Cannons

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

So I was looking at the Cannons on Dixie Gun works and that opened a rabbit hole that lasted most of Sunday, I looked at probably around 20+ Cannon makers as well as mold makers for cannon balls, watched a bunch of videos on YouTube ect…

I ended up looking at Hern Ironworks that makes historical reproductions of cannons

specifically some of the little 1/2 sized cannons that fire a 1-3/4” projectile,

(mostly because it said that’s the size perfect for shooting golf balls)

I was just curious, Does anyone here have cannons or mess around with them? anyone have any experience with the hern ironworks cannons? 
 

their small cannons are cast around 1/4” wall steel tubes with welded breach plugs 

They don’t drill the vent holes like other makers do, so you have to do that on you own, 

Dixie sells the books to build the carriages as well as all kinds of accessories for cannons so there’s plenty stuff out there to learn with 

I got my eye on the 1/2 size six pounder, and instead of a field artillery carriage I wanted to make a navel style carriage for it, 

both places sell all the hardware to build carriages or you could forge it all out yourself, 

anyways just curious if anyone plays with a comparable size cannon shooting off golf balls, and what your experience is? 

[George N. M.]

Being an old artilleryman this is something I have always wanted to get into but never have for various reasons.  If you haven't watched this Youtube video it will show how full size Civil War cannon recoil when fired with full charges and projectiles: 

 

[Frosty]

Thanks for the link George, I expected more recoil but this was about my experience with ACW cannon. I did turn a cannon with a bore to fire marbles in Jr. High for a history class project and the instructor told me if the touch hole and bore met I'd never take a shop class in Cal. again. A history class mate made the naval carriage, got our grades and his carriage was destroyed with the first shot. 1/4 tsp of black powder would put a marble through both front doors of a junk car. How? Dad had a machine shop and we had a drill press in the garage so I didn't even have to bother him at work. My little sister still has it somewhere in the garage with other stuff from back when.

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

2 hours ago, George N. M. said:

Being an old artilleryman this is something I have always wanted to get into

Thanks for the Video George! that was really cool!

I hadn’t seen that video but I watched one about the process a ACW artillery team did start to finish loading and firing by the numbers,

it was interesting that one guy had to stand there the entire time with his thumb over the vent hole! and I learned that when mopping, ramming, loading, ect… never to hold your thumb over the sticks incase of accidental discharge you don’t want the stick to fly out and take you hand with it

im by no means looking at getting into reenactments,

those full sized cannons are wayyyyy more then I would want to spend or keep up with lol 

im looking at the scaled down version, its 32-1/2” long and weighs 98#, 1-3/4” bore 

mostly I just want to make a big boom once in awhile to irritate the countryside and shoot golf balls out of an antique looking pirate cannon for fun!
maybe fire the occasional lead ball at a target

from what I’ve read so far the next size up will fire billard balls and beer cans filled with concrete 

and after that you get into the BIG guns and Mortars!

they also have a mortar that fires bowling balls! It cool but it’s out of my price range and I don’t have enough space to safely shot off a mortar that size without lobbing them into a neighboring cow field! Lol 

Jerry 

if your sister ever comes across your old cannon have her send you pictures!!!!!!

id love to see your shop built one!

the ones from hern ironworks are cast I’ll see if I can find a picture of it 

[George N. M.]

The touch hole is sealed with a thumb to keep air from blowing out of it during ramming to avoid fanning any sparks in the bore.  There is a thing called a "thumb stall" which is a leather pad to protect the thumb from the heat of the gun tube.

There is also a safety rammer which has a cone shaped head so that it puches the hands out of the way incase there is an accidental discharge and the rammer staff comes flying out of the barrel.  There are re enactment groups that require the person ramming to wear heavy welders gloves while ramming as a safety thing.

There is a big Scottish-Irish festival in Estes Park, CO that I used to demo at (until they started charging crazy booth fees).  There was always a group there with period weapons including a bowling ball mortar.  They made it out of large piece of pipe with a smaller, heavier, detachable chamber welded to the base.  They would fill the chamber with a few ounces of black powder (maybe 1/2 cup) and screw it to the breech where a bowling ball had been loaded.  When fired it would launch the bowling ball about 300 yards into Lake Estes.  They once hit a rock and the bowling ball bounced about 50' into the air and about 100 yards further.  Luckily it landed in the water.  If it had bounced in another direction it could have hit folk on the shore.  Moral of the story:  sometimes you do hit your aiming point and you need to consider what will happen if you do.  IIRC after that incident they used an inflatable dragon anchored away from the rock as an aiming point.

The lake is a reservoir and is drawn down in the winter and they'd go out when the water was down and collect the bowling balls for future use.

