1/3 Scale 32lb Naval Gun

[Heelerau]

[/URL][/img] My inlaws gave me this little beauty for my 50th, I had to finish it off, force trunnion caps, and generally finish the carriage and clean up the barrel. It is cast iron around a seamless hydraulic steel tube with a welded breach plug. It has a 1 and a 1/4 in bore and fires a 1/2 lb lead cannon ball. Have you blokes any idea what is a good charge, I have FFg goex black. The gun emplacement is on the south side of the house and is rigged up like a naval ship mount. Fits in the back of my old pickup as well, just have to drop the tail board !!


Cheers

heelerau

 

[pargent]

:thumbsup:

 

[Poor Private]

I am green with envy. Enjoy your cannon!

 

[MSW]

emplacement on the south side, you say ...

ok- fellas, the south attack route isn't such a good plan after all ... let's see...

:rotf: :rotf:

great looking canon!

 

[Heelerau]

http://s1012.photobucket.com/user/heelerau/media/P9150031.mp4.html
Please follow this link, it shews my 95 year old father in law, who is a WW2 veteran and served in the Australian Field Artillery, touching off my cannon with a zippo. I have yet to make up a slow match. This was just a blank charge made up in an alfoil cartridge. All the nieghbours were invited as we are only on about 7 1/2 acres. Cheers and enjoy


Heelerau

 

[Paul Buchel]

Great cannon, thanks for sharing :thumbsup:

 

[Wes/Tex]

Dixie's catalog recommends an ounce 7 1/2 of Fg powder and several inches of packed newsprint as wadding for you bore size. They recommend that no balls be fired, but that's litigation protection for them. I've helped load hand fulls of green clover in a brass tubed cannon for fun & frolic seeing as how the Lt. Governor was sitting just down wind of the guns! Ssss-BOOM-Hey, what the ....

 

[widget350]

I don't recommend using newsprint in a cannon. It smolders as it is fired, and I have watched bits of newsprint from a cannon burn a hole in a flame retardant tent before (belonging to the guy who was using newsprint in his cannon).

 

[Wes/Tex]

Good point, had a momentary lapse. Can recommend a big handful of fresh, green clover! Just ask Bill Hobby, Jr. Figure it may have been the high point of his term as Lt. Governor of Texas...bet he still wishes he wasn't sitting down wind of the Texas Army and the "Twin Sisters"!! :rotf:

 

[KABAR2]

One other caution do not use wet newspaper as a wad over a blank charge it increases pressure on the tube having a hydraulic effect going down the bore... Nice cannon, if you are planning to shoot ball I would consider going to Fg rather than FFg.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Hey maybe we could get one of them relly big Super Balls, and fire it at an elevation, and see how far the thing will bounce?

LD

 

[kaintuck]

cannon or 1F powder, and behind a ball, keep the powder 1oz or so....do not 'patch the ball, make sure you have 'windage' on the ball....and steel balls at these velocities can penetrate ALOT and ric-o-chet differently than rifles.

I had a 2-1/4", ~shooting steel balls with 2-3oz of 1F, at 150yards, they were penetrating 12" hardwood trees..... :shocked2:

reasearch your shooting and safety techiques in loadings~ safety 1st, or we will be reading about it........
have fun!

 

[Heelerau]

kaintuck, thanks for the interest, I had been loading about 3 oz of FFg in an alfoil cartridge, a newspaper wad and a 1/2lb soft lead ball, there is some windage. I did proof the barrel with double charge and a ball.
Did have some discussion with an old black powder shooting mate, who thought the charge a little excessive, at his suggestion reduced the charge to 1.7 oz of FFg. She surely does roar, and will blow 2ft diameter gum tree (hard wood) in half at 10 or 15 yards. I don't shoot it much as powder is expensive, will see if I can get any Fg, we only have Wano Swiss made black powder available in my state.
Re safety I wait 5 minutes between shots, worm it well, and swab it with a wet mop, and stand to the side when loading. Am using cannon fuse at the moment, but will make up a slow match before I use it next.

cheers

Heelerau

 

[MSW]

by alfoil, do you mean what we call 'tinfoil' here in the states? (although it's really made of aluminum, but don't tell my brother)

also, get that WW2 vet by the stacking swivel, make him tell you his 'war stories' and write them all down. please - even if you're not the great writer ... I wasted an opportunity in not doing so with the father of my dad's second wife - a fascinating, half deaf old coot who served in the merchant marine in the second war and thought the world owed its existence to the Boston Red Sox and Harvard University (I never figured out the connection to Harvard - the fellow didn't finish high school, which wasn't unusual in those days) ... well, I sense that the Merchant Marine might have not been such a 'feather bed' service from the snippets I got from his daughter. one night they found him watching TV, but he just wasn't there anymore ... hi blood pressure bottomed out and everything just quit ... the ME said that basically he went to sleep in front of the TV and didn't wake up ... damn, for someone I barely knew, I still miss that guy: but for folks like him, we wouldn't be here now.

make good smoke!

 

[jpc]

Very Nice ☺☺☺

Enjoy and Play Safe

 

[Parzifal]

I love it, geeze I would want a spare small field carriage for it.

Yes I would be dragging it through the bush up here like a giddy boy.

 

[satx78247]

VERY NICE gun!!!

yours, satx

 

[Heelerau]

Gents put half a pound of .65 musket balls down her throat the other day, fired at a target backstop, 100ys down range, a 6' pattern about 25ys wide. Would not have liked being on the recieving end !!

 

[Col. Batguano]

See link on loads and safe construction.
http://www.go2gbo.com/forums/black...truction-new-cannon-builders-design-standards/

 

[Heelerau]

Mate,
thanks for the info, I WILL follow it up as it might just stop me from doing something rude to my pickup bed, not to mention self.

cheers
Heelerau