i have an urge

^^^^ love the reddot and porting I bet it helps alot with quick target aquisition and followup shots.

A few of my friends saw one at a milsurp shoot and they have asked me to make one with the aid of my father who has a decent sized lathe. I can do the outside work but I doubt my ability to make the bore.

I was thinking one that fires either 12 or 16 gauge soft lead balls.
 
This is a 50 cal brass barrel, that was drilled not bored. My son machined the barrel in high school and never finished building it.A few years later mooncoon, very generously offered to finish it.
Our club is having a 10 day BP shoot starting on Fri May 19th, on the Sat is the mini cannon event, I'll post some pics when it's over.
IMG_0213.jpg

Cheers nessy
 
fogducker said:
well heres a pic.......with the idea i got in my head to build

GenII-Front-261x191.jpg
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most of the stuff in that pic can be had at a farm supply place or princess auto if you where up here closer i could help with the welding and presure testing aspects
for a barrel go to a big truck scrap yard and pick up the piston from a dump trucks lift hydrulics its stainless and if you bore it to baseball size you should still be left with a 1/2-1" wall they are usualy about 7ft long give or take for a golf ball look at a piston from either a bucket ram from a front loader or an arm ram from a skidsteer you can usualy pick them up for under $ 200 at aa scrap yard or look on ebay again if you where local i could help you there too but the rams i have available are about 150 - 200lbs shipping would be brutal

fogducker said:
is there any special papers or registration,s needed to make or own a simple cannon?
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i beleive that a cannon is not classed as a firearm as it does not fire a projectile faster then 500FPS and they arnt on the list of prohibs or restricted so i think youd be good to go
 
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Here are five of my cannons, the two on the left are ½” bore, the brass ones in the middle are 5/8” bore, and the one on the right is 1” bore.
The dark one on the left has sights and a rifled barrel and you can actually hit something with it at a 100 yard.

Cannons.jpg
 
Yeah, they are all firing cannons, The 1” cast one takes 250 to 400 grains of powder. The 5/8” bore brass ones take 60 grain, and the ½" bore, steel ones, 50 grain.
The ½” bore steel cannons are made from 2.5” dia. 1045 steel bar stock, and the brass cannons are made from 2.5” C46400 bar stock (naval brass).
Some of the carriages are made from oak, and some are made from ¼” plate.
Picture170.jpg
 
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well i done some snooping for a barrel today at work......
i found some 2 1/2 inch pipe in a ###strong sch in a 106b grade seamless pipe


would this pipe be of benefit to make a barrel to fire off a golf ball..?.....the pipe measures about 3 inch dia with a 1 3/4 bore......the wall would be about 5/8 thick...... opinions all
 
It is a mortar about 12" diameter that the Fort Mac crowd fill with feathers and 12 rubber chickens and of course black powder. During the 2004 rondyvous, the people attending the rondy would stand out in the middle of the field each evening and the chickens would be shot about 200 feet in the air to rain down on said people. Each chicken was exchanged for a free beer. :>)

cheers mooncoon
 
fogducker said:
well i done some snooping for a barrel today at work......
i found some 2 1/2 inch pipe in a ###strong sch in a 106b grade seamless pipe


would this pipe be of benefit to make a barrel to fire off a golf ball..?.....the pipe measures about 3 inch dia with a 1 3/4 bore......the wall would be about 5/8 thick...... opinions all
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5/8 thick wall should be plenty make sure when you cap it you presure test it and beval the inside lip of the muzzle
 
mooncoon said:
It is a mortar about 12" diameter that the Fort Mac crowd fill with feathers and 12 rubber chickens and of course black powder. During the 2004 rondyvous, the people attending the rondy would stand out in the middle of the field each evening and the chickens would be shot about 200 feet in the air to rain down on said people. Each chicken was exchanged for a free beer. :>)

cheers mooncoon
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Our Famous (infamous?:D ) chicken mortar!

People travel world wide to gget a chicken fried up in that thing!!:D
Cat
 
build a bowling ball mortar. use a old oxygen or acetylene welding tank and make a base. seat a bowling ball over 1200 gr.s of black powder light fuse and stand back. the holes in thae ball give it a cool whistle in the air
 
You don’t need a lot of powder (60-80 grain) to propel a golf ball a good distance, and that tube you mention is plenty strong, you require a good size pressed in plug and a decent weld with preheat.
However, you quickly get bored with shooting golf balls; they tend to fly in all directions, and the 1-3/4” bore size of your tube requires a thick patch to fill the difference between the golf ball, which measures 1.680”, and the bore.
Construct a real cannon and join the ranks of us bona fide cannoneers. ;)

fogducker said:
well i done some snooping for a barrel today at work......
i found some 2 1/2 inch pipe in a ###strong sch in a 106b grade seamless pipe
Click to expand...
 
Al Flipo said:
You don’t need a lot of powder (60-80 grain) to propel a golf ball a good distance, and that tube you mention is plenty strong, you require a good size pressed in plug and a decent weld with preheat.
However, you quickly get bored with shooting golf balls; they tend to fly in all directions, and the 1-3/4” bore size of your tube requires a thick patch to fill the difference between the golf ball, which measures 1.680”, and the bore.
Construct a real cannon and join the ranks of us bona fide cannoneers. ;)
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im not worried of the welding...... i work for a welding shop that has welders thats do and pass x rayed welds......
now my problem.....how do i cap off the pipe?can i have a pipe cap made out of plate?...... lets say about 2 inch thick plate.... which i will have formed to make a pipe cap?
now i want to use a fuse for its igniting...... where on thebarrel should i drill a hole for the wick?? and what size of hole for it?

i tried to draw a pic in paint and post here .... but my computer skill,s suck..thanks again to all that are helping me out here
 
I would suggest annealing the breach afterwards if you intend to weld up the breach plug. Because of the intense localized heat, a weld can be brittle, particularly in an application like a breach plug.
How you finish the breach depends on the diameter of the barrel; you may want to use a screw in powder chamber with a fuse hole in it. I have one gun with a 1.1" bore and the breach plug screws in with roughly a 1 3/8" x 13 tpi thread, 1 1/2 diameters long

cheers mooncoon
 
mooncoon said:
I would suggest annealing the breach afterwards if you intend to weld up the breach plug. Because of the intense localized heat, a weld can be brittle, particularly in an application like a breach plug.
How you finish the breach depends on the diameter of the barrel; you may want to use a screw in powder chamber with a fuse hole in it. I have one gun with a 1.1" bore and the breach plug screws in with roughly a 1 3/8" x 13 tpi thread, 1 1/2 diameters long

cheers mooncoon
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what if i send out my welded piece to be stress relieved.....as we send out tons of items for this..
i could toss the cannon in the pile... and get heat treated stress relieved..


but i do like the idea of a threaded breach..woiuld make clean up a lot easier..would the pipe be best threaded on the id. of the pipe or the od.?


i should add in here..... as im trying to work out a barrel..... idea,s for the rest of the cannon would be greatly needed and appreciated
 
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