about this,

I don't think it was ever in the film, but like when you're handling one of those things, you're like, do not drop that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so take another guess. You said 130?

Well, after all that. Imagine if it was TSS in there. imagine yeah uh 150 like what does the tss shell cost right now 20 bucks it's right around that 15 20 bucks yeah

150 i'm gonna go like two to 220 1,000 it was a thousand 32 dollars we are so off shell oh god okay so that's roughly

here's just wasted that much money on a shop yeah I don't think I didn't know it until chase Howard asked this question I was like i don't know probably like you know 200 bucks a shell And I went and looked up our invoice. It was 400, this is per shell, $470 in materials, $480 in fabrication and assembly,

and then a $500 flat fee for doing the CAD work to make it all possible. So divided by six, that's another $80 per shell for a grand total of over $1,000 a shell. We're way off. Yeah, but surely they didn't cost that much back then when people were actually using punk guys. I mean, I can't fathom that they did know. if you adjust for although I bet it was expensive because a lot of

a lot of punt guns back then were loaded through the barrel right like you you drop down a scoop full of gunpowder and then like a probably a cardboard wad and then a handful of pellets ours is breech loading so it's

loaded more like a traditional shotgun I bet those things were expensive to make back then as well I wonder if you get if you get a flock of ducks on the water how many rounds of like 12-gauge bismuth would it take to kill the amount of ducks one shot of the punt gun kills. Yeah, that's good.

We'll never know. Yeah, $20,000 punt gun. And then, you know, it only takes 20 shells to equal the price of that. Now, with our auction, when we auctioned this thing off in August, you are getting one of the spent shells. Actually, you're getting two. You're getting the OG one that we based our modern ones off of. and then you're getting one of those modern spent shells.

That way, if you want to shoot this thing, you can go have your $1,000 shells made as well. All right, 86 Spencer says, did you figure out approximately how big the spread would be or its lethal distance? Our first shot was to determine exactly that. I think we wound up, it was like an 8 foot by 8 foot spread at 30 yards.

If you were going to shoot a 12 gauge at 30 yards, Max, would like a 30 inch spread is that what you'd expect yeah I mean I know there's a lot of factors yeah different chokes and stuff but yeah I mean you're probably if not maybe like a 40 inch okay 30 or 40 inch spread at 30 yards of the 12 gauge

so we were like three or four and that's probably a pretty open choke probably yeah so like four X that was our spread as you'll see in the film we do some different tests to be like if we were shooting ducks on water which which we replicate with balloons we put balloons from like 20 yards out to 80 yards. We pop the balloons out at 80 yards. Lethal distance, I bet you

could kill a duck with a BB in the right place at 100 yards, don't you think? Yeah. Like if one of those found the brain of a mallard, that's a dead mallard at 100 yards. Yeah. It would have been interesting to maybe do like a a watermelon at 100 yards just to see

like how the penetration of those pellets or something that you could measure the penetration or ballistics jail or something. at 100. Yeah, I think if a punk gunner use this, they would like kill some ducks dead dead at 20 yards. Like those things would be obliterated,

probably not even going to make it to market. And then they would have some that, you know, just get one BB in the right place beyond 100 yards. But I bet they were wounding. Yeah, I bet there's so many cripples. Yeah.

And I was thinking about this earlier. I was like, yeah. So after like one or two shots of the punt gun is like, what are they going to do with all the cripples? You know, they have to like round those up too. Maybe they had some shotguns in the boat. I would have to imagine.

That's what I would do. Finish some birds off. Yeah. I imagine at the edge of that spread, it's just like you're probably wounding, maybe as many as you're killing at that point. There's just a lot of ducks that aren't probably flying away from that scenario, but aren't dead either. Close your eyes.

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Silas Hayes says, Do you think your punt gun was used, if so, when and where? We're going to talk about this with Rock Island a little later, but the peak punt-gun era was roughly from 1880 to 1910. That's in both North America and Europe. Our gun is from 1885. So it comes around like right at the beginning of when punt gunning was really hot. Now our gun shows some signs of use.

Like there's a little chipping in the paint. It's missing a screw. It has signs of where it places where it would be attached to something. A lot of punt guns at that time like wound up just in the bottom of lakes, in the bottom of rivers, in the bottom of estuaries. Ours survived 140 years. So I don't think it was used a ton of. but I bet it shot into some flocks of birds. And someone along the way thought that the engraving

was potentially a custom job on our punt gun. Like on the handle? It's got, yeah, so it's got a walnut stock that's like, I don't know, 12 inches long or so. That's got some engraving. And then there's some engraving around where the barrel meets the stock as well. And someone pointed that out and they're like,

that looks like it would be custom. you know, that was a special order to Holland and Holland. The other thing I learned is when you look at the punt gun history, you'll find there were obviously, like, these were used by blue collar hunters that were making a living off of selling ducks and geese. You'll find instances, though, where they're sort of like punt gun tourists who are, you know, a well-off newspaper owner in London, like a well-off banker in England who just wants to experience the thrill of doing a punt gun hunt.

