How do you buy a cannon?

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CHenry

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Here ya go.

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AKmoose

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Was at the FA shoot a few years back and a guy had a nitrogen cylinder cut in half launching 16 lb bowling balls about 1000 yards. Said the cylinders had to be 29" circumference to work right, used a cup of black powder and mounted a black powder lock to the bottom for ignition. That was a hoot watching a bowling ball travel that far.
 

ssgrock3

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fyi, welded drill pipe cap on threads, blast hole through with torch, ensure your pipe is wide enough for a soda can, apx a wd40 red cap of black powder will lauch said can a hell of a long ways. with drill pipe being used, it will take a heck of a charge but it is always dangerous to get too obnoxious, hella fun though. My moms neighbor a 1/4 mile away didnt particularly care for it :)
 

TheDoubleD

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Dumpstick is pretty correct. That would be simplest. But even that has a caution built into .

Folks up stream are partially correct also. But only partially.

Depending on Caliber either GCA68 of NFA apply. Both laws have a provision for exempting antiques.

To paraphrase the law as it relates to cannons:

"Any cannon or mortar made in or before 1898 or any replica there of that doesn't use fixed commercially able ammo or uses an antique ignition system. Muzzloading by it's self isn't sufficient."

To get a specific and exact definition contact ATF Technology Branch. Do not rely on anything written here or found on the internet, for an absolute correct answer. Laws change and, experts are not. Get a determination in writing from ATF. I have several of these written letters from ATF especially for modern designs.

Generally speaking if you buy a cannon that is muzzleloading and fuse fired legally you are on pretty safe grounds.

Complying with law is pretty simple. Being safe is quite another thing. For about 20 year I have been a Moderator on the GBO Cannon board. Some of the things that have come across that board that people want to shoot is scary. Water and muffler pipe do not make safe cannon tubes. There are suggested minimum safety standards for cannons. For safety sake follow them. Every year around New Years and 4th of July we hear of cannon accidents. That piece of drill rod you welded a plug in, that you have been dumping what ever powder you can find in for the past 20 years could fail next shot. We have seen a lot of those accident. A cannon blows up and someone is killed or injured and it never fails, someone says, "we have been shooting for years and never had a problem before."

One of the basic safety rules is the wall of the cannon should be the same thickness as the diameter of the bore. If the bore is one inch then the wall over the chamber should be one inch. And the breech end should also be 1 inch.

For some one who wants to start shooting cannons I suggest you pick up one of the Traditions cannon and learn how to shoot it. https://www.traditionsfirearms.com/category/Cannons. This is a good place to start.

If you have the skills buy a complete barrel and build you own carriage. Try https://brooks-usa.com/ . Mike Brooks makes brass barrels in a number designs. I have several of his barrels. My Napoleon is on the left below.

Napoleon-Parrot.jpg



If you have the skills and tools you can pick up some plans from http://gunneyg.info/html/AOPCatalog.htm . These are copies of of the original drawings. You can indeed build a full size gun from these plans or us the chart in the back of most plan sets to scale down. If you build scale cannon from these plans, you will building in the safety features of the day.

Cannons for sale on line. Be very very careful. Before buying make sure you understand how a cannon is safely constructed. You will see sellers on line mention reduced powder chambers. If you see that avoid that seller. This type of chamber is difficult to load and the seller is trying to skirt the safety guidelines to build a larger bore on a small barrel. This also applies sellers at gunshows as referenced by Dumpstick. To be fair I have never been to Wannamaker yet. I do know there use to be a guy up in Kansas who set up at that show and he built some very nice and safe guns.

If you are really interested in shooting cannons try joining us over GBO https://www.go2gbo.com/forums/blackpowder-mortar-cannon-by-seacoast-artillery.88/. Or we can talk here, shooting, building, buying.

I am bit surprised at the lack of cannon shooting here in OK. I would have thought there would be a few cannoneers around. I was a bit dismayed recently when I inquired at the OKC Gun Club where I am a member about shooting my model cannons. I ask and offered to discuss what I had in mind-the response from the Club board without inquiry or discussion was , "That is a Hard No." I am not a voting member, just a non voting. But I still pay dues, which aren't cheap. But you would think they might have been bit more courteous and open minded and inquired about what I was asking.
 

