care and feeding of CVA. cannon

[stewburner]

I have just been given my Father's CVA. 69 cal. Napoleon III field cannon. He shot it every 4th. and New Year's eve. What type of blackpowder?, how many grains?, What size ball?,. The barrel is deep blued old school with a breech plug that is threaded and shows no signs of over-stress and is marked on the top side between the trungens SPAIN and on the underside BLACKPOWDER ONLY. The carriage is in excellent condition with no parts missing. What I need is the owners manual and build instructions, all help would be much appreciated in this search for good info as I don't have anything else of my Father and would like to clean, restore, and fire this cannon in his honor and keep alive the tradition he started. Thank you in advance for any assistance Stewburner

 

[Muskeg Stomper]

Have you tried calling CVA to see if they have copies of the manual available for download? I know that they do not still show it on their website but they may be able to hook you up.

Personally, I would measure the bore with a micrometer to get the bore size.

Traditions makes a similar .69 caliber Napoleon Cannon and you can download that manual for that here:
Traditions cannon manual

One word of caution that I would offer on the Traditions manual though is that they use a patched ball! I would go with the real cannoneers method of calculating bore size and the required "windage" for the ball. By windage it means that your ball should be 1/40th smaller than the actual bore diameter.

 

[stewburner]

Thank You very much Stomper for the Traditions link, it answered all my questions about the operation of my cannon. The picture of the cannon's on the front page made my day when I spotted that the the largest one is exactly like the one I have. Again thanks for your very good responce and sage advice. Stewburner