Whale Guns of the North
by Leon W. Kania
Originally published in Guns and Ammo, 1977
Every gun bug at some time or another dreams of discovering a cache of cobweb covered crates of rare goodies; Lugers, Colts or other, depending upon which strain of the collecting virus afflicts him.
In the dream our hero usually realizes that these treasures can be his for the taking if he can only cart them away before the bad guys (his collecting cronies) come to make them into lamps. After a feverish night, he awakens with a sore back from lifting crates of guns all night and a dejected feeling that it was all a dream and you just don’t find forgotten cases of “good stuff” anymore.
Well friend, I’m happy to say that dreams still do come true occasionally and I was fortunate enough to have it happen to me. It all began with a trip to the supermarket and a garage sale notice on the bulletin board which listed among other things, a harpoon rifle. A phone call and a short drive soon put me in touch with a grizzled old Alaskan who had once operated a fishing supply firm, catering in part to Alaskan whalers.
As we all know, the whaling industry has pretty well gone the way of the buffalo hunter and the buffalo, and for similar reasons. Unfortunately, it seems that posterity has been a bit kinder to the hide hunter than the whaler in preserving the memory of their deeds and their arms. Every red-blooded American male knows what a “Bufferler Gun” is, but damned few realize that the exploits and firearms of the whale hunters of a few score years ago rival those of Jim Bridger, “Liver Eatin’ Johnson” and others of American Legend.
There, covered with yellowed, flaking grease, but with beautiful old-timey blue showing through, was a massive gigantic, hellaciously big bolt action rifle that looked like Paul Bunyan’s first squirrel gun. In the case with it, partly jumbled together, partly dove-tailed into intricate recesses of the case were tools, oil can, packing materials, a variety of ammunition, lines and several big bronze headed harpoons. At first I just gaped, but finally I collected my wits enough to ask what was in the next case. Incredibly, it held what made the first gun look like a pea shooter! It was a mammoth break open single shot with a 5/8 inch bore and a stock and receiver of solid bronze, again with a fascinating jumble of accessories and ammo.
At this point, I realized that I had a unique opportunity to obtain what may very well be the last cache of firearms from a significant chapter of American history, along with many of the original documents and accessories.
So after assessing my finances, I soon accumulated a bewildering array of guns, documents, harpoons and accessories. All this with the cooperation of my wife and faithful sidekick, who is usually prone to blowing money on groceries and other non-essentials, rather than guns. Not that I paid an excessive price for the guns, but as the crooked butcher said in his defense when indicted for stuffing sausage with half breadcrumbs, “Nowadays, it’s hard to make both ends meat”.
When I finally inventoried my new acquisitions, I found that I was the proud owner of five harpoon guns, not rifles, for all were smooth-bored. The largest of the bunch was a huge bronze framed monster made in Doylestown, Pennsylvania by a firm named Naval Company. In addition to the three harpoons, line, harpoon wrapping twine, and propelling cartridges, I obtained a number of manuals and documents that showed Naval Company had made a variety of firearms suited for marine and whaling industries.
Interviews with Alaskan natives, who are still permitted to hunt otherwise protected species such as the Beluga whale revealed that these large bronzed framed guns are still favorites (sort of Arctic Sharpes) but the explosive head harpoons as advertised in the Naval Company manual are now special ordered from a firm in Connecticut at $30.00 each. They were gleefully described to me in detail by a native who had obviously disassembled and assembled a number of the projectiles (handloaders, gun bugs, and tinkerers come in all sizes shapes and hues, some however, have fewer fingers, eyes and toes that the rest of the herd.)
This fellow told me the projectiles have a black powder bursting charge, are detonated by a common percussion cap, have a shear pin type, or damper spring safety activated by the shock of the propelling charge and “Knockum Beluga deadern’ Hell, one shot” at which point I left because it looked like he might pull one out of his parka and show me how it worked. The “Hated Cong” didn’t get me and I’m damned if I’ll let a home grown ordnance expert do me in with an explosive harpoon.
There were three of the second type of gun, again smoothbores, of 10.15mm manufactured at Kongsberg Arsenal, Norway. Each was packed in a superb wooden case, containing the large single shot smoothbore gun, four harpoons with folding barbs, manuals (English and Norwegian versions) coil of line and appropriate cleaning and maintenance accessories, ten sealed tin packets of five rounds of harpoon propelling cartridges and five rounds of ball and blank ammo in a ready block built into the case. Except for slight wear of the blue on the bottom of the muzzle, from being cased for years, they were like the day they came from the arsenal.
The last type of gun gets strange reactions from folks at first glance, as it looks a tad illegal. It is understandable, as this piece is a worked over Harrington and Richardson reinforced breech shotgun action with a fat 45-70 smoothbore barrel that’s all of 14 ¼ inches long. Every time I put it in my car, I get a chilling premonition that I’m going to get stopped for a traffic violation and spend the next week or so in jail explaining that it’s not really a sawed off shotgun, even though the barrel is kind of short. “Well, you see officer, ha ha, really it’s a whale hunting gun, ha ha!”