Without any evidence at all, I think that's who bought this punt gun. Gotcha. I think it's one of those folks who like, they weren't doing this for a living, but they enjoyed, you know, hunting and the outdoors and they wanted to go try this sporting thing. So they like, you know, commissioned Holland and Holland to make them a beautiful punt gun with some custom engravings. And then I bet they went and used it a few things. But I don't think this was used by like a market hunter who was living in a shack and this

was like his bread and bar for making it. I wonder, you said Rock Island said that that paint on there was original? They said it was original, which I think when most people look at that, they're like, no, that came around later. Rock Island said it was original, and they estimated 95% of it was left. I wonder, see, when I looked at it, it looks like someone put it on there. It does. And I wonder if that is the case that this pun gun was used, like maybe Chesapeake Bay, saltwater. Sure.

If they put that paint on there to seal it from getting rusty. You're right. Yeah, it's almost, yeah, it's kind of shocking to hear that that's original paint because you're like, no, somebody came around in like 1960 and thought they were like sprucing it up. And it's like, I don't have any way to confirm this, but it looks like a thick amount of paint. Yeah. Like multiple coats of gray paint went on that barrel. Yeah.

So to answer the question from Silas about was it used? I think it was used, but not used a ton. All right, next question was from Mike Stephan. How did you know it wasn't going to explode? And were you worried about it exploding? Seth and Max were there every time we shot it. That first time, were you guys worried? I was behind the vehicle.

I was not. I was filming Stephen Spencer, their reaction. So I was, my back was to the gun and everything was just like, fingers crossed, this doesn't explode. I was worried, I wasn't worried like the, the barrel was going to explode or anything. I was worried about the integrity of the breach. Yeah. Like stuff blowing out the back.

Yeah. A little bit of this shows up in the cut. But the first time we went to shoot the gun, it was like a pretty cold day. And I guess we hadn't fully confirmed that the shells fit inside of the barrel at that point. So we get there and we realize that it's just like very, very, very. close but it's not making it into the barrel so steve starts um you know taking gunk out of the barrel which is why we also thought it was used because it had some buildup as though it had been shot in the past yeah um and i'm sandpapering the shell and we're just like trying to get rid of some millimeters

to make this thing work uh and eventually work but that's what you were concerned about set yeah yeah yeah we're just like doing a lot of manipulating in the field trying to make it come to yeah after that first shot we like slowly trusted the gun more and more you know We like our rope was drunk a little bit. You know, we got right up to it. By shell number six, when Seth and Max shoot it, they're like touching the gun. Yeah, honestly. You had full trust.

Yeah. Yeah, I wasn't so much concerned about an explosion, but I guess what I was mildly concerned about was the recoil of it. You have to let a gun, like, produce recoil. You have to let it buck a little bit. If you don't, if you just clamp everything down as tight as possible, you're just, like, stressing out the mechanics of the gun. That's not good for it.

And so we're like, I feel like walking a tightrope, trying to let the gun recoil, but not recoil too much, where it like becomes a danger to us. And so that felt like a balancing act. What we ended up doing was we, I found out later it's called a trunnion. Trunion is what that connecting point was called. We had a fabricator, Travis fabrication here in Bozeman,

who made us. Travis Barton. Travis Barton fabrication. Barton, yeah. He built us a mount that we could attach to a trailer, and then we had some sandbags on that trailer. And my concern with the recoil wasn't warranted. It all worked out well.

The gun was able to rise when it shot. We had to go back and cite it in each time. So worried about it exploding a little bit. And as you see in the film, like the first time that we shoot it, Steve attaches a rope to it. That was his dad's tree stand rope. Like his dad would be in a tree stand. He needs to bring his bow up.

That was the rope we used. And as you guys pointed out, and then I think we tied another rope onto that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. To get us further back. Uh-huh. It didn't feel like the original rope was going to be the difference between us, like,

losing an arm or not. Yeah. Okay. Next question was from Billy the Kid Rock. That's a great name. He says, do you think the punt gun would be? be good for hunting anything besides ducks. Yes.

What? Snow geese. Snow geese. So, I mean, just another form of waterfall, but I don't know anything else. What's those like starlings or sparrows that are invasive? Oh, yeah, yeah. They're always all bunched up. I bet you could, you could.

