Mortars
- Thread starter .45colt
- Start date
It is. The projectile can be tracked in flight. Range will be a couple of hundred yards, insteads of hundreds and hundreds of yards. If a pengun flare element is set in the projectile, it will trace. My first one was percussion fired; much more positive than a fuse. Projectile loft is several seconds.
I built one to launch pop cans full of concrete.
A pop can is about 2 5/8" diameter, and my pipe was about 2 3/4" ID. So about 1/8" clearance.
To act as a seal, I use wadded up newspaper. Gotta be careful not to start any fires!
Great fun! It's been a while, maybe this will inspire me to drag it out again.
A pop can is about 2 5/8" diameter, and my pipe was about 2 3/4" ID. So about 1/8" clearance.
To act as a seal, I use wadded up newspaper. Gotta be careful not to start any fires!
Great fun! It's been a while, maybe this will inspire me to drag it out again.
- Location
- South Ontario
I ran a 60MM mortar for a while over seas. Great piece of kit if you get to use it sucks if you just hump it all op
In our cannon group, we have a separate mortar event, so everybody has one of some kind. Interesting to see the variations. Projos range from the aforementioned beer-cans full of cement, cast lead cylinders, stack of four hockey pucks bolted together, downrigger weights, and even 2 litre pop-bottles of water (which sometimes give us a shower on the line).
All these are fuse-fired.
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All these are fuse-fired.
Thank you.
Nope, I've never seen it.....
Would have to have the fuse down through the projo I guess, and light it from the muzzle end....seems a little scary to me....
Many guys just use a fuse-hole, as you mention, and load the charge with a tube from the muzzle. Others use a packaged charge, and pierce it through the fuse hole before inserting fuse. Others, me included, have a thread-in breech, so load the charge outside the gun and screw it in......same as our cannon breeches.
I recall seeing a video of a mortar that was patterned after a current drop the bomb down the tube type, which used a tail boom style of projectile. Because it would be a destructive device (in the US) if drop fired, it was fired by lighting a fuse leading to the propelling charge, and then dropping the projectile down the tube.
Strikes me as being an invitation to an unfortunate experience.
It is easy enough to percussion fire a ML mortar. A pull activated snapper striking a nipple will do the job. Avoids the uncertainty of fuse initiation.
In Fort Macmurray, (rubber) chicken flares are preferred to penguin flares. :>) :>)
cheers mooncoon
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
Dmay and the boys put on an astounding display of accuracy with their smooth bore fuse fired tubes (a 6" or so group at 75 yrds with around 1 lb slugs) and the Mortars are "entertainment extraordinary"
The best weekend I've spent in years and have a couple of "breechloaders" under construction now and 3 more tubes that have been "donated" to the cause.
The best weekend I've spent in years and have a couple of "breechloaders" under construction now and 3 more tubes that have been "donated" to the cause.
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
Properly built Breechloaders are safer than Muzzle loaders simply because of the ease to clean between shots.
how big do you want? I live an hr and a half south of the city and have a fairly well equipped hobby shop that wouldn't mind another project if you want to build one. I try to scrounge all the materials for my builds, I tend to "overbuild" for safety allowances so it take a while to complete a project but if you can buy the material, a thousand bucks or less and a couple afternoons of work will make a bang.
how big do you want? I live an hr and a half south of the city and have a fairly well equipped hobby shop that wouldn't mind another project if you want to build one. I try to scrounge all the materials for my builds, I tend to "overbuild" for safety allowances so it take a while to complete a project but if you can buy the material, a thousand bucks or less and a couple afternoons of work will make a bang.
What is the breechloading mechanism like?
My ML mortars use about a 12ga charge of powder, in a reduced diameter chamber. Barrels are short. I don't think that there is any more likelihood of a problem than with a ML sporting gun.
A real safety issue with these mortars is muzzle blast, and blast from the vent. They are short, high angle guns. You want to be clear of them when they fire.
My ML mortars use about a 12ga charge of powder, in a reduced diameter chamber. Barrels are short. I don't think that there is any more likelihood of a problem than with a ML sporting gun.
A real safety issue with these mortars is muzzle blast, and blast from the vent. They are short, high angle guns. You want to be clear of them when they fire.
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In our cannon group, we have a separate mortar event, so everybody has one of some kind. Interesting to see the variations. Projos range from the aforementioned beer-cans full of cement, cast lead cylinders, stack of four hockey pucks bolted together, downrigger weights, and even 2 litre pop-bottles of water (which sometimes give us a shower on the line).
All these are fuse-fired.
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Ok I'm sold. Where do i have to go to check out one of these cannon shoots? Can't do #### like that here in the big city...
I'm curious, what kind of breech mechanism you tend to build, and what material do you generally build the tubes from?
I am assuming these are straight tubes, no rifling or such, correct?
I remember seeing a couple in Washington State; one was about 6" I think and the second a fair bit larger and around 8" to 10". The projectiles were bore fitting pieces of wood about as long as they were wide. They had a couple of feet of polyprope rope on one end to make it easier to see them and 2 bands of baling wire around the circumference to keep the wood from splitting
cheers mooncoon
cheers mooncoon
Haha.....Ya gotta come to Alberta. We get together every year on the second weekend of September. We bounce around between a few different ranges, can't recall off hand where we're at next year....Athabasca?
I'm only on year number sixteen, but some of these ol' boys have been at it quite a while.....
fingers284
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Alberta Cowboy Ranges
I have a "Krupp sliding block style" that is build but untested yet ( I will be hiding behind something substantial when I do LOL ) . I think all Dmays compatriots all use a threaded pipe/ breech block system of some sort, none of them the same but all have very heavy piping/threading/breech plugs in common.
My muzzleloaders (1.625" and 2.75" fits a beer can sized bores) that I have fired are all DOM seamless pipe with at least 1/2" wall thickness. All my tube have an additional double wall over the chamber area as well so a total of over an inch of wall thickness. The large bore gun also has a 3/8" thick vented outer "shell" to contain any shrapnel if there ever is a tube failure.
The breech plugs are cut from old hyd. rams, 3" or so long, machined for a "sweated in" fit and then welded, after welding I drill at least 4 holes though the outside tube and into the breech plug a ways. Into these holes a plug of # 8 cat pad bolt is inserted and welded as well. These act very similar to the hardened lugs on a bolt action rifle. I realize some on here advocate that a treaded breech is stronger than a welded plug but my Lathe spindle hole isn't big enough to hold the pipe for internal threading so I use the bolt lugs. I think this system is probably as strong as a threaded one.
The ones that I've built so far and the ones they use are all smooth bore (they only allow smooth in the competition) but I have two more beer can sized tubes and a 4" tube waiting for a build that I may try to fashion a "rifling" machine of some sort for them. A friend I had that passed on a short time ago built two BP breech loaders out of a "surplus" 105 mm leopard tank barrel (don't know where he got it and didn't ask) that off course was already rifled that he was getting (with homemade projectiles) "derelict vehicle" accuracy at 600 yrds and vehicle door accuracy at 400
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