How far can you shoot a canon ball?

[Loyalist Dave]

8" Parrott Gun was able to shell Charleston from Morris Island from 8,000 yards distance. That's over four miles' distance. Look up The Swamp Angel.

When you get into the Parrot Rifle, then you start getting into elongated shells, so you get a different ballistic coefficient...even for that size. Napoleon and back, and even during the ACW for some guns, you had the ol' flying sphere of doom.

OH BTW..., I was told that in the movie Master and Commander with Russel Crowe, the buzzing sound they used for the shot as it passed by the actors, was actually recorded down range when firing solid, round, cannon shot. So the sound is correct.

LD