Oh, and they do those big waves. Yeah, you could do a hurting on those things. Yeah. You do a hurting on a flock of winter turkeys. Yeah, I was going to say a flock of turkeys. I thought that was the absolute perfect thing. Like, short of an elephant, you could kill anything with a punt gun. But the ideal scenario is using it what they use it for, which is like, you know, sneaking

into a flock of ducks on the water and doing one shot that brings down a hundred of them at a time. Some historians think that that is where the phrase, get your ducks in a row comes from. It's from punch gunners waiting until they felt like they were at the perfect spot in the flock to pull the trigger. But I was thinking about what else it would be good for? turkeys in like the fall or the winter. I can recall a deer hunt I was in in the Black Hills in late November, where all of a sudden I found myself in the middle of a flock of turkeys. That must have been like 100 to 200 turkeys.

And they were just all around me and they were moving past me. And they were like mildly aware of my presence, but obviously they felt some comfort in their numbers. If you had a punt gun in that situation, you'd have been eating turkeys for years. Lots of Thanksgiving meals. I won time back in Pennsylvania that we had a hard winner. and it was like a deep crusty snow

and there was this one farmer that was spreading manure on the fields like on top of the snow and there was a winter flock there that I like quit counting at like 900 birds Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Like birds came from all over just to be there. That would be the perfect scenario to use a punt gun or if you were like baiting feral hogs for example I think anything that you were baiting and

like creating a congregation of critters in one spot, that that would be the ideal use. Yeah, imagine you could size up shot in those things and put like buckshot in there, right? Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, you could probably do like a turkey load equivalent, you know, where it's like different varying sizes of pellets all at once. Now, like the, the punt gun thing, though, it, it, they become illegal in North America in 1918. That's when the Migratory Bird Act comes around. The reality is they start to fall out of fashion before that. You have pump shotguns show up in the 1880s, semi-auto shotguns in the early 1900s, and the market hunters who are using these, they kind of learn that actually we can be more efficient. We have to plan less

logistically. It's cheaper. It's easier to use. If we just go out with a shotgun, we can hold against our shoulder. Like, we can be better market hunters in that case. So when you're talking about, like the punt gun being outlawed, folks were starting to go away from it, like before it actually becomes illegal. And now, you know, this has been the case since 1918, a 10-gauge is the biggest shotgun that you can use. If market hunting was still allowed today, though,

I don't think you'd see guys out there with a punt gun. Yeah, it's just not a mission. No. As you can see, you know, when they cost $1,000 per shell. Yeah, that's true. It doesn't work. Okay, crank jobs says, what was the most unexpected thing you learned from the experience?

You guys have any thoughts on this? Unexpected. When we were shooting it? Honestly, the damage it did to the watermelons was a little unexpected. You thought more or less? I thought it would be less for some reason. I just thought the pattern wouldn't be that. I don't remember how far we were away from those.

I think it was like 30 yards, 35 yards. I just thought the pattern would be more spread. It would just be like a bunch of holes. Sure. That and another thing I did not expect was how, like, I expected it to be way louder. Yeah. It was kind of like a soft boom. Yeah.

With that said, though, there were still, I think we experienced this and I don't know which shot, but pellets came back at us. I think it was a clay pigeon. Oh, the clay pigeon. Yeah. And someone noted that like, yeah, I got hit in the shoulder with one. Like, oh, I heard it bounce off the vehicles. Yeah. So there was a certain amount of that.

Anything surprised you, Max, when we shot it. Um, I would say just the pattern and how good it was. Mm. You know, like, I was very impressed at 35 yards. Like when we did those paper, uh, light up targets. Um, I was very impressed. I was like, wow, that's, can do some damage, you know, like, I could see why people use that. Right.

You know. Yeah. And, and, uh, Seth brought up the watermelon. That's the final thing in the film that we shoot. And, uh, that kind of goes back to the genesis of the punt gun. immediately four or five years ago when we started talking about this

Steve was like we got to shoot watermelons we got to do the Gallagher bit we got we got to go blow up a bunch of watermelons and then that also allowed Steve to explain to people who Gallagher is which I think he enjoyed equally as much as actually pulling the trigger to shoot the while he's like you don't know Gallagher

well Gallagher you know based on how much Steve talks about Gallagher I think that's the only comedian I don't think anyone knew what he was talking about I will admit I did not know what he was talking about and then like figured it out. Yeah. I would only like,

my exposure to Gallagher was from secondhand references. Like if I family guy would do a bit about Gallagher, I'd be like, well, I don't know who, you know, Gallagher is.

He famously walked out of a Mark Marin podcast. It was, uh, and got really mad. Oh. Yeah. It's a fun listen. He lasts like 20 minutes and then storms out.

What would possibly make him so? Because what wasn't this comedy? I don't remember what the exciting thing was, but it was just sort of like, what's the deal with all the water? Like he was just kind of, he was kind of poking him. Who's poking the bear?

Yeah. So I don't think we wouldn't be doing this podcast today. We wouldn't have bought the punt gun if Gallagher didn't exist. Just because Steve was like so excited and fatuated with the idea of... I think you got to tell people who Gallagher is and what he does. Steve has said this a million times where he would smash watermelons on stage. And you would like, you know, wear a raincoat if you were in the front row because you were going to get, you know, covered in watermelon. Am I getting that right, Phil?