I don't think that it would be too difficult to constuct a bowling ball mortar if you were a decent welder.  It would be safer than a long gun because the powder charges are much smaller and the pressures are much lower.  You'd just have to find the right diameter pipe (bowling balls are 8.59" in diameter) and a breech piece (IIRC it looked like the hemispherical end of a pressure vessel welded to the pipe/barrel.

GNM

One of my pet peeves in historical movies is when the cannons don't recoil.  Oddly, you will see cannons recoiling much more often in naval movies, e.g. Master and Commander, than you do in movies set on land.  As can be seen in the video muzzle loading cannon recoild back 5-6' pretty violently and you do NOT want to be in the way.

G

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

Interesting enough the company I’m looking at made cannons for both the movie master and commander as well as pirates of the Caribbean 

they have been in the cannon business since the early 1979s apparently 

all the videos I have watch so far of full sized cannons with full powder loads definitely have a recoil your for sure right about that!

the smaller cannons aren’t so violent in their recoil from what I’ve seen so far 

looks like the max powder you want to use on the little ones is 2oz but from what I’ve watched you don’t need to even load that much for a big boom and to launch projectiles in the smaller ones 

if I decide to get one though I like the idea of a cone shaped ram rod just in case

they suggest even with wet mopping that you wait 15 minutes between firing just in case 

[George N. M.]

Also, you will often see folk ramming with one hand.  You really don't need the force of both hands to firmly place the projectile against the powder charge.

BTW, there are a number of internet sites about how to build a cannonball mortar (no links intentionally).  Apparently there is a specific size of compressed gas tank that is used in welding shops that is just the right size and is, of course, good quality steel and stessed for the pressure involved.

G

[Irondragon Forge ClayWorks]

4 hours ago, TWISTEDWILLOW said:

loading and firing by the numbers,

I can't control the wind, all I can do is adjust my sail’s.
Semper Paratus

 

[Frosty]

I'll make a note to ask Shannon next time I call. I believe she deliberately hid it from her last S O. She has lousy taste in men and I believe swore off. My little cannon had a recoil like it was a spigot cannon. It's nothing to look at, just a slightly tapered 2" round bar with a 5/8" bore 9" deep I don't recall but the muzzle end was 1 1/2" or 1 3/4" od.

Anyway, I'll ask if she knows where it is and get her to take a pic if she does. What she'll probably do instead is ship it to me. I wonder if they'll be able to detect propellent residue after more than 50 years?

Frosty The Lucky.

[George N. M.]

This is yet another time that I miss Thomas' input since he had a medieval falconette which IIRC was about golf ball caliber.

G

[Frosty]

<sigh> I'll shoot Thom one of Thomas's minions a message, he might have pics.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Frosty]

I had another cannon memory just after I lost track of this thread, sort of. 

How about the cannon in "The Pride And The Prejudice?"

I AM thinking of the right movie aren't I?

Frosty The Lucky.

[TWISTEDWILLOW]

I recall Thomas talking about his Cannon on several occasions but I don’t recall if he still had it

Jerry 

speaking of movies and Cannons, the Hern Ironworks I’m looking at made Cannons for both the movie Master and commander as well as the pirates or the Caribbean movies 

they also have made historical reproductions of cannons for a fort in the Florida Keys or the Virgin Islands I can’t remember which 

[George N. M.]

Speaking of historic reproduction artillery here is a reproduction 6" gun on a disappearing carriage at Ft. Stevens, OR aaaaa0mouth of the Columbia River).  These were coast defense weapons which were active from the 1890s to WW2.  They were loaded in the retracted position, as shown, and then when ready for firing a big counter weight in a well was tripped and the barrel would rise over the parapet for firing.  The recoil would bring it back into loading position.

On this carriage (15 degrees maximum elevation) this gun could shoot a shell weighing about 100 pounds up to 17,600 yards (10 miles).

I've worked with a surviving one in San Francisco and it is a LOT of work to turn the big crank to raise the lead counter weight.  But it is very cool to trip it and see the gun rise into the firing position.

[Frosty]

I was wrong!  The movie with the giant cannon is, "The Pride And The Passion."

IIRC Thomas passed his falconette to a friend, maybe a minion before he passed, he did that with a lot of his things. 

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  A little sidetrack, I wonder how many ultimately got melted down:

https://www.nebraskastudies.org/en/1925-1949/on-the-home-front/scrap-metal/

  I read a story about a well heeled collector that sent out agent's to buy up city and small town cannons from cemetaries and memorials by unscrupulous means, for his "museum".  It's controvercial so I won't link to it. 