The gun is exempt from the definition of a “firearm” as defined in Title II of the Gun Control Act of 1963, but as you can see from the photos it’s not something you should take in to show your collector friend who works in a bank.
The manual I got with this gun described it as a line throwing gun, but in the course of my research, I have found several people who have used them as harpoon guns, with factory made harpoons. One gent told me that he had used one with detachable wooden shafted harpoons and in my collection, I have a steel harpoon which seems expressly designed for this gun. The letter I have from ATF states that Naval Company made most of these type guns on H & R, Winchester and Savage actions, stamping a letter prefix in front of the manufacturer serial number. Other Naval Company documents I have confirm that they made guns and accessories on a special order basis so it seems safe to call this gun a bonafide whaling gun.
Now, having all these exotic guns and equipment to fool with made me as happy as a rabbit in a lettuce market, but the more I learned, the more I wanted to shoot them. This called for some careful thought. First, all first hand reports and all manuals stressed that shooting these guns was not a matter to be taken lightly. The recoil was supposed to be terrific when firing harpoons. I went through basic training when all recruits had to fire a rifle grenade off of the M1 rifle from the shoulder. The memory of that recoil will stay with me for a long, long time. The size of the harpoon guns and their projectiles gave me cause for pause. I kept seeing the big guy that fired the rifle grenade before me go sliding backwards on his backside, while his helmet shot straight up in the air. I knew then it was going to hurt when I did it and the harpoon guns didn’t look any different.
Next was the problem of ammunition. Most of what I had was so rare that the cartridge collectors at the last Alaska State Gun Collector gun show each came to me with hat in hand, tear filled eyes and threats to kill themselves in most horrible manners, if they didn’t get some harpoon gun shells.
Fortunately, I had enough of some types of fodder for the Kongsberg and the large bronze Naval Company gun to spare a few to the cartridge collectors and still have some to shoot. The short 45-70 gun posed no problem in making up blank harpoon loads and round ball loads, cases being readily available.
Then came the problem of the harpoons. Very few ranges are set up for harpoon gun matches and it would be foolish to shoot my original harpoons into a rocky backstop. The manual advises practice firing at a bale of oakum, towed through the water.
In lieu of firing the original harpoons, I made up substitutes using bore diameter wooden dowels with heavy nuts driven on the ends to simulate the harpoon heads.
Initial firing was done from the bench, using original ball ammo with the Kongsberg and homemade round ball loads with the 45-70 Naval Company gun.
When I inquired at a local gun shop for some 5/8 inch whale gun bullets, the proprietor cheerfully said they had just sold the last box, but they had a special on .002 mosquito boat-tails. He was still giggling when I left, and so I had no ball loads to test the gigantic bronze framed piece of ordnance. That is probably just as well, because though the manual states the Kongsberg with ball ammo is effective to 400 yards, it is not very accurate even at 25 yards. The 10.15 mm jacketed slugs all keyholed and while the shock effect of the tumbling 336.5 grain, 49 caliber slug must be enormous and ideal for finishing shots, it is definitely not a long range weapon.
The short barreled 45-70 with a loose fitting round ball and no sights yielded results similar to a spitting contest in an old folks home, spectacular, but not too consistent. Recoil from both pieces was moderate.
My nerve almost failed me when it came to firing the improvised harpoons, but I reasoned that if the old-timers could take the recoil on a recurring basis, I could probably survive a few shots and my improvised harpoons were lighter than the steel and bronze originals, so the recoil should be somewhat less.
The short barreled 45-70 was my first choice for firing a harpoon. The 15 inch wooden dowel tipped with a steel nut and backed by 70 grains of FFG gave a recoil that is best described as violent. Surprisingly, I came within about three feed of my aiming point 100 yards down range. Not varmit type accuracy, but then these guns were made for hunting whale, not ground hog.
The manual states the Kongsberg is effective with harpoons at 40 yards, the limited range being due, no doubt to the wight of the steel harpoon and the line. Lest anyone else possessing a harpoon gun be tempted to try it out, I think it best to cite a few important safety rules from the manual at this point. While recoil is the most obvious danger, the harpoons should be wrapped with twine on the rear end, both to insure good compression and to prevent a burst barrel,due to the projectile sliding away from the cartridge when the muzzle of the gun is lowered below the horizontal. The effect would be about like firing a conventional rifle with an obstruction in the bore; only nations louder! Last, but not least, be sure your lines are not fouled. One could conceivably propel oneself down range with the projectile by carelessly standing in the loop of the line. It would sure be hard to live down, having the range master call a nine at three o'clock for the harpoon and say a 6 at five for the man in the blue sneakers.
But enough seriousness, back to the fine art of harpoon shooting. The next item on the agenda was the Kongsberg 10.15mm fired with the 1.6 grain loading of God knows what sealed in the casing by a copper seal similar to a reversed gas check. There is also a 1.8 gram load packed in the case with each gun. The first round, fired off hand was startling, not so much because of the recoil, which I was prepared for, but because of the chaff. At first I thought my harpoon has disintegrated, but then I realized I was engulfed in a cloud of kapok type filler, which had been used to keep the powder charge positioned on top of the primer. Accuracy with this gun was really surprising, a bushel basket sized target could be hit consistently at 100 yards. This gun was actually fun to shoot, as it didn’t have the terrific muzzle blast of the short barreled 45-70 and had iron sights which definitely contributes to accuracy.