Yeah, I mean, I think it was more than watermelon. The watermelon was the thing that caught on. And that's what people remember, but it was all kinds of fruits, Spencer, not just watermelons. Okay, okay. Well, we shoot watermelons in the film. Most unexpected thing for me was, like, during this research, I was learning, you know, about the market hunting era.

And when it comes to ducks, there was only a little bit of value with the feathers. The meat was the main product. If these ducks didn't have the meat that they had, like this market would not have existed because the feathers weren't valuable enough on their own. But the duck meat is what paid the bills. And there was like a very clear hierarchy in the prices. What would you say is like the best tasting duck, Max, in North America? Well, I think you ask someone, it's going to be something.

And then you ask another person, it'll be something different. I'm asking Max. I'm just explaining myself. But yeah, I think wood ducks and mallards are my favorite. Okay. Would you say the same thing? Yeah, fatty malice. Okay, well, the prices, like, kind of show you what the American palate was at that point.

A plover, that's a shore bird that you'd see, it's, you know, like a little marshmallow with toothpick legs out on a gravel bar in the Missouri River. Those costs 25 cents per plover is what you would get. I could see that. That is $9 per plover in 2026. Appetizer. Wow. An appetizer, sure. Yeah, not a highly respected bird, which is the other thing you learn is that,

these guys weren't just killing ducks and geese they were killing herons um seagulls uh shorebirds all kinds of different stuff so a plover was worth a quarter nine dollars today uh a snipe was only a little more valuable at 30 cents a snipe uh teal wood ducks and wiggins that's that's what max said would be his top pick would be a wood duck that was 75 cents per pair so less than 40 cents per wood duck, which is only slightly more valuable than a snipe. Yeah, I don't agree with that. Price should have been a little higher. Okay.

So black ducks, those were a dollar. Mallards were $1.25. And then the ones that everybody cared about was canvas backs and redheads. Those were $1.75 a piece, which is the equivalent of $62 today. Yeah. $62. That's funny. I feel like I used to do some haunting on the Chesapeake Bay back when I live in Pennsylvania.

And like the duck to kill was a canvas back. Yeah, king of ducks. Yeah. So it's like people are still after them. Yeah. So these ducks, if you were a market hunter in Chesapeake Bay and say you went, you know, punt gunning for a night and you killed 150 ducks, those ducks would then either be salted or iced and then put on a train and then they would wind up in some of your premier cities

in the Midwest and East Coast, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, New York. And then these would go to like the finest diner. restaurants and what they cared about were canvas backs and redheads. I also read, and those prices, I should explain, those came from a good housekeeping magazine in 1886.

That's one year after our punt gun was made. They said that's what you would sell them for in New York. But the other thing I learned is that ducks fetched a higher price if they came from a place with lots of wild celery. Apparently they thought that like a duck eating

wild celery ate better. Is that Your experience, Max? I've never experienced a ducking wild celery, but I remember hearing about that. Just like that East Coast region, like that's what those diver ducks would do. The three premier regions that I saw, like if you kill a duck in this zone,

that's going to fetch the highest price. That's what the restaurants want. It was the Upper Chesapeake, Wisconsin's Lake Kanashkanang, and then Texas's Lake Surprise. Really? Apparently those were like the wild... Just all sorts of different regions, though.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What, I feel like when I hear people talk about wood duck being the best tasting duck, which is, that's not an uncommon opinion that Max has. People would say it's because they eat a lot of acorns. Is that like what you would think it is? Yeah, I mean, I've had ducks that eats pond scum tastes like crap, but then also ducks that eat corn tastes really good, you know?

So I feel like some of that has to play a factor in it. Um, but I think the wood ducks is just a good ratio of meat to fat. Okay. Um, just because they're a smaller duck. Um, I think the biggest ratio of meat to fat is obviously, um, a teal. Like, a big fat green wing teal is just like, just a small, small amount of meat and just like lots of fat and a lot of people like that. Is it different for like a blue winged or a cinnamon? Well, I said, uh, the green wing teal just because there's,

the most hearty. And a lot of times, like, during the migration, you'll see the cinnamon teal, the blue wing teal go first all the way down to southern Texas, even down to parts of Central America. Yeah. And then the green wing teal, they'll be up here hanging with the mallards in December. Some of them, not all of them. So they just get more fat because they're sticking around later. Well, the wild celery is what was driving the market back then. Max, if you were a punt gunner. I'll explain how they were used a little bit. A lot of times it was used like either just after dark or just before sunrise so that the punt gunner could like paddle into the area and be real stealth without being seen. They had to allow for four yards of water behind them because that's how much recoil these produced. If you were a punt gunner, no rules, Max. You can be in a national park in August if you want. Where are you taking that thing? Probably somewhere. the central flyway during the springtime hunt snow geese oh okay yeah um yeah i don't know if i could do it on ducks because i like them so much but snow geese are already a nuisance you know and

so i feel like i would just go carpet the sky yeah um i would go after snow geese just because like they're known to roost in large numbers and i feel like it would be a good time but i would have three punt guns. Oh, okay. One on the water, one slightly above and one slightly aimed above that. Like a 20 degree angle and then like a 45. So you smoke them on the water. They all get up, get another one, and then a third shot off.

