Simulating recoil

[sherpadoug]

Last night I was watching Master & Commander. This morning I was firing blanks in a friends 3 pound bronze Verbrugen. Something was missing...The RECOIL!!!
Is there a relatively safe way to add recoil to a blank charge? Has anyone tried firing sand or water to get some kick without demolishing some poor neighbor 3 miles away? We use 4 ounces of BP for the blanks. Any guess what charge to use for a recoil charge?

 

[CU_Cannon]

A blank should be just that a blank. Nothing else should be placed in the bore. Anything you place in the bore will become a projectile. Sand is an especially bad choice. I have heard of at least one cannon blowing up from sand being placed in front of a charge. If you want a realistic recoil bring it out to the range and fire with projectiles. A small cannon firing a lead projectile should have good recoil. It may have more recoil than you want.

Four oz. of powder is a large charge. What size cannon do you have?

 

[sherpadoug]

The gun is a bronze 3 pounder, 2.75" by about 30" bore.
Does anyone know how they get the recoil on a movie set? The guns in Master & Commander looked pretty good. Better than I would expect from some trick of hydraulics or falling sandbags.
As long as the recoil charge is safe at 350 or 400 feet I can fire it on a baseball diamond.

 

[TheDoubleD]

I know that they used the sound of the guns that were fired in the History channel's Artillery Games. Perhaps they filmed some live fire and digitally inserted them in the film. More likely they studied the recoil impulse from the guns of Artillery games and duplicated that with there spring loaded and hydraulic special effect equipment.

 

[robinghewitt]

Three pounds of grass clippings has the same recoil as 3 pounds of iron but doesn't carry so far. It's also bio degradeable :thumbsup:

PS: If you blow yourself up it's not my fault :rotf:

 

Has anyone tried firing sand or water...

Sand=Bad Idea.

Admittedly this example was a lawn ornament, but sand was being used to get a better bang.

Click Here To Read About A Bad Idea All Around...

CP

 

[threepdr]

I think most of the movie folks use hydrolics and pneumatic(sic) devices to get the simulated recoil. We shoot a 2.75 inch bore standard three pounder (much bigger than a verbruggen). We shoot about 8 oz of cannon powder for a blank with nothing on top of it. The gun does not seem to move when we are firing, but videos reveal teh gun does move about 4 or 5 inches when firing blanks. The one time we fired live, we shot about 6 oz with a beenie-weaning cans filled with concrete. The gun recoiled about 18 inches with those shots. The original charge would have been about 10 - 12 oz behind the three pound projo.

 

[Wes/Tex]

Not biodegradable but pink Easter basket grass is a real crowd pleaser! Well, except for those folk immediately down wind of the gun...sort of like, "What the %#$&@>%@$# is this &%^$@#

 

[grapeshot]

Four oz. of powder is a large charge. What size cannon do you have?

NPS regulations limit iron 3-pdr's to 6 ounces of 1Fg or cannon grade and bronze to 8 ounces.

 

[mike alexandre]

We used 8 onz of bp and about 6 onz of flour in a aluminium foil wrapping for this bang. There was sufficient recoil to make it look good. The barrel is 4 ft long and has a bore of 2.72"