Cannon advice needed

[Rockingkj]

Just got a homemade cannon. Appears the have approximately 3/4” bore. I would welcome any advice in care and feeding. Both in shooting projectile and just making a big bang noise. Very heavy and thick barrel.

[Outpost75]

Close to a 12-ga bore. Feed like a 12-ga. BP shotgun. 80 grains of powder and 1 oz. of shot or ball. To make a joyful noise use same 80 grains of powder, a square of TP over powder wad then 1/4 cup of flour as payload held with with another TP square. Lovely white cloud and occasional brilliant flash from flour explosion in air.

[LAGS]

One time
I had a BP cannon with like a 3/4" bore on my apartment balcony.
I was up there cooking some hot dogs for lunch.
One of the guys at the swimming pool about 50 yards away yelled to me.
Hay.
Why don't you shoot me one of those hot dogs when you come back down to the pool.
So,
I loaded the cannon with like 15 grains of powder , slipped a hot dog in the barrel and shot it too him.

[Rockingkj]

One time
I had a BP cannon with like a 3/4" bore on my apartment balcony.
I was up there cooking some hot dogs for lunch.
One of the guys at the swimming pool about 50 yards away yelled to me.
Hay.
Why don't you shoot me one of those hot dogs when you come back down to the pool.
So,
I loaded the cannon with like 15 grains of powder , slipped a hot dog in the barrel and shot it too him.

Sounds like fast food. Lol

[dondiego]

Crepe paper and hornet nest are said to be non flammable and good for wadding. 69 caliber balls are available from TOTW as are the molds. I have been experimenting with the electronic rocket igniters..................

[Winger Ed.]

Cool. they're a lot of fun, and have a much longer range than you'd think by looking at them.

I have a 2 1/8th inch bore Mountain Howitzer that likes one ounce by weight of either single or double 'F' holy black.
The bowling ball mortar likes 1/4 pound of single 'F'.
Both will shoot the best part of a mile.

[405grain]

Winger Ed: I also have a 2 1/8" bore mountain howitzer. I made the barrel out of a 3.5" diameter piece of 4130 steel thick wall tubing that's 15" long. I machined a brass mold to cast lead balls for it. I incorporated a combustion chamber into the breech of the cannon that is 1.5" in diameter and 2" long. It uses regular cannon fuse for ignition. I made this cannon over 25 years ago, and for various reasons it has never been fired. I've been thinking about making up some bag charges using nitrated paper to hold the powder, and just using a hole saw to cut 2.1" disc's out of 3/4" plywood to act as a wad between the ball and powder. Can you share some load data, insights, and suggestions?

[oconeedan]

pyrocreations.com has canon fuse for what I think is a fair price.

[Nobade]

Close to a 12-ga bore. Feed like a 12-ga. BP shotgun. 80 grains of powder and 1 oz. of shot or ball. To make a joyful noise use same 80 grains of powder, a square of TP over powder wad then 1/4 cup of flour as payload held with with another TP square. Lovely white cloud and occasional brilliant flash from flour explosion in air.

Coffee creamer is even better.

[charlie b]

The TP comment with cannons reminded me.....

Peacetime training we use to store extra toilet paper in the tank main gun chamber. Kept it dry and out of the way.

One of the crews forgot to remove it at the gun range. Made a very pretty large white cloud out of the muzzle