It was my dad's "thing" starting around 1970. He bought a bunch of fine damascus doubles, which could be had for nothing. Many were bought for 50 bucks, some nice Claybroughs, Parkers and Greeners were a whopping 200. We shot ducks when conditions were right to bring them in close. These were all breachloaders, we loaded shells with BP or pyrodex as the spirit moved. Sometimes we used plastic wads, other times felt.
The most fun though, IMO, was the rail shoots. The whole marsh would be a bowl of smoke if there were a lot of birds. Some of the guns had almost no choke, an ounce of 9s and 3 drams of bp was a great recipe. Your boat is old enough so it may have seen a little smoke back in the day, some old timer still bringing out old smokey. I question whether we could do it nowadays. I suspect the FD, and maybe the swat team, would be called.
He did have a beautiful Claybrough hammer sxs 8. Somebody had blued the barrels but the wood was original and it shot nice. I shot some skeet with it, the entire club would stop shooting to watch. What a smoke show. We used steel mill door empties, you had to pull the brass collar off before loading. I believe we used 2 Oz, 4 drams with felt wads. Basically a 10 gauge duck load. I like to think it was a 10, since using an 8 on ducks would have been frowned upon, even if it was only a few times.
Another story of misspent youth.
Sadly many of my dad's guns were sold when he passed. I could only rescue so many. I do have a beauty of a 10 GA Greener on the wall. Some good memories there.