Home made muzzle loading cannon

[Scarecrow Repair]

The same friend who made my drawbridge brought this around this morning about 7. 1.25" bore which is half the overall diameter. He says it is machine tool steel. He welded a plate on the back and a section of pipe around the rear, drilled the touch hole, painted it gray so we can presumably see the paint cracking before the barrel itself goes to pieces.

cannon1.jpg

cannon2.jpg

He fired some ff powder since I didn't have the coarse f which is meant for cannons (rectified this afternoon). The first shot was 250 grains, more or less, wrapped in tinfoil, with nothing else in the barrel. No recoil, of course. Then more powder, maybe an ounce; we aren't sure because he used my buckshot measure for the powder. It measures one ounce by weight of buckshot, powder is lighter, but he used the wrong end which looked about twice the capacity. Then several ounces of buckshot wrapped in tin foil, a wad as long as my fingers and full diameter, aimed at a washer panel with old shotup butcher paper on it. Lots of smoke! Lots of dents in the washer panel, little or no penetration, and we found some flattened buckshot rattling around between the butcher paper and the washer panel. I didn't get any pictures of it firing because we were hiding behind his truck or down the road a bit for these first shots.

How do you clean a muzzle loader like this?

What is a good way to keep it from rolling backwards too far? We were thinking of metal stakes in the ground, probably home made from rebar, and bungee cords.

What is a safe black powder load?

Is smokeless powder an acceptable substitute, using, say, 1/4 as much?

Most importantly, how do you know how much powder to use? Experiment until it disassembles itself is not the right answer.

We used slow burning fuse to give us time to take cover. Assuming this thing goes thru a few more shots without going kaboom, is it safe to assume that once it has fired a dozen times with no paint problems and no other signs of damage, it is safe to fire the same load while standing nearby?

Any advice is welcome.

[ZRX61]

What is a good way to keep it from rolling backwards too far?

Take the wheels off

[scrat]

ok a couple of things. 1 agree take the wheels off. would almost be better without any at all or at least take the back wheel off. get some type of wheels on the front with the wheel locks. You see them frequently at hardware stores. As for the cleaning. Fairly easy. you need to get a bucket of warm water. Then take a wooden dowel. 1 inch should be good. then you can take a towel and wrap the end of it so its a tad bigger than the barrel opening. to hold it in place. take some wood screws with some large washers and tighten the bejesus out of them. then after firing you take 1 brush soak it in the water. not that that wet though swab the barrel in the inside. then take another and go down the barrel to dry it up. Same one you can use to pack the powder to the back.

[Mikeb]

Good work. I made a swivel gun this year and have yet to find a place to shoot it.
As to smokeless powder...don't do it. many cannon accidents are caused buy smokeless. Black powder only burns so fast and can't build up huge pressures. Too much will probably in unburned powder being shot out .
I got some fishing sinkers for shot. Three ounce fit my 1" gun so check out the 4 oz for yours you can always patch it. Hot water is good for cleaning but don't use petroleum based oil. Black powder doesn't like petro-oil use kitchen oil or castor oil.
take care
Mike

[Scarecrow Repair]

About those wheels :-)

Early shipboard cannon were mounted on wheelless trucks to slow down recoil, but army cannon are mounted on wheels and fire like that -- the rear wheel is not just a wheel, it also adjusts the aim. Now supposing we removed the rear wheel alone -- how did wheeled muzzle loading cannon handle recoil? Did they stake it to the ground? That would make it hard to change the aim.

What is a good black powder charge for a 1.25" cannon? We've no place to really launch anything, so enough to knock holes in the hillside 100 feet or 200 yards away is good enough.

And is it safe to assume that a dozen or two firings with us in hiding will proof it, and after that there is no need to run for cover while a slow fuse burns?

[CSACANNONEER]

DO NOT USE SMOKELESS POWDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If I was going to shoot it, I would suggest following the same rules as a muzzleloading shotgun. Measure both the powder and shot by volume and use the same amount of each. If I had to guess (and a guess is all this is) I would say about 2-3 oz of each should be about right. We shoot 1lb of fg and a 10lb conical shell from our 10lb Parrott rifle. It has a 2.9" bore. Just to give you a reference.