What if you were trying to play the market, though, and have a bunch of canvas backs or red-offs? Oh, yeah. Then I would definitely go to the Chesapeake and find some canvas backs. Okay. Seth, any thoughts on if you were a punt gunner? Where I'd go? Where you'd take that thing. I'd go to that little hole that I hunted with you, Max, at one time.

Okay, the secret hole. Can you even say what state you were in? No. No. I like that, Max. No. You probably swat the whole pond. It was just a small warm water creek that, well, it was a pond, but there was a warm water creek

flowing into it. I don't think you could fit another mallard into it. Yeah. Could you get a punt gun there if you had to? You couldn't have it on a boat. You can have it out. Yeah. It would be like a canyon or just like roll it up on wheels.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, like a fort gun. Yeah. Oh, that would be fun. Yeah, so the things we shoot in the video, we don't get to shoot any live animals in the video, but we shoot some paper targets to show you would spread. We shoot the clay pigeons. There's sort of a clay pigeon disaster that you'll watch on the video.

What else? Oh, we shoot the watermelons. And then we also shoot some hats. These are hats that say this hat was shot by a punt gun. And now we are going to sell those in the auction house of oddities. The auction house of oddities is going to be happening sometime in early July here. They're not going to be auctioned off the hats. They're just going to have a buy it now price.

They're only 73 of them. And when they're gone, they're gone. And when you do buy one, you just get a random hat. Some of these were absolutely destroyed, that they, have, you know, 25 pellet holes in them. If you, if you shake them a little, you'll hear the BVs that are still in like the, the, the bill of the cab. You can see some of the BVs too. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The hats, they have a leather patch on them. That's where it says this hat was shot by a punk gun. Some of those leather patches just, like absorbed the BB. It looked like,

you know, somebody was the hand of God and just put it there and press it in with their thumb. So anyway, we have these hats for sale. There's other ones that only got one or two straight pellets in them. If you want to go buy one of these, when they're gone, they're gone. There's 73 of them in the auction house bodies. You're just getting a random hat. Probably going to sell them for $75 a piece. I know that sounds steep, but every penny is going into the land access initiative. So you're funding a good cause. We're also selling the punt gun shells in the auction house as well. We're going to have three of them that are for sale. Again, this will be in early July when that's happening.

You guys have any other thoughts before we do our interview with Joel from Rock Island? I was just glad to be a part of it. Yeah, that might be I'm assuming it'll be the last pun gun I ever shoot. Yeah, same.

First and last time. First and last. And you guys got a video of you doing it together. Yeah, I know. Teamwork. All right, the video is available right now on our YouTube

channel. Now let's do our interview with Joel Collinder. Happy Pride Month, Toronto. Pride is an opportunity for you to create your own space, to celebrate your existence. Iheart Radio is proud to be an official sponsor of Pride Toronto Festival, and we won't stop. Celebrate Pride.

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just gear you can count on. Head to firstlight.com. That's F-I-R-S-T-L-I-T-E.com. All right, joining us on the line is Joel Collender, the interactive production manager from Rock Island Auction. Rock Island is who will be selling our punt gun later this summer with proceeds going into the meat eater land access initiative. Joel, welcome to the show.

That's good to be back. Good to talk to you again. Now, our Pont Gone will be for sale at the August Premier Firearms Auctions. Tell us about that event. Sure, that's our big summer premiere auction. We have three premier auctions year. This one's August 21st, 23rd.

It's going to be about 1,700 items. It's a three-day sale. It's an absolute event at our in-person venue there in Bedford, Texas. So if you're in the area, heck, even if you're not in the area, come on down. It is, they're always open to the public. If you can't make it down, like if someone wants to bid on the punt gun or see better photos of it, of course, you can always go to the website for photos, for more information, of course, to place bids on those items.

Okay, so a few months away from selling the thing. Give us a guess as to what the punt gun will sell for. So the good news is you have kind of an idea already, right? Within the last couple of years, that's a pretty good comparison because the actual gun, sold in in 2022. That said, our estimate now is a little bit higher. We got, I believe, a pre-aux estimate, now these could change. We're still working on that sale right now.

