Hi
i own a little boat which i plan to use for oppen sea fishin, which gun and caliber you would recommand for shark protection.
regards
danny

A 12 ga stainless steel shotgun using 00 buckshot.

The best defense against large sharks is a oxygen bottle and a Garand.

Maybe an inexpensive SKS 7.62x69.

Or a stainless .410 snakecharmer with slugs or buck.

The SKS will need to stay well oiled but if you dropped either one of these overboard you only be out about 100 bucks.

Danny: There is a little single shot shotgun which's name I don't remember right now (Stevens?), that is very popular with halibut fishermen in Alaska. The shotgun is made of stainless steel, I believe, and it looks like a toy gun because it is very small. As you may know, if you bring a large halibut on boar it will destroy the boat or slap the hell out of the occupants. Fishermen shoot the large ones outside of the boat, and use the smaller bird shot. There is just a smaller chance to poke a hole on the boat if you use bird shot with this shotgun, since the shells are very small.

How about using one of those shark sticks that are used to kill sharks underwater? These use a revolver round near the tip, and the round is fired when one jabs the shark with the stick's end.

I used a 44 Redhawlk for halibut, kile shot a shark with my 458 win mag (2) shots. We towed it back home. I wouldnt think a shotgun would make a good shark gun at all. Trying to find a sharks or larger fishes brain is kinda a joke, but gill shots seem to slow them up alot.

Any 12 ga rifled slug.

hi guys
thanks for the replies i actually own two gun which are candidate for this purpose no-1 is a springfeild m6 22lr/410 in stainless and no 2 is a 12 gauge pump shotgun maybe totaly unknown for the majority it is called swedish T gun totaly made in 18/8 stainless steel with exception of few parts like springs and hardened parts. it has only 2 shot capacity and was made at very few exemples about 100 or less.i have read many horrible stories about vicious sharks attacking smal boats and it would be good to have a gun on board.
regards
danny

Good point about the pump gun, MOSTLY all stainless. It doesn't have to get submerged for damage to occur, would take good maintainence for long term use as other than a shiny stick. Good choice, tho, properly cared for. I had a friend in Texas that had a SS pump as on board gun, I asked to see it, real shiny but not operative due to the nonstainless parts corroding, and he didn't use it often enough to catch it. Good cleaning, some small parts, it was back in business. He was worried more about thieves at sea than sharks. Do they call them pirates today?

I've been living and/or working on the water for over 20 years now and based upon the available body of knowledge would not expect a problem from sharks like you describe (unless you are refering to loan-sharks and shooting them can come back to haunt you!). The US Gulf Coast has hundreds of thousands of small craft and sharks are simply not a threat to much of anything larger than a surf board. If your boat is so small you fear sharks it is probably too small to go to sea. That is not a reason to abandon a good shark gun, however.

Like Tiggertate, I've spent many hours on,in and under the Gulf of Mexico and Carribean.
Years ago I spearfished constantly and never had a real problem with sharks. They would come by and check your stringer, but never got especially agressive. I have had my stringer of fish taken by sharks while rod and reel fishing in the surf, but they were interested in the fish, not me.
We have Tiger, Hammerhead and Bull sharks in the Gulf. The Hammerheads and Tigers get quite large.
There are a few Great Whites far into the Gulf, but are only found by commercial fishermen generally. I would rate shark problems very low on the list of bad things that can happen at sea.
That said , I've used a Universal stainless M1 carbine as a boat gun for years. It's virtually all stainless and aluminum and is still functional after over 20 years. I've put the Coup de Gras
on a few large Amberjack and Ling with it and it works quite well. I know a couple of folks that use the Winchester Stainless Pumps and they seem to hold up well,but any rifle needs a little maintenance occasionally in the marine environment. The shotgun seems like overkill to me unless you are trying to repel boarders. ,but tht is just one man's opinion.
Good luck on your selection.
Covey16

I live in So. Calif. and we fish for Mako sharks and Thresher sharks which are great eating fish. I use a bang stick with 410 shot gun shells with slugs. I bang them right between the eyes on the top of their heads, they shudder and they're quickly dead. It's not the bullet or pellets that kill them but the gases that go into their brain cavity that does the trick. I don't know if bang sticks are available commercially but I have a six foot handle on mine and I can reach down and touch those sharks. A bang stick on a rocking boat is much safer than a rifle, shotgun or handgun.

the stainless Ruger Mini-14(.223) is just about as perfect as it gets. With surplus FMJ you get great penetration- plenty of bullets
fabulous yacht gun!

mmmmmm blackened mako is so good! Well i would just grab a ten guage 3.5 mag loaded with 00buckshot should lay him out flat. Im getting one to take on deer drives.

o by the way Tiger sharks eat anything, trash otehr fish, people....you name it. J/k not trying ,to scare you but they do eat just about anything

How about a marlin stainless guide gun in 45/70 ??

The bang stick is the quintisential sea going shark medicine you can use. Much safer than any rifle or handgun you can use. My cousin, Captain Mike of the 52' Damned If I Know charter boat used a 357 magnum hand gun until he accidentally shot a hole in his fishing boat. Swells at sea will make any size fishing boat pitch and Yaw so bad in high seas anything can happen with a rifle or handgun. Now Captain Mike uses the bang stick as his weapon of choice for sharks when they are brought to gaff. Tap them on top of the head, bingo, game set match the shark is history very quickly. You can get plans and make your own, it uses a 12 or 20 gauge shot shell in a short piece of pipe with along pole to detonate the primer. Simple little known about invention that works very well.

You can look up Biller Bang sticks on the web as they come in 357 or 44 mag. They are about 30" long and you can dispatch sharks with blanks in a bang stick. They have safety's and are easy to operate and not that expensive about 165 bucks. Blanks are safer than live rounds and still do the job on sharks.

hi
i,ve never seen a bang stick have you a picture ot the device?where can i buy such a thing?
danny

Here is one link:

http://www.bluewaterhunter.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/shop_bangsticks.html

Now, I was looking for a pic of one to post and came across this hand wound received by one:

http://www.eatonhand.com/tlk/traum044.htm

Now, if you look at that keep going to see how it was fixed, pretty impressive! Even so, don't try it yourself!!!!

Bang sticks are the best medicine for sharks if you want them dead. For sport, use whatever you want. Shotguns will work in certain circumstance(fish above or very close to surface) but shot or slugs have little if any ability to penetrate water AND inflict substantial dammage. Rifles are clumsy on a rolling boat. I've had success with handguns, .22lr thru .44 mag. I'd get a bangstick if I was worried about it...
I've spent most of my life on or in areas of tropical seas. I've never had to defend myself against them but admit they can be a pest, and I suffer that poorly.