[BigRich]

Here is a useful page about loading and shooting black powder cannons. http://www.cannon-mania.com/black_powder.htm

[Mikeb]

A proof load is usually double powder under a double ball. Check it carefully after proof then it should be good to go.
take care
Mike

[Scarecrow Repair]

A proof load is usually double powder under a double ball. Check it carefully after proof then it should be good to go.
take care
Mike

Now that's interesting. Do guns having passed this test seldom fail later, even after hundreds or thousands of shots and many years? Aside from improper care or accidents, of course.

[Asphodel]

Quite a few years ago, I was shown a rather elegantly improvised 'self-defence' system involving hand-made miniature cannons.

A businessman......it wouldn't be nice to mention his name or city.....had some concern that he might be, someday, confronted in his office by a person threatening physical harm to him.

He was a quite competent machinist as well as a businessman, so he made himself a pair of miniature 1700's vintage naval guns, with the barrels machined out of billet 4140 and nice miniature hardwood replicas of the original style wheeled gun carriages used on the ships. (I can't remember the name of the hardwood, but there is an uncommon wood which has the grain of oak, but on a much smaller scale, so it looks like oak in a miniature)

The barrels were bored 58 cal, to use Minie ball, with 70 or so grns of double F, and kept loaded, as 'desk ornaments'. He was a 'chain smoker' so almost always had a cigarette lit.

The theory, as he explained it, was that, in case of a deadly threat, he could quickly swing one of the 'decorative' miniature guns toward the threat individual, and mash the coal of his cigarette into the touch-hole, firing the piece.

No, I never saw one actually fired......he said that they worked well on test.

cheers

Carla

[Mikeb]

Now that's interesting. Do guns having passed this test seldom fail later, even after hundreds or thousands of shots and many years? Aside from improper care or accidents, of course.

That is the recipe for a proof load. To answer your question... I don't know. The thing about homemade cannons is there is a lot of variation in how they are built. You said your buddy welded the breach plug. I would think that would be the weak link. Especially as a BP gun. If the weld isn't to the root I could see corrosion getting in there and weakening the weld. Also the type of steel is a factor. If it has a high carbon content and is welded the metal could be hard and brittle at the weld if it hasn't been tempered, ie heated to 700 degrees or so. When I built mine I made the powder chamber, breach plug and handle out of one piece then threaded the barrel and plug, wrenched in on tight then welded all the way around. Seems like I have heard that BP can create about 25,000 PSI. I would ask the builder what he thinks.
take care
Mike

[Lurch762]

Not that it would be much help for your cannon but I use about 4 .45ACP casings of BP for my golf ball mortar. Big fun!! For cleaning, I use hot water and Ballistol.

[Grumpyoldretiredcop]

No offense meant, but I suspect that your cannon will have a very short service life for the same reasons that Mikeb stated. The breech plate being simply welded on and not threaded + welded creates a significant possibility of failure due to brittle fracture and may not be a safe design.

Watching for cracking paint is not a reliable indicator of impending weld failure due to brittle fracture. Your barrel may fail catastrophically without warning!

As described, I wouldn't even consider firing this device with solid shot, much less a proof load, and would certainly NEVER stand close to or in line with the breech of ANY black powder cannon when firing. ALWAYS take cover!

In my 1" bore Rodman replica, I use 1 ounce of cannon grade black powder. That charge will propel a #3 fishing weight (with a greased cotton patch to reduce windage) with sufficient velocity to pass through both doors of a junk car. Wrapping your powder charges in aluminum foil will reduce the chances of premature ignition. I clean my cannon with hot soapy water, rinsing with clean hot water, then drying and oiling to prevent corrosion.

[fusionstar]

there was a article about a guy in the 1900's who tested BP to 100,000 PSI.

[Scarecrow Repair]

Thanks for the threading tip

My friend welds for a living and took pains to get good welds, including, I believe, one for the plates on the breech, then the reinforcing pipe to the breech plates. I think there are two breech plates, individually welded.

He started with a tube of machine tool steel, cut it in half for two cannons, and made this one first. I think he has access to the equipment necessary to thread it, so I will mention it to him.