It's estimated between 20 and 30,000. Okay. I think there's a couple of things that go into that one, tied to you guys, and, you know, you guys are pretty popular thing now. Two, it's, it actually got evidence that it's a functional gun, which a darn too of those. I mean, there are too many pun guns in general. They're a rare item. So to have one that's documented and functional, has a piece of brass with it. That's always a plus. And it's in actually surprisingly good condition for a punt gun. As you know, those things are often in

aquatic environments and are often saltwater environments. So to have one like this with that paint and it's a Holland and Holland, I think that's all going to help the value for that. Oh, and it's appearing alongside a lot of really just top of the line sporting arms, both for wing shooting and for a big game. So it starts sporting arms go this August. That punt gun's going to be a headliner and it's in very good company. Okay, very excited. I'll be tuning in for that auction. Paint us a picture for the type of buyer that is looking to spend 20,000 or 30,000 on a punt gun that they may never shoot. Who is that person? We actually see quite a bit of this. Of course, collectors is the easy answer, right? We're at an

auction house for fine and historic firearms. So collectors is easy. What kind of collectors? Well, Of course, you have sporting arms collectors. You see that with premier brands today, Holland and Holland, Hurdy, Rigby, some of those more famous names, Krieg off, and what have you. So sporting arms specifically, though, you may find ones for British sporting arms. You might find one specifically for British best quality firearms or even London gunmakers. You may also find someone who just loves wing shooting, whether that's, you know, American. There's a bunch of publications, of course, here, state side, that focus on just,

wing shooting and hunting, you might find that as well. And then there's just people who like big display pieces or things that go, boom, you know, a functional piece is going to deal to a lot of people as well. So there's a pretty good gamut of cross sections of collectors there. Okay, we hope it's competitive that day. Give us some history of Rock Island auction and punt guns. How often do you have one come up for sale? So the short answer is not very often.

And way back when I first started, I think we said we sold right around 40,000 guns a year at auction. We've been here 13 years. So that number is, if it doesn't double, I'd be very surprised. The number one in the world for what we do. But throughout, I checked our records prior to this and just to see how many punt guns, it's barely, barely over two dozen. Wow. If you're selling tens of thousands of guns a year and that few are punt guns. So not a lot of them remain.

One, because again, we mentioned already those those kind of initial rough conditions. These are guns that are working guns in saltwater conditions. And then two, of course, it speaks to the legislation. It can't use these punk guns. You know, what are they for? A lot of people lose the sort of luster of ownership.

So at least when they weren't in practical use anymore. So not too many pun guns floating around anymore. Even they come through our doors. Yeah, I think when we bought ours, there were two punt guns up for sale that week. And previously, we bought it in 2022.

Prior to that, I think someone there had told me that 2016, which the last time you guys had sold one. So less than one punt gun a year, it seems like. Fair. I mean, you know, you get ones like that where you have two and a sale. Most likely a single collector who's had more than one. So, yeah, but less than one pun gun a year since we've opened. And we've been open since 1993.

That's a safe estimate. Now, how does the size of our punt gun compare to the other ones that you guys have sold? There's so many jokes to be made here. But I will say, it's bigger than average. I mean, we have the, there's a lot of the 7-8. There's a lot of the 7-foot range. There's a lot in the 8-foot range. Not, of course, you know, any source you read, they always want to cite the biggest, right?

You know, these are 12-foot guns. These are 10-foot guns and the fours are an inch wide and they killed, you know, this many hundred things at once. You know, those are those are the exception. That's one end of the scale. But punt guns, I mean, just as a genre, are so varied because they were in use for so long. I'm sorry, through so many sort of periods of development. Right. By so many different groups of people through so many different firearm technologies.

So it runs the gamut. I mean, you get people who were using them more commercially. So very, very large, you know, the many large. you know, the most birds you can take down, the more money you were bringing in. Yeah. During those commercial hunting days, then you had people who were just trying to, in their earlier days, just trying to make an extra buck and maybe put some meat on the table for their family too. So they're a little bit smaller at that point.

Yours, I didn't have the full measurement. I have a barrel measurement, 85 and a half inches, which puts at about seven foot. You know, once you add that sort of tiller or stock that's on the back, what's that an extra 12, 18 inches. So it's right in there with a lot of good seven and eight foot. The biggest one that we had was just over, just over nine foot. Nine foot seven and a half inches. So there's some thusies come through to the door for sure.

Yeah. Now at some point before we bought the gun, someone from your team told me that you will often have sellers that come to you guys with what they call a punt gun. But in reality, they have a pigeon gun or a fort gun. So what is the difference between those three things? A pigeon gun, a fort gun, and a punt gun. We're getting into the collecting nitty gritty here, and that's what we're here for. I love it.

