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Anyone on here know much about Cannons? My dad has a really nice one he has talked about possibly trading for a rifle. We shot it a couple of times, cleanded, oiled it good and put it away. It has a really cool ring to it!!! Can anyone tell me much about it? The barrel weighs 27.5 pounds, and measures 19-20" long, it has numbers stamped in it, here are some pics of it. Any info is appreciated!
Attachment 194256 Attachment 194259 Attachment 194260
Attachment 194261 Attachment 194262
That is just to kewl if I owned it I would KEEP IT and enjoy it only if I shot it once a year ( hey I own a Cannon )
Cannons are fun. I have a Winchester
Buy your dad the rifle, keep the cannon.
What kind of rifle is he thinking about? I may have a round ball gang mold for that.
I've a smaller ships cannon in .54 caliber that I get a "Blast" out of. It weighs about 17 lbs and does well with 75 grains of 2F under a wad of aluminum foil.
I would keep your dad's cannon if at all possible just because you might never have the chance to own another one that's in nice shape.
I have a 1 1/16" bore. Home made, I'm a machinist. Fired over 100 rounds with it down range. Yours looks like a cast barrel, can't tell if it has a liner in the bore. Mine is made from 4140 DOM tube that's reamed to size, smooth bore. I'd be very careful with loads for that one, cast tube, lite weight mount. I fire mine with 1F ( cannon grade ) BP, and shoot patched 1" ball bearings for the ball at around 1200 fps. With that cast barrel, shooting round shot, that cast barrel could be turned into a pipe bomb very fast. It's a nice decorator cannon, might fire blank rounds just fine. Even firing blanks, keep everyone well clear and watching at a distance. When things go wrong with these, often someone close to it is killed. Yours sure looks much nicer than mine. Mine is just functional, puts that 1" ball bearing through 3/4" steel plate @50 yards with ease. Powder charge is measured with a kitchen measuring cup, any loads fired in mine I couldn't recommend for yours. If I don't chain it down, recoil on it is 10-12'.
Chris
Cwheel, I agree on this barrel being of Cast material, you can see an obvious manufacturer Seem in the barrel where it was put together as 2 Halves (at least it looks that way?) whoever did it did a good job on it. When we fired it we used 100 grains of Goex 2F powder, it functioned perfectly fine, Its probably better left as a decorative piece, or if shot keep it light. This thing was sitting in a little building on a table, had been there for at least 20 years. We have no idea on the manufacturer, what year it was made etc.?
That casting seam is from the split in the pattern it was cast from. Of more concern what alloy it is casted from, more of a concern if no liner in the bore. Firing 100 gr. of BP should not be much of a problem, my Ruger Old Army uses a charge of 40 gr. I worked up the load on mine, increased the charge until you can just hear the crack when the ball goes super sonic. My normal charge is many times the 100 gr. that you use. In any case, none of them are safe like anything modern. Use a non-sparking ramrod only, ( I have one made from alum, but wood is good ) and let some time pass in-between shots so you aren't dumping powder down on a hot one.
Chris
cwheel, Thank you for your replies! I am 99.9 percent sure this barrel has no liner? I am not familiar with liners at all, wouldn't i be able to see a liner if it had one in it?
If you closely examine the crown of the muzzle ( might have to clean some of the paint off ) you would see the split where the liner was inserted. Fairly sure yours doesn't, and was intended to be a nice decorator display cannon. Some of the high end barrels will have a thick rifled alloy liner. Back in the Civil War, cannons were made from cast that was tightly controlled cast iron mix, bored and in some cases rifled. Loads for these guns took into account that they were of a cast material. That's not to say they weren't effective. Have fun with it, it looks nice, just don't overload it.
Chris
cwheel, Thank you again!Quote:
Originally Posted by cwheel
Found out years ago that a 1" bore canon will put a piece of paper through 1/2" plywood at ten feet. Showing someone why you don't step in front of the bore, even with a blank charge.
It is an extremely practical-looking design, and if the bore is drilled or reamed all the way down and the touch-hole is drilled, I think you can take it that it was meant for some kind of shooting. Not all cast iron is alike, but the fact that it rings well is encouraging. In a way it is easier to make good cast-iron guns when they are small. The size of really big ones was limited by the tendency for shrinkage and perhaps gas emissions to produce a spongy core in the middle of the casting.
But it was almost certainly intended to fire blanks, for yacht-race starting if not just innocent merriment. I would be very cautious - not just a little, but very - about powder charges behind anything heavier than a wad. It isn't like you will be yardarm to yardarm with the enemy, so you can have a lot of fun that way. I'd still want to ignite it with a fuse. If waiting at a distance for it to go off seems a bit limp-wristed, there are alternatives. They include an electrical igniter with a piece of heating-element wire, slow-match on a long stick with a sort of clip-on donkey-ears device to steer it down onto the priming, or a percussion device. The latter could also be clip-on, with the weight dropping down a tube into the nipple, which needn't be threaded into the barrel.
Lining it with a strong steel tube and one of the bearing-fitting grades of Loctite is also a possibility. It could even be stainless. I rather fancy one of the Hastings 12ga rifled barrel blanks, if they still make them in untapered form.
Greetings
We shoot our 1.1" every year we are up north there. We use grass for wadding as then there is no paper to leave behind.
Have seen used cannons of the 1 inch variety sell for $250 (= -) over the years. Yours has a nice looking carriage so $300 would not be outside the parameters.
BUT... you sell it and you just sold off a bunch of memories. 20 years from now every time you touch that smoke belcher off your head will be filled with some great memories of the loved one you can not longer talk to. Trust me on this !
Mike in Peru
I know nothing about cannons, but I got one too. When I get info on price it swings wildly from
$50 to $500. I don't know what I have, except the money I have in band aids from stubbing my
toe on it about once a month. I know it is a replica, cast bronze/ brass, bore is like a mirror so
I would guess never shot. Any info on mine would be appreciated also.Attachment 194458
A small price to pay. It is based on the Napoleonic carronade, a short gun firing a very large ball or charge of grapeshot for its size, which was first made in the Carron Ironworks in Scotland. Some were mounted on a flat bed by a pin passing through a single projection directly under the barrel. HMS Victory, still in commission although out of water, has two 68-pounders, a size not used in long guns until close to the disappearance of the smoothbore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Drm50
It looks like it could be slightly larger in calibre than the OP's, so although race starting is a possibility, so is its use as an emergency signalling gun on a merchant ship. Every year at Windsor children fire a salute for the Queen's birthday, using even smaller cannon of which six were taken from a French privateer. But I those would be used from swivel mounts with buckshot, in which role they could be very useful.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-berkshire-39664929