Whale of a gun

[Justin Urbantas]

Look at this cool piece.
There isn't much info other than it is a 1" bore, and it was used to launch exploding lances for killing whales in the 1800s. I bet it would also drop a bear/elephant/angry locomotive.

[Seth Isaacson]

That is most likely by C.C. Brand of Norwich, Conn.

[JTR]

OOOUCH! On both ends!

[120RIR]

Whalers and inventors concocted some pretty imaginative weaponry during the mid-19th century century in particular.  Much of the development came out of New Bedford of course during the peak whaling decades from the 1830s through the 1860s+-; exploding harpoons, poison harpoons, all manner of toggle designs, etc. These whale guns were a significant step in physically separating the whaler from the whale during the hunt and kill. Next came the big deck-mounted harpoon cannon that are unfortunately still in use amongst the few unsavory nations still engaged in industrial-scale whaling.  Once oil was discovered in Pennsylvania and brought to the market, whaling started a long downturn and the last wooden whaling ship to sail out of New Bedford, the schooner John R. Manta did so in 1927.  There are fantastic whaling museums and exhibits in New Bedford, Nantucket, and at Mystic Seaport in Connecticut. Needless to say, they've got some remarkable collections of gear. 

[WESTbury]

That thing would even scare Moby Dick.

[Hungry Horse]

 Those harpoon guns both shoulder fired, and deck mounted, really got popular after the whaling fleet moved from Bedford Mass. to Benicia California. Whalers were used to hunting sperm whales that were quite docile, but got a real education when  they harpooned California grays, and had them attack not only small whale boats, but the mother ship as well.

  Hungry Horse

[oldtravler61]

  H. H. maybe the whales figured I'd you can dish it out. Let's see if you can take it....lol. Oldtravler

[mr. no gold]

HH is quite right about the grey whales. Downright dangerous, they often were referred to as "devil fish!" Even so, they were relentlessly hunted and didn't miss extinction by much. There were other whaling centers on the west coast, mostly in the lower half of the state. San Diego had a thriving whaling industry on Ballast Point and there were others scattered up the coast.
A friend who was an archaeologist excavated much of the Ballast Point site and found some interesting things.
Dick 

[WESTbury]

Justin--It looks as though it was designed to be mounted on a rail or tripod which may have been fixed to the front of a whale boat. That would be a great way to display it if some pictures of one could be found.

The ad for The Brand states that theirs is breechloaded. Must of been a $#*! of a cartridge something like that of a 40mm M79 grenade launcher.

[smokinbuck]

Justin's whale gun looks like a percussion gun to me rather than a mounted one. Looks like a ram rod pipe under the barrel.

[Hungry Horse]

 The skeletons of the old whaling ships still dotted the coastline around Benicia when I was a kid. The heavy oak hulls were tougher than a war ship of the period, and saturated with whale oil, to the point that they were nearly rot proof. We begged my dad to take us down to them, so we could crawl all over them, but he said they stunk of long dead whales, even after fifty years of exposure to the weather.

  Hungry Horse

[WESTbury]

Justin's whale gun looks like a percussion gun to me rather than a mounted one. Looks like a ram rod pipe under the barrel.

It does appear that it uses a percussion cap to fire it.

Perhaps Justin can weigh in here with a little more info.

Found another for sale at Simpson's. You are correct about the ramrod.

Another way to display it would be with an X-Ray of a dislocated shoulder.

[Hudnut]

Some of the bombs used a fuse that was ignited by the flash of the propulsion charge, like a cannon or mortar shell of the period.
A later type used a conventional percussion cap that was struck by a cylindrical inertial slip hammer when the gun was fired.  The flash of the cap ignited a short length of fuse, which would burn long enough for the bomb to strike the whale and penetrate.  The black powder bursting charge would rupture the brass tube body of the grenade.  If the bomb had penetrated the thoracic cavity of the whale, its rapid demise would occur.
The gun could be either a shoulder fired type, or a device that was mounted on a harpoon shaft, with a projecting trigger rod.  When the harpoon was thrust at the whale, the rod would make contact, and the gun would fire, driving the bomb into the whale.  More accurate and precise than the shoulder gun, but the harpooner had to be in just the right position - and really close to the whale.  The gun/harpoon was not thrown, it was jabbed.
These things were simple to the point of being primitive, and dangerous to the user.  An armed bomb could be initiated if dropped.  It could also be triggered if the gun were dropped after being loaded.  There was no safety device in the bomb.  The inertial hammer was held in position literally by a toothpick, which would shear if the bomb were struck on its rear, causing the hammer to strike the cap.  These were 8ga, about 14" long overall, much as illustrated in the ad illustration.  Launching load was an 8ga blank charge of black powder.
I prepared and armed the bombs used in the first modern bowhead whale hunt in the Eastern Arctic, which occurred in Cumberland Sound, out of Pangnirtung.  The shoulder gun was used.  Subsequent whale harvests have used the harpoon mounted gun, which was rebarreled to permit the use of modern Norwegian bombs, which are very effective, and fundamentally safer for the user.