Pigeon guns, there's going to be some intersection, too, because eventually when people were punting, anything that you could use that would get you close to ducks on a punt and take down more than one duck at once, could have seen use as a punt gun, right? If you were just trying to put, again, meat on the table or make a couple extra bucks, you weren't real picky about what it was in form. It was, did it functioned. But pigeon guns early on are for the early pigeon shoots, like literal trap shooting.

You have five trap houses. They released pigeons. They could go any which direction. And you had to knock them down within a circle, a giant sort of area to get the kill to get credit for it. If you want to knock those pigeons down fast, you wanted a big gun. So eight-bors aren't uncommon, very long barrels aren't uncommon.

and very, very high end as well. There was a lot of money on these pigeon shoots back in the day. So here you have this size. You have really well put together. Pigeon guns, they could often be confused for a large punt gun. You also both, you know, smooth bore shot guns. You have a wall gun, or what was a... A fort gun that I had heard.

I heard some of them referred to as fort guns. What would that be? Yeah, a fort gun, a wall gun, a rampart gun. sort of lots of different names all for the same thing, and it's exactly what it sounds like. These are guns that are mounted on walls. A lot of times they will be large, very seldom might I seem like an actual rifle example,

but oftentimes through some sort of fork with a, like a pintel or something on the bottom, because you're actually going to set that on top of a wall to defend your fort, castle, what have you. And they're really sort of an intermediate range weapon. You had your small arms for closed up. You had artillery and mortars for far away targets. But right in the middle, well, you could use a really big wall gun to make an impact

on some enemy troops that might be, you know, sieging your position or your building. For the last ones are two punt guns. As you discussed on the podcast, these are large guns to be put in a boat, mounted in a boat or a punt, very shallow because essentially you are sneaking up on ducks on their own turf, trying to be as undetected as possible, getting within a certain range for you to really lob that shot across the water and take out as many ducks as possible. Those are, again, large caliber, no surprise there, shotguns you're trying to take out as many as possible.

But the range of a troop hunt gun is everything from pre-flintlock to the cartridge guns like the screw breach, Holland and Holland that you all bought. And so everything in between. It's such a fantastic genre of collecting once you start diving into it. Yeah. Have you guys ever sold a punt gun that is confirmed to work like ours is? No. Okay.

The answer is no. There have been a lot of, quote, quote, quote, duck guns, which are, again, these sort of large bore, like four-bore. We have a lot of four-bore duck guns shouldn't say a lot. But there's, when they do come through very high-end, you're dealing with a very high-end custom-made. from like John Dixon and son or again Holland and Holland people are using these as shoulder mounted for boar shotguns and again they're they're for duck would they are they the type to be like mounted or secured in a boat no but they're definitely being used for essentially the same purpose and there would be a flock shooting duck so there are those that are capable in fine

enough condition where I wouldn't worry a bit about them being fired yeah but as far as a true punt gun like yours with you know pintel mounts on it and everything and the recoil device on the bottom all this fun stuff no i've never seen one even thought about being fired great very excited now was any part of you nervous about us shooting the one that we purchase now the funny answer is no because it's not me but the second answer is no not at all I mean, if there's a group of guys that I trust to do the research with the outdoors and sporting, it's the folks at meat eater. Now, if you were, you know, two guys in a rowboat taking it out, I might be a little more concerned. You also have a quality maker like Holland and Holland.

Those are sort of like legacy arms that just, they laugh, their heirlooms. So you started out with good materials in good condition and you're smart about it. Everything lined up perfect. Yeah, and that's also why it took us four years to get to the point where we're, we could make the film about us shooting the punt gun. I mean, I wasn't going to bring it up, but I'm sure it might come up once or twice in the comment. Yep, yep. Now, how is selling a punt gun different from your typical firearms?

I imagine there's got to be some real logistical challenges that you guys go through selling, you know, an eight-foot gun. Yeah, I mean, the selling part's easy, right? You get an auctioneering and bang and hammer at the front of a room. Uh-huh. But everything around it is required, you know, to accommodate. that massive size. So whether it's trying to take photography of it,

you know, to put it in our catalog or put it on the website, transporting it even around the building, around our facility, getting it set up on our preview hall down in Bedford, Texas. And then, of course, eventually shipping it to a new owner, they all have their issues to come up with, which, by the way, if you're an in-person bidder, boy,

we would encourage that. Yeah, our punt gun, when we bought it, It showed up in a literal crate. I think multiple crates, actually. So if you are the person who buys this thing, and it's going to be shipped to you, expect a giant piece of wood coming in the mail, and that's where your punt gun will be inside of. Now, our punt gun, as most were, was made in England, simply because that's where this style of hunting was the most popular. So with that being the case, what is the most English thing about our gun?

