Cannon ID help needed

Hey, if playing Russian roulette, looking to win the Darwin Award, with a pipe bomb is your thing, have fun. :youcrazy:

Please, at least keep the clueless victims of your game behind a safe barrier. Too many have died because someone of someone else's arrogance, cause they knew better than anyone else. It's a well documented fact.

Then again, Texas wouldn't have become a republic, if it weren't for the men from Louisiana that stood and died at the Alamo. :stir:

jpc said:

Hello

No markings on the trunnions


"Few taps with a hammer to see rings like cast iron should tell the tale." what am I listening for?? Thanks for the help and advise.

take care
jpc

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A clinky ring like that you would hear if you struck a cast iron skillet.

I suspect this cannon may be a commercially made gun and it even may be safe to fire.

That number stamped into it is made with modern hand stamps and is probably put there by the founder as their registry mark, and to me safe or not that gives this cannon some legitimacy.

The parting/mould lines indicate a casting. The hammer marks on the muzzle lead me to believe that the the metal may not be cast iron but perhaps a cast steel of some sort. In the 1950's and 1960's there were a number of foundry's making these of cast steel with the intention of shooting them. There were just enough problems with them that they started making them with liners. This cannon doesn't appear to have a liner. The were some problems liners also but today those problems have pretty much been over come.

If this were my tube I would contact the American Artillery association or the North West Skirmish Association and see if they can put you in contact with one of there inspectors and ask them to to take a look at the tube. If they deem it safe to shoot---well go for it!


I am not a Texan...I have lived there couple of places. I am familiar with Texas History but not a student of it. I do know a little about cannons and I have read about historical cannons, in particular about the famous Gonzalez Cannon. It was supposed to have been a small cannon given by the Mexican Government to the town for protection form the Indians.

I would not be surprised to learn that it was rolled out to make noise during fiestas.

Of course to follow on with Gonzales Cannon story for those who haven't heard it---There was political unrest. Mexican troops were sent to Gonzales to recover the cannon. The was a skirmish between Mexican troops and the people of Gonzales that is generally considered the start of the Texas Revolution.

Great story...Sound a bit like Lexington and Concord.

Thanks for reminding us SATX...

Just side note. Salute cannons are the number one type cannon that kill and maim people every year. Every New Years and every 4th of July and periodically through out the year we hear reports of people getting killed or injured from them

They are made from just about anything and everything that has a roundish hole down the center with no regards for safety or strength.

Any item called gun powder in any quantity available is stuffed in and whatever seems to fit, wadded and wet wadded newspaper the favorite is stuffed down these barrels in the pursuit of the loudest most ear splitting boom. It must be better to tamp these wadding's down with a hammer.

Salute cannons even fired from blank cartridge or with a simple card over loose powder wad have pressure. They would not make a boom if they did not have pressure.

Always keep that in mind when you fire these guns, even with blanks.

Be safe and enjoy!

ImVho, almost ANY object from claw-hammers, chainsaws, a bottle of liquor to pickup trucks can cause injury or death, IF used IRRESPONSIBLY.

Otoh, IRRATIONAL FEAR and/or SELF-IMPORTANT, BRAINLESS, IGNORANCE is the bane of enjoying most any activity.
(On MSNBC about 2 weeks ago, a "talking head" firmly stated that ALL firearms are by their nature dangerous and should be OUTLAWED everywhere.)

yours, satx

Personally, I would like to continue to enjoy my hobby/family tradition. Rather than have it heavily regulated, or outlawed all together because of people wanting to play with a pipe bomb, they call a "cannon."


See my Great Great Grandfather was a Civil War Federal Cannoneer, Snow's Battery B, First Maryland Light Artillery. I was certified by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a Cannoneer/Mortar Man. Which is not an easy certification to come by. First, you have to get someone who has held said certification for a minimum of 5 years to sign off on your application. Then, there's that wonderful test of knowledge of the state's law and regulations. Then, there all the paperwork you have to deal with for discharging same.

As for "IRRATIONAL FEAR", I have witnessed incidents, and read many a report, of mistakes made, to support my healthy respect for artillery, no matter what its size. Not to mention the long list of injuries and deaths caused by the attitude, "I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING!"

And as for the labeling other as "SELF-IMPORTANT, BRAINLESS, IGNORANCE", its the course of action one takes when they feel that they know more than others, who want only to protect their hobby, as well as the health and well being of those who might be ignorant of proper artillery safety procedures.

Folks, I confess to some nervousness around guns that may or may not be cast iron. I have a cousin with a modern cast replica of one of Captain Cook's guns, on ships carriage, looking out from his gym down the driveway. His faux pas was load lightly, with a can of fuel as projectile. It took out 20 windscreen with a fuel-air explosion along the driveway on his birthday. :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:
A neighbour at the farm, though made a cannon of some kind of pipe. I have never seen it, but that neighbour fired it on several occasions. On the last, it exploded and he lost much of the useful contents of his abdomen, and now operates with much reduced internal equipment and appendages, poor bloke. :barf:
Thinking about it I can offer one suggestion about learning what an unknown gun is made of. At many scrap metal operations the owner will have a hand-held XRF device. They are no good for light elements like carbon, so cannot fully analyse the interesting parts of steel or cast iron, but they can read for manganese and nickel and chromium and give you a good estimate of the iron or steel alloy - other than the critical carbon value. I have not doubt that for a fairly modest consideration such as a couple of six-packs you could get one of these guys to zap a barrel. You should take a dozen or so shots, at different locations and on any liner separately, and get a printout or email of the results.

Sadly, these things are often poorly calibrated so if you want good results you have to make sure you get a trustworthy operator and that is most likely at a commercial lab not a scrapyard. It would take about 20 mins and maybe another 10 to coax the results out of the gadget into an email. I don't doubt that an experienced person can tell from the hammer tone something of the integrity of a barrel, but there is no substitute for solid knowledge of its composition., and this should be cheap if you can find the right person.

If you are going to go to a lab or professional pipe inspector, then go all the way and have to tube either x-rayed or magna fluxed. It costs a couple of hundred, but what is a life worth?

Good idea. I know those processes can identify stress concentrators like cracks etc; can they also identify the material?

As many people here know, I'm planning on building a gun-punt and 40MM bore ML punt-gun for waterfowling in the nation to which I'm retiring in 2014.

The barrel will be made of a stick of high-strength steam pipe (individually tested at 60K pounds per square inch), with a "shrink fit" reinforcement at the breech of a length of larger steam-pipe.

NO shotgun (and that's what a punt-gun is: a BIG shotgun) will ever rupture with any reasonable amount of BP/wadding/shot.

yours, satx

ChrisPer said:

Good idea. I know those processes can identify stress concentrators like cracks etc; can they also identify the material?

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I'm fairly certain, that they, if they are a competent lab, will have equipment on hand that can do so.

satx78247 said:

As many people here know, I'm planning on building a gun-punt and 40MM bore ML punt-gun for waterfowling in the nation to which I'm retiring in 2014.

The barrel will be made of a stick of high-strength steam pipe (individually tested at 60K pounds per square inch), with a "shrink fit" reinforcement at the breech of a length of larger steam-pipe.

NO shotgun (and that's what a punt-gun is: a BIG shotgun) will ever rupture with any reasonable amount of BP/wadding/shot.

yours, satx

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Did I miss something? How did we go from discussing a Fiesta Cannon to a punt gun project?

Well, BOTH are essentially ML cannons, so I don't think that we are "off topic".
(You're welcome to ignore my comment if you wish.)

yours, satx