• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

Video-Black powder cannon project

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I watched the video and thought it was cool.
But after reading all the posts I decided it may be a project best left alone.
 
Go to the N-SSA web site and the American Artillery Assn's web site about construction, and applicable loads. That's a real good place to start. It never hurts to gain knowledge, and, ultimately is a lot cheaper to get it from research, than by a negative experience.

I'm not trying to dissuade you from a build. Quite the contrary. I'm just saying to do it and operate the stuff in a safe manner, and knowledge will help you do it that way.
 
Part two, building the barrel, cut the breechplug and welding it in place. I have considered using a larger piece of tubing and sandwiching grout or high pressure concrete between the two...thoughts? I would think 1 1/2 inches then another schedule 80 outside.
 
What do the N-SSA and American Artillery Assn say about that as a marriage material for the liner and the outer tube wall? In the olden days, when bp cannons were contemporary pieces, Parrot gun breech bands were married to the tubes by cooling the tube, and heating the outside band, and pressing them to fit. When the 2 materials' temperatures equalized the fit was very tight. The problem with introducing a 3rd substance like epoxy, or cement (as an interior sandwich material, is the dissimilar expansion and shrinkage rates during temperature changes, and different abilities to absorb the shock and pressure of detonation. That said, I know that Steen and Hern both use epoxy and similar materials to keep their liners in place inside the bores. Steen uses steel barrels, which are far stronger than the 19th century iron barrels that were used. What ever you do, be safe, and conservative in your fun.

N-SSA says to be safe, you should use at least 3/8" seamless bore liner (if an iron or bronze tube), and have a 1 full caliber wall thickness at and around the breech. And to keep your loads light. Let's face it, with a projectile, you're unlikely to get a lot of enjoyment out of shooting them in indirect fire. Most cannon shoots are at pretty close range.
 
Brushhippie said:
Part two, building the barrel, cut the breechplug and welding it in place. I have considered using a larger piece of tubing and sandwiching grout or high pressure concrete between the two...thoughts? I would think 1 1/2 inches then another schedule 80 outside.

I think you will have an unintentional scatter gun. Most use epoxy.
 
We will see mister pipe...
Having difficulties finding something the right diameter to sleeve the outside, I think what I will do is drop the size significantly...I can turn a piece of bar stock down to ID, do the hot cold method put the bar stock in the bore then mill the bore to around 1.69 and shorten it a good bit.
 
1.69" is golf ball bored. Ed at HMR Cannons is building that in a scaled M-1841 right now. For that he has a piece of steel (I think he uses 1018) 5" in diameter, and 3' long. That will give him 1.65" of wall thickness at the breech, and of course, less so down bore. Still, the finished tube will probably weigh 125 pounds. the blank billet calculates to about 200 pounds! That's a lot of steel being milled away!

If you are bound and determined to build a GB bore with less metal (and weight) than a typical period gun, then you might consider making your build with a sub-caliber powder chamber similar to a M-1841 12 pound mountain howitzer or Coehorn mortar.

Just leave lots of wall thickness around the powder chamber. You will have lots of fun building your carriage. Many many more hours in building that than in the tube.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top