  I have a few small ones on a shelf.

  

[JHCC]

14 hours ago, Frosty said:

The movie with the giant cannon is, "The Pride And The Passion."

Yeah, I don't think there are many cannons in the Jane Austen canon.

On 3/12/2024 at 2:38 AM, George N. M. said:

I miss Thomas' input since he had a medieval falconette which IIRC was about golf ball caliber.

He discussed it here:

On 3/11/2024 at 8:42 PM, George N. M. said:

There is a big Scottish-Irish festival in Estes Park, CO that I used to demo at (until they started charging crazy booth fees).  There was always a group there with period weapons including a bowling ball mortar.

At Fort Ticonderoga on the NY side of Lake Champlain, they used to do demonstrations of cannon and mortar fire (and still may, for all I know). They did a very good job of explaining how the big advantage of a mortar is that because it doesn't recoil nearly as much as a cannon, it can be dialed in with great accuracy to hit a precise spot. Their target was a steel box about 3' to a side, and if a mortar team managed to drop a ball in it, they would win a case of beer. 

For the cannon, they had a large steel target in the shape of a (significantly oversized) Hessian soldier, and the presenter would deliver the following spiel: "If the ball hits the target, you will hear a loud clang! If it is a near miss, a mound of dust will rise into the air! But if you hear no sound and see no mound, you know that ball is Vermont-bound!"

[Scott NC]

  I wonder if one of these would poke a hole through something.  Lol.  

[Scott NC]

Another related thing look up, germany's rail guns.  What engineering.  That leads to Krupps.  Which isn't so good.  But makes you wonder what could be accomplished if things were used in the right way.

[Frosty]

WWII Germany built some outrageously large weapons. They actually used the rail guns but they built a couple into tunnels that were the inspiration for the Bull Gun, each barrel was so long it had to have firing chambers at points along the length to keep the pressure up. They were intended to hit England with artillery from Germany and possible American E. coast cities like New York. I saw a special on the super guns on Discovery IIRC. 

The largest tank they built was the Panzer 200 Mause, 200 tons of armor that had trouble getting around and before they figured it out the war ended. 

The one on the drawing boards on the other hand was crazy HUGE, the "P 1,000 RATTE" was a 1,000 ton land battle ship with a turret of a battleship with "ONLY" 2 guns. 15" Battleship GUNS, a 128mm. anti-tank gun on the front glacis and 4 turrets on the rear deck. Two with 128 mm. guns and two with serious anti aircraft guns. It was powered by 2 submarine diesel engines for 16,000hp. 

DRATS, I wanted to do a cut and paste of an artist's drawing but this new dag NAB operating system wants to make videos, and who knows what FANCY BELLS AND WHISTLES filled something instead of just letting me save it as a smaller file size! A web search will show you the land battleship.

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  The complex where all that was built/planned was more or less destroyed by intersecting circles.  Von what's his name was never the same after seeing the destruction. 

[Frosty]

Found a artist drawing of the "P 1,000 Ratte," silly huge super tank. Note the road wheel tall men walking next to it

Frosty The Lucky.

[Scott NC]

  I tried to edit that video out as it's too big but it froze my phone up.

[George N. M.]

That monster would probably have never been built or deployed because there wasn't a bridge in Europe that could have supported it.  Probably more a fantasy concept to impress Der Fuehrer as a wonder weapon than anything that had any real or potential combat effectiveness.

There are two preserved railway guns in the US that I know of. One is a German K5(E) ("Anzio Annie") which is at Ft. Gregg-Adams, VA (formerly Ft. Lee).  The other is a US Navy 14" railway gun used in WW1 at the Washington Naval Yard Museum.  There are also a number (7) surviving M65 11" guns ("Atomic Annie") around the US.  They are similar in size to railway guns but had large truck type prime movers.

Railway guns had their most effective moment in WW1 when the front was static and firing positions could be built behind your lines and there was a thick net of railroad lines to deploy them.  All the major combatants fielded them.  Since large caliber guns are slow to make the US pulled quite a number of large coast defense guns out of forts in the US, mounted them on RR carriages, and sent them to France.  After WW1 many of the RR guns were used as coast defense weapons in the US, Panama, and Hawaii.

GNM

[Frosty]

Bummer, the video stops about 1 minute in but a search got lots of hits. A 36" mortar would work nicely for what this one was fielded for, punching holes in the "Siegfried Line." Not very mobile though, it looks like it'd take a week to set up to fire. Makes a big crater though.

Hi George, I was coming to Atomic Annie, there are videos of the live fire tests with an atomic warhead. Back in the good old above ground nuclear testing days. 

Frosty The Lucky.