Next came big Bertha, the 30 pound bronze monster with the gigantic bore. The original ammo for this girl consists of old Rem-UMC 20 gauge shurshot shells cut down to 1 ¼ inches; loaded with a special propellant by Naval Company and sealed with paraffin. This gun has a 2 inch pintle for mounting in a bow mount on a whale boat, as no means of mounting it was available, I decided to try it off hand.
In contrast to the sharp report of the other guns, this one sounded more like the dull “chunk” of a 60mm mortar. The massive weight of the piece effectively dampened all recoil. Realizing, of course, that my projectiles were very light in comparison to original harpoons, I can still say this one is more fun than a barrel of monkeys to shoot. It’s so heavy that a lengthy hold is impossible offhand; you just sort of grunt it up to where the front sights are on the target and touch it off. Accuracy is comparable to the other guns and the homemade harpoons are spectacular when they hit.
While doing the shooting (harpoon and photographs) for this article, I noticed that the fellow blasting away with a half stock muzzle-loader on the nest firing point was exceptionally good natured about our tying up the range and seemed to be getting a bigger kick out of it than I was. While I was waiting for my nerve to build up enough to fire the large bronze piece, he sauntered over and introduced himself as Alex Gordaoff. Alex, a native Aleut, volunteered a wealth of information about the whale guns, projectiles and whale hunting. He also had a few whale hunting experiences which gave me a couple of gray hairs just hearing about them.
As Alex related it to me, whales are only hunted by those native Alaskans who have traditionally relied upon them for subsistence and then only as regulated by the state of Alaska on a by village basis. Two sub-species of the whale family, the white whale and the Beluga whale are hunted for meat, along with other larger sea mammals, such as walrus, seal and sea lion.
Surprisingly, the harpoons are used primarily as a means of recovering and/or latching on to the larger beasts. As in the traditions of the Plains Indians, every shred of the creature is utilized, from the hide, which is eaten as Muk-Tuk, sort of a slab-like slightly fermented protein concentrate to the teeth and tusks, which are fashioned into art works; the sales of which in turn fuel the “Iron Dogs” or snow mobiles, which compete with, but have not replaced the traditional dog sled.
These beasts, the Beluga and the white whale (the one with the unicorn type tusk) often exceed thirty feet in length and three thousand pounds in weight. By virtue of their small, but exposed brain, the approved cartridge for taking them is the 22 magnum. This tiny round is used to minimize meat loss, but whether approaching the whale by stealth or by exhausting it by means of an embedded harpoon, the explosive headed harpoons are needed as back-up.
Alex modestly described the bagging of a thirty foot white whale by he and his father several seasons ago in which a homemade explosive-headed harpoon was reluctantly utilized. It seems the harpooned and madly thrashing whale had come perilously close to destroying their boat and in the frigid Alaskan waters this would mean almost certain death if no help was near by.
Destruction of meat by the explosive head is not the main reason for using them only in dire emergency however. It seems that while sharks are rare in Arctic waters, killer whales abound and are similarly attracted by the large volume of blood released from the explosive harpoon wounds. The killer whale dispatches its prey by swatting it with its tail or flukes, killing either by the blow itself or on smaller prey by actually flipping its prey out of the water so that it is killed or stunned by impact with the water. They have been known to flip an 800 pound sea lion to incredible heights and the results when they mistake the bottom of a small boat for the belly of a small whale can be disastrous for the hunter.
Alex said he had seen this happen to another hunting party and though the killer whale left as soon as the men began thrashing in the water, it ended that party’s whale hunting for the season and some of them have been confirmed land lubbers ever since.
While the large bronze framed guns are the acknowledged favorite of the native hunters, they are in short supply and many expedient arms are used. While the most common expedient is to ream the rifling out of large bore guns, such as the 45-70 Springfield, some hunters use 30-06 government rifles with grenade launching attachments to propel their projectiles.
It seems certain that as the day of the hide hunter waned and the passage of years consumed or obliterated the men and the vestiges of their era, so too is the era of the whale hunter drawing to a close. “Progress” with its roads and “Iron Dogs”, Petro-dollars, conservation, and television is changing the life style of the Alaskan native villages as surely as Sherman, the sod-busting plow and other aspects of “progress” changed the life-style of the Sioux and the Apache.
Soon the last embers of another era will be seen only in the eyes of the old men, as feats of men like Alex and his father are remembered only in the tribal councils; for those who care. Inevitably the bark of the big Navy will be stilled like that of the Sharpes and Hawkin. Time and “progress” march on, but the past should be preserved, whether good or bad, for the enlightenment of our heirs. Perhaps this is why we collect and chronicle, and I am grateful for the opportunity to document and preserve some vestiges of the saga of the whale hunter.