Fire In The Hole

What is the deal on the double slow match in these pictures, insurence in case one goes out?

Was this a standard practice?

Good question, maybe one's for lighting the fuse on the
charge and the other for firing the charge...??
Even then, I always thought the fuse on the charge was
lit by firing? Top photo shows the charge is already lit
before firing?! This is not the way I would do it.
Where did you find the pic? If the fuse in the charge goes
off prematurely, this could be interesting(for a mortician).
Were they drawn by the same artist? Could the artist have
mis-interpreted his inspiration? ::

Now that I think about it, it must be insurance. When I
fired a blank from my cannon, the blowback from the touch
hole chared half the cigarette on one side. If I were in
battle, and I had to fire 7-8 rounds a minute, I'd go through
a pack of butts in ten minutes! Cigarettes were not made
to handle two foot high white hot flashes from the breech.
They are ment to kill you, just not like this! :youcrazy:

We got to check the net. There must be artifacts like that
in a museum somewhere.
eace:

The picrures were from here...

http://62.73.162.179/boy.html

Redundancy to guarantee a lighted match is a good guess.

The first exploding mortar rounds were lit in the barrel and then the fuse/powder in the vent was lit. Gunners practicing that must have been deeply devoted to St. Barbara. I believe it was realized fairly quickly that the fire from the shot could light a fuse.

You can see that practiced in the Michael Mann version of the movie, "Last of the Mohicans". This is set during the French & Indian War, as it was known in the colonies. The French are besieging an English fort. When the trenches were close enough, they brought up some BIG mortars and did a drill of light the charge, set off the mortar. I don't know how authentic the movie was but it looked good.

Steve

I believe it was realized fairly quickly that the fire from the shot could light a fuse.

Click to expand...

Maybe they were worried the blast would drive the fuse inside the shell and light the powder? ::

True, I didn't think of that.
I shoot firecrackers from my .50cal 1/8th scale 6pdr.
I wonder if I'll ever blow the barrel doing this? It's only
bronze.

Then again, a replacement is only $20.
And it's REALLY COOOL!!!

At Fort Ticonderoga they, or at least used to I haven't been there in years, describe lighting the fuse before firing the mortar. Actually, the way I remember it is the tour guides describe how to deal with mortar if there was a misfire.
IIRC, the options were pour water down bore, remove the fuse or shell and run like hell. Personally I think would choose for the last option. :thumbsup:

I saw a mortar (I think at Ticonderoga) that was split in half when the shell was lit and the main charge failed. The story the tour guide told was that the upper half of the mortar landed in the lake. I saw this 25 years or so ago, so my memory is fuzzy. If not at Ticonderoga it was in NY or Vermont, somewhere.

This brings up a story that luckly has a happy ending. Long long ago, and far far away, when I was about 10 or 12 -- a young dumb kid anyhow -- my friend's dad reloaded. By stealing some Unique powder from his loading bench, and filling a 30-06 empty brass half full, then crimping it down on some dynamite fuse -- which any kid could buy at any hareware store in those days -- we got a very respectable bang -- and of course being above average boys we had brains enough not to be too close because of the schrapnel etc. I mean we had it all figured out.
Somehow, somewhere we aquired an old caplock musket barrel and decided that we would make it into a cannon of sorts. With the nipple removed from the drum dynamite fuse fit in there perfect. We would put some Unique powder and then a marble or two. It would go "floop" and the marbles would go about 10 feet. Then we discouvered that it was the weight of the projectile that really counted, and we'd shoot BB's with a very satisfying bang. Well folks, one thing leads to another and we decided to fire one of our 30-06 fire crackers as an explosive projectile. We put a long fuse on the projectile, and a very short fuse on the cannon and loaded up with unique powder. Next we decided the best -- safest -- way to test this was to shoot the projectile over his backyard fence so we'd be completely out of danger. His folks had a really nice brick BBQ pit, and the barrel would prop up like a mortar on the thing that cranked the grill up and down and we could shoot the projectile over the fence -- right? Yeah right. The fuse on the projectile fired right up and was burning merrily away while the fuse on the cannon wouldn't light. Picture two boys hovering over this pipe bomb that is lit and ready to go, trying to get the fuse to light. Finally it started burning and we dropped back three or four feet and hit the deck. I looked up at the barrel, smoke coming out of the bore and the fuse burning and it disappeared in a flash bang like you can't believe. The house and garage were sprayed with schrapnel, flowers were cut off right over our backs, an L shaped chunk of the barrel went through the garage wall cutting a 2x4 in two and lodging in the wall across the other side of a two car garage. The fence had chunks of metal stuck in it as well as the house wall. 6 or 8 inches of the muzzle end of the barrel was laying in the BBQ pit, like it had been sawed off, and the bricks had been cracked. Two dumb kids came through without a scratch, and to this day I don't know why, except it all went over us . The stuff that went down was at an angle that cut off the flowers so it missed us by inches. The Unique powder in a black powdfer barrel was part of the problem, but I still think the projectile went off first inside the barrel. At any rate, we lived to tell about it, and I don't remember what kind of trouble we got into. I know we sure put in a lot of effort to hide what happened. My suggestion, don't light the projectile fuse first, and in fact now days it's against the law to fire explosive projectiles. Follow the safety procedures, swab the bore between shots, use black powder and be safe.

Dale, to this day I remain amazed that you are still alive!

i thought the projectile was supposed to be loaded unlit with fuse side of projectile against powder and was lit by the charge igniting and launching the projectile liting the fuse as it is leaving the barrel,,,,that way if the main charge doesnt ignite,,,,the projectile would not be lit neither,,, :m2c: :front: :m2c:

By the late 1600s it was determined that "double stroking" (lighting the shell fuse then the vent) was not necessary. However, they also found that the shell fuse had to be pointed out as the main charge would force the fuse into the shell and explode it just outside the tube (that could leave a mark!). The illustration appears to repersent an era early enough that double stroking could have still been in use.

The question I have is why the sponge man on the second illustration is sponging backwards. He would have been facing the rear and watching the breech to make sure the fellow tending the vent kept his thumb securly on the hole and not letting in any air.

Also, the folks in the picture appear to be wearing 17th century clothing, but manning an 18th century field piece.