Erin, leaving for cataract surgery in ten minutes, When I get back I will tell you the story of what my neighbor says they were used for at the plant that he worked. He gave me several and said they bought them by the case loads. wish me luck. brian

Okay Erin,  I am back. Now this story was told to me some years ago, so some small details may be off, but you’ll get the gist of what they used them for. He was born, raised and lived until retirement in a small town in northwest, Wash. state called Concrete..Who’s main industry was, you guessed it…..a Cement plant….He worked there his entire career..now somewhere in the process they used either large boilers, or furnaces and these would develop a crust of slag or coke on what I believe was the flame nozzles, but leastwise some internal part..This crust was supposed to be, you guessed it again, as hard as concrete.There was no access to these without a days worth of dismantling on the boilers, so they had a small hatch at the opposite end. This would be opened and then the floor mounted shotgun would be placed in position..From there they would blast away repeatedly until the obstructing concretion was blasted away….He said this was no one shot deal, and took lots and lots of blasting to remove completely..This had to be done on a routine schedule to keep the boilers[or whatever] running at maximum efficiency.He mentioned that these 8 gauge shells were a great way to deal with the problem compared to the alternative..He also said He thought that this was fairly common in some other industries that used the same large furnaces or boilers..So I think this may have been the main use for these industrial 8 gauge shells.. Hope this helps, and if anyone knows of other uses I would love to hear….Good luck with that rotator cuff    Brian