The 8-gauge in the movie Appalossa

[jackie schmidt]

I watched the movie Appaloosa tonight, and really liked the 8-gauge shotgun that Hitch lugged around.

I have actually seen a 8-gauge in action, with slugs, no doubt.

Years ago, we did machine work for a smelting plant, (TennTex Alloy and Chemical), that had huge eletric furnaces. They had a unique way of tapping the furnace.A Forman had a huge 8-guage shotgun mounted on a stand. It fired slugs. He would aim the thing at a clay plug at the base of the furnace, and fire. It usually took three or four shots to blow the plug out and let the molten metal flow.

I can't amagine shooting that thing off hand. Just the sound was impressive............jackie

 

[Paul Fielder]

Here you go Jackie....I was out at a buddy's ranch when he brought out the 4 & 8 bores & I got a little education on them. The close-ups of the gun are the 4 and the pic of him shooting is the 8. No, I had zero desire to shoot them.

It is a 22-250 for comparison.

 

[swglenn]

I worked in a mine/smelter in Tennessee that had a large kiln that made iron pellets. When the pellets broke they would stick together and make big masses that were nicknamed Volkswagons for obvious reasons. They used an 8 Ga. shooting 2 oz. zinc slugs to break them up. I saw an operator looking through the porthole and pulling the lanyard firing the gun for an 8 hour shift. He used cases of shells stacked as tall as he was in a shift.

 

[Larry Elliott]

Watched Appaloosa with the wife the other night, and aside from the 8 gauge the rest of the guns/shooting were pretty well depicted too. No '92 Winchesters in sight which was nice since the movie was apparently set in the 1870's, but a '66 and '73 Win (likely replicas, but hey).

The gunfights were pretty authentic from what I've read. No quick draw or shooting guns out of people's hands nonsense.