Is there something you look at that makes you go, oh, that? gun it was made in London. We talked about earlier, but the Holland and Holland. Just a quintessential best quality gun, a London gunmaker that's been around since 1835. So they're first in 190 years last year, 190 years last year. And they just airline quality. Like I said, legacy type guns, the type you pass on. And of course, we see them come out of some pretty impressive collections.

those are guns that will regularly draw six figures, high artistry and embellishment, but there are also guns that you could not be afraid to take out and use, maybe true to form with a punt gun. Absolutely fantastic. And Holland, so Holland and Holland is just quintessential British gun. Somebody we showed the gun to told us that they suspected the engraving around the barrel most likely made it a special order or a custom-made gun. What do you think of that theory?

Yes. Especially given when your gun was made, which I believe was the late 1800s, correct? 1885 is what we could come up with. Perfect. Because initially, you know, we have the early 1800s where gunning is kind of coming into its own, right? You have a lot of sailors. You have deck guns. How do we use these?

What are we doing? We're out of the service. You know, there's a lot of mutual origins there from that British sort of age of naval warfare. And but initially, these are people who are. like I said, not doing this commercially. And so it's whatever you can get. And a lot of times they're very rough. Sometimes you might put it together at home if you can't get those materials,

but very, very sort of singular purpose. As it goes on, it becomes essentially a sport of the gentry. You know, the well-heeled and well-to-do are taking this very difficult, rough hunt. I mean, this is cold hunting. this is there's a cold shooting muddy wet salt water like you might be out all day laying on your belly and like rowing a punt that's very physically demanding there's a lot going on there so to turn it into a sport at the end of the 19th century is kind of what happens and then you see more of these let's say accomplished gunmakers getting into act like like holland and holland

um john dixon's another one that made some four board duck guns um and it becomes you see the engraving, you see a finer quality in these guns. Yours is the only one, I will say, that's in a, in that punt gun form that looks like essentially duck artillery, for lack of better terms, that does have the engraving on it. That scroll work, that scroll on a canvas work on there. And you've had a little engraving up in front of the trigger underneath with a little scene of the, of the goose. Yeah.

I've no doubt that just based on its time alone, you're looking at a, they're a premier manufacturer already by the 1880s, Holland and Holland. We're getting national aflame and royal endorsements. And with the engraving on there, absolutely an order for someone well-to-do who wanted to go out and try it punting. It wasn't essential. It wasn't to make money, but they wanted to try it out. Yeah, some real artistry on that gun. Now, besides our punt gun, what other guns from that auction are you excited about? So the good news is there are some. The bad news is we have a giant auction coming this weekend.

Oh. And the American sales, 250 years celebrating American history. So I can't talk too much about August just yet. Okay. But I will say three things about August. One, as I mentioned earlier, you're in a host of sporting arms that should rise and tide floats all boats. Sorry for the punt gun pun, but that should help all the sports.

morning arms in that sale. And that's what we do. We build auctions. There is a second, I will say, the August premiere has one item. A flagship of the sale does have an estimate in the seven figures. Wow. And I will say about the August premiere that there is a gun so famous in that sale. I would, I would wager that everyone in your room right now has seen a photograph of it. Okay, great. That's a wonderful tease. And after this interview, Joel is going to tell me what that gun is so that I know and I don't have to wonder anymore. Now, tell folks how they can learn more about the August auction where our punt gun will be sold. Sure. Actually, since that auction will be over, upcoming auction will be over Saturday. Go to the website on Monday. We will have essentially a 16-page highlight portfolio that you can flip through digitally on our website. You'll see. the big dogs front and center on the front catalog on the back catalog you can go to rock island auction.com they will have that highlight portfolio of the catalog for anyone who wants to see

the punt gun and to place some bids on it that to be available around mid-july well of course expense make you all aware of that and uh you can spread the good words we can try to raise some funds here okay very excited uh and rock island is graciously waiving all of our fees that normally come with selling a gun through them uh that means they are helping put as much much money into the land access initiative as possible. So we really appreciate that. Joel, thank you for helping us fund more conservation projects. And thanks for

joining us today. It's been a blast. We're happy to come back any time. Okay. Good luck this August. Thank you. Bye. All right. That's it for this episode. The punt gun film is on our YouTube channel right now. Please go watch it. It's a lot of fun.

Old guns are cool. Big guns are cool. This is as old and as big as it gets. So if you like history, if you like conservation, if you like firearms, you'll like this video. So please go check it out. It's available right now. Don't forget to go buy your punt gun hat at the auction house of oddities. That will go live sometime in July. You can also bid on the punt gun shells there. We have three of them that we're going to be selling. And if you want to buy the punt gun yourself, you can go do that at the Rock Island auction in August. You can participate virtually.

They'll set you up really well. I bought the gun from Bozeman, Montana, while the auction was happening, I believe they were in Illinois at that point. Now they're located in Texas. So you don't even have to be there in person to participate. Again, that's rock island auction.com. That is happening at the end of August. All right, that's it for this episode. Thanks for watching.

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