Went to Buy Colts and came home with a Cannon

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WALKERs210

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Picked up this thing today and don't have a clue. It is brass and very heavy. Overall length is 12 1/4 inch with 1 1/8 inch bore. For lack of knowing the proper term I will call the back the breech/primer holding thing a majig. It has been semi drilled but does not penetrate into the bore. I have a breech plug from an inline rifle that is 1/2 inch in diam and from measuring the thing a majig it is 1 in in diam so it should be more than solid to mount. I was thinking that it might be easier to just drill a touch hole on top of barrel with a slight counter sink to hold powder. In other words I don't have a clue as to how to start or where to begin. I have "NO INTENTIONS" of ever live firing the canon but would like to at least fire confetti or just make fire and smoke.
 
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robhof

As a long time owner of small cannons, I would be very wary of firing that cannon as the barrel seems a bit thin. There's a certain minimum thickness to safely fire b/p as they are potential grenades with fatal results. Go onto the cannon and mortar area and read back about fatal accidents with real cannons and even the smaller ones. If it has a chamber of reduced size for the powder as do many mortars to use less powder and reduce blast pressure to the rest of the barrel, then it may be safe, but without a proof it's trial and error, and dangerous.
 
but without a proof it's trial and error, and dangerous
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This is exactly why I ask.... Was told a long time ago that you can meet "Old people" you can meet "Foolish People" but its rare that you find an "Old Foolish" person. This was just way too cool to leave sitting there.
 
Looks to me like the barrel isn't even mounted to the carriage, it's just sitting there isn't it? I wouldn't fire it on a bet. Strictly ornamental IMO, probably homemade by some machinist.
 
The "breech/primer holding thing a majig" is the cascabel, originally a place to attach arresting ropes to deal with the recoil of firing a cannon; on a small cannon it is just a traditional decoration. It should not be drilled through in a straight line with the bore.:eek: The touch hole should be at a right angle to the bore, on top of the barrel. The fact that it has not been drilled is a strong indication that the piece was never intended to be fired. I agree that the walls appear too thin for the size of the bore. As is, it is decorative. If fired, it would likely be a pipe bomb.
 
It is a decoration. The cascabel is not finished and there are no trunnion caps. If it were fired, the barrel would jump right out of the carriage, which is far too light and out of proportion.

It is a pure dummy, and not even a good model of any real cannon. Without any knowledge of the metal used, it would be very foolish to try to make it into a firing gun. Stick it on the book shelf and look at it.

Jim
 
robhof said:
Go onto the cannon and mortar area and read back about fatal accidents with real cannons and even the smaller ones.
Click to expand...

Where is the cannon and mortar area? Link please for the blind. ;)
 
I would fire it with 5Gr of BP blowing out a small handfull of confetti !!! That could be a fun toy to scare all the birds out of my fruit trees !!!

Sincerely,

ElvinWarrior... aka... David, "EW"
 
If I really wanted to fire blanks with it then I would find a way to turn it into a noisemaker. I'm not sure what modifications would be needed to do that but where there's a will there's a way. :)
 
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Please be careful what ever you do. An aquaintence of mine built a small cannon and fired it for the first and last time on a July 4th. It killed him. Fortunately he made his kids stand back but they were there to see thier father die.
 
Since cannons were mentioned

Here's one for sale in Arlington, Virginia. Only $4k.

DSC03640.jpg


link
 
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