[Daryl]

Justin's whale gun looks like a percussion gun to me rather than a mounted one. Looks like a ram rod pipe under the barrel.

That was my impression as well.

[Justin Urbantas]

Very cool history, guys.  You don't disappoint.  Slightly off topic, I would highly reccomend the movie Heart of the Sea. It is an excellent movie about the true story that inspired Melville to write Moby Dick.

[Nazgul]

The Charles Morgan is a restored whaling ship at Mystic Seaport Museum. It is very well done. Get the book "Whale Hunt" written by Nelson Cole Haley. He was a harpooner on the Morgan. Fascinating.

Don

[120RIR]

Although the movie In the Heart of the Sea was somewhat entertaining, it overly embellishes and as one might expect, gets an awful lot of the story wrong.  I would highly recommend reading the book.  It's an easy, fascinating, and accurate read based on the logs and diaries of the survivors and other period references.

[Hudnut]

Another book well worth reading is "Arctic Whalers Icy Seas".

[Craig Wilcox]

Since my BS and MS were in Marine Biology, I will fill your collective heads with stuff.

Right Whales are called that because they were the "right" whale to get.  Very high blubber content and baleen.  The Right Whale is also the largest of the whales, getting up to 68' long, and weighing 149 Tons (298,000 lb)

To give you a better idea of size, ONE testicle can weigh up to 525 kg, or 1,155 lb - the largest of all of those.

There are 3 species of Right Whale, all of genus Eubalaeidae:  Atlantic, E. glaailis, Pacific E. japonica and Southern, E. australis.  The Atlantic is considered the most endangered.  Both the oil and the baleen were highly profitable, before fossil fuel oils were in wide use.

I knew that education would be of some use some day, even if that day took 43 years to arrive.  I started college at age 29, btw.

[Hudnut]

The Inuit in the Eastern Arctic take a couple of bowheads a year. 
There are great concerns about the survival of the right whales that visit Canadian waters including the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  Numbers are low, and entanglements with fishing gear and ship strikes are a real problem.
In Skagway AK, there is a museum with an 8ga shoulder gun on display.  The University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks also has one.  The barrel is burst toward the muzzle.  Maybe the bomb detonated prematurely.
The museum in Iqaluit acquired a pintle mounted ML whaling gun, recovered from the land near the mouth of Frobisher Bay.  Iron gun tube, with a full length brass aiming bar along the top.  Stamped "Active" and "Dundee".  Active was one of the documented Scottish whalers that worked the Eastern Arctic.  Like some other ML guns, it was found to be loaded.  It was charged with one of the bombs with a fuse ignited by the main charge.
These guns could also fire harpoons.  The harpoons were - and are - very important in whaling.  Harpoons enable lines with floats to be attached to the whale.  A dead whale can sink, and be lost.

[mr. no gold]

These whaling guns in their various forms have shown up in the collecting market from time to time over the years. They are always somewhat expensive to my eye and seem to be mainly curiosities. Wonder how many are down in Davy Jonese's Locker?
Dick

[Seth Isaacson]

Justin--It looks as though it was designed to be mounted on a rail or tripod which may have been fixed to the front of a whale boat. That would be a great way to display it if some pictures of one could be found.

The ad for The Brand states that theirs is breechloaded. Must of been a $#*! of a cartridge something like that of a 40mm M79 grenade launcher.

Brand's are percussion guns and muzzle loading (at least those I've seen). I believe the ad is saying he also handles Egger's variety of breech loaders listed and that his patented bomb lances can be used in those breech loading whaling guns as well.

If you do a Google Images search for "C.C. Brand Whaling Gun," you will find a bunch of examples very similar to the one posted here.