TheDoubleD

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Was at the FA shoot a few years back and a guy had a nitrogen cylinder cut in half launching 16 lb bowling balls about 1000 yards. Said the cylinders had to be 29" circumference to work right, used a cup of black powder and mounted a black powder lock to the bottom for ignition. That was a hoot watching a bowling ball travel that far.

This one takes a special pressure bottle. The Pressure tank needed to make the expansion chamber for a bowling ball mortar is the 300 CF, DOT 3AA2400 made by Taylor Wharton. It is not safe to just plug the neck and dump powder in the tank and drop the ball in and fire fire. This needs a proper chamber built to safety spec. Most people put legs on these and build a replica of a stokes.

I am skeptical of a thousand yard range with a pressure bottle. My cannon shooting partner has one of these pressure bottle mortars and he struggle to reach 400 yards. That is a long ways for a bowing ball. Here is 450 yard with 6 ounces of blackpowder.



fyi, welded drill pipe cap on threads, blast hole through with torch, ensure your pipe is wide enough for a soda can, apx a wd40 red cap of black powder will lauch said can a hell of a long ways. with drill pipe being used, it will take a heck of a charge but it is always dangerous to get too obnoxious, hella fun though. My moms neighbor a 1/4 mile away didnt particularly care for it :)
Ah yes, this is exactly the type device I was referring to in my previous post. Start practicing the phrase, "we been shooting it like this for years, and never had a problem, before."

Drill rod, drill pipe is super strong and tough and can be made into a pretty nice cannon--but construction like described is little more than a delay action pipe bomb.

Those of us shooting cannon get a bit defensive about this subject-not every plugged up pipe is a cannon and when they fail we get tarred by the media with that brush. Please forgive me if I seem harsh, I do mean to be frank however.
 
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AKmoose

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The one he was shooting was about 4 Ft. tall, no special bottle, just exactly 1 cup of BP. Not sure of the exact range but if familiar with the Wyndotte shoot it went over the valley far up the opposing hillside, during ceasefire the 4 wheeler retrieved the ball, took 15 minutes to get it and was cracked so they couldn't shoot it again. This has been 15 years or so back.
 

TheDoubleD

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Ok when are we having a cannon meet?!
I have an offer from several fellows here to shoot on their property. Now if I can just get the moon and stars to align, get a new tow vehicle, finish painting and reassembling the bowling ball mortar, and weather is safe from fire/floods, I want to haul the two big guns out and shoot. Not sure if the fellows offering property are interested in making it an event however.

The little golf ball bore gun and smaller would be just fine on a 100 yard rifle range, if I can find someone who will discuss this with me.

Thousand yards and a cup of black powder.

8oz.jpg


First cups are units of measure for making cookies and cakes, not loading black powder-unless you treat it like volumetric powder loading tool.

In this case one slightly heaped cup of FA grade black powder weighs 8.7 ounces. That is a healthy 1/2 pound of powder and will get your bowling a long way down range. I would not fire that charge in a pressure vessel without a chamber. Looking back over my notes 8 ounces of powder is a 650 yard charge. Standing on the firing line and looking down range, 650 yards is a long ways down there.

We verify distance 3 ways. First using Google Earth measure function. Look on the map and mark your firing point and impact point. This gets us pretty close. Second we use a conventional GPS to mark firing position and impact point. I find an on line calculator and do the math with these numbers. I also plug the GPS readings into Google Earth. The third way is I take photo's of the firing point and impact point. I open up the metadata of the pictures and extract the GPS coordinates and plug that data into the online app and Google earth. None of these measurements will be the same, but they will be very close-15-20 yards. This is far more accurate the using a the Mark 1 Eyeball and a WAG.

There is another method, that can be surprisingly accurate, that I used way back in olden days pre GPS when we still had rotary dial phones and telephone had to be hooked to a wire to work. Triangulation with a compass. Tedious but it worked. I don't do it that way any more.

A footnote here, the greater danger here is the wife finding out I used her cup measure to take that picture.
 

Aries

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When I played football in the back yard with my cousins and buddies, we measured off 10 yards by stepping off 10 paces. You couldn't just do that for 650 yards? :rollingla
 

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