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Zinc cannonballs?

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sherpadoug

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Last week the History channel had a piece call "Artillery Games". There were several people with reproduction civil war and late 19th century cannon of various sorts. Some were real sticklers for authenticity. What really struck me as odd was that all of them seemed to be firing zinc cannonballs or bullets (bolts). They even showed the production of a hollow zinc Howitzer round.
I have researched the Revwar and WWI periods and I have never heard of zinc projectiles. Revwar seems to be iron or stone. WWI was mostly steel with brass or copper rings. Was there a heyday of zinc that I missed somewhere? These people seemed to try for great accuracy elsewhere. :youcrazy:
 
My summary of the other thread is that zinc gives the same weight as cast iron but is much easier to cast and machine.
 
It's interesting that the archaeology of the Palo Alto Battlefield shows that the Mexican Artillery was using COPPER cannon balls. Now my memory of the periodic chart is pretty hazy... but as I recall, copper is actually heavier than iron, so it would have better inertia, though of course would produce higher pressures. On the other hand, copper would be pretty easy on the bores of the bronze tubes... Has anyone seen anything else on the use of copper for cannon balls from either Mexico or Peru? I believe that the reason Mexico was able to use copper was because it was a major by-product of their silver mining industry, whereas iron was hard to come by for them.

Cheers,

Gordon
 
From what I've heard pure copper causes all kinds of problems to anyone trying to cast it. I think it shrinks considerably as it cools and creates large voids in the casting.

Is this a myth?
 
I think the reason copper was the first metal used by man was it was so easy to cast.
Any metal shrinks on cooling, foundrymen use special rulers making their patterns that allow for different shrinkage rates of metal.
As for bubbles and voids, I guess you could get them, but in a properly designed sand mould you shouldn't.that and there are de-oxydisers you add to the melt just before pouring. IIRC you add black copper oxide to copper for deoxydising.
If you had a whole bunch of copper lying around, and not a lot of iron, copper cannon balls make sense. The atomic weight is a little more than iron but not enough to cause problems
 
Zinc is used today due to its low melting point, excellent casting properties, low cost, availability, hardness (about like iron), weight (very close to iron) and it machines well. I use it for cannon balls over two inches in diameter.
 
Friend has a 3" Ordnance Rifle he casts zinc elongated shells for. The mold casts them with the rifling bands already on them. They take the lands & grooves going down and they work great. David wins just about anything he enters. That gun puts them in the size of washtub at 800 yards when he does his magic...actually, careful casting & loading. When David shows up at a shoot, everybody else competes for 2nd place.
 

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