When my Wife and I finally get moved into our new home and I get my shop up and running I want to see if I an build a better cannon ball. Here's the rules if you wanna help. I can only use stuff that was around during the civil war era. I do get to use modern tools to make stuff. That's about it. I think that a proximity cannon "ball" could have been made and used with much greater accuracy. This idea comes from a friend that I met here. He sent me a proximity fuse from WW2. He's a much brighter guy than I and I get a real kick out of knowing him. Anyway. I think the technology existed that could be something like a fin guided proximity shell that would be far above timing a exploding ball by trimming a fuse. So if you've got an idea on guidance, how to create a proximity fuse, how to keep it safe, how to shoot it or anything else let me know. I've been making cannons, BP, cannon balls, fuse, and about everything else that goes with cannons for several years. I've got some ideas that I'll start to share but I'd like to hear from you who would like to be part of the journey.
How to build a better civil war era cannon ball - wanna help?
- Thread starter CANNONMAN
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Isn't the proximity fuse reliant on some sort of radar? During the war the exploding shell was dependent on two factors:
Distance estimation by the gun layer. He had to have a good eye for the distance and then calculate the time of flight. He could then set the fuse to explode the shell over the target.
Reliable fuses. The Union had excellent fuses and the Confederates, not so. Confederate fuses performed extremely poorly especially at Gettysburg where the shells overshot their targets before exploding. The Union artillery lowered their rate of fire to (or ceased fire) conserve ammunition for the inevitable infantry charge and it also fooled the Confederates into thinking their shelling had suppressed the Union artillery.
Do you have access to Gibbon's Artillery Treatise? All things artillery are in that manual.
Distance estimation by the gun layer. He had to have a good eye for the distance and then calculate the time of flight. He could then set the fuse to explode the shell over the target.
Reliable fuses. The Union had excellent fuses and the Confederates, not so. Confederate fuses performed extremely poorly especially at Gettysburg where the shells overshot their targets before exploding. The Union artillery lowered their rate of fire to (or ceased fire) conserve ammunition for the inevitable infantry charge and it also fooled the Confederates into thinking their shelling had suppressed the Union artillery.
Do you have access to Gibbon's Artillery Treatise? All things artillery are in that manual.
Officers'Wife
Member
Ummm... proximity fuse??? This sounds too much like something that goes boom then goes bang and I have it on good authority that the great white father in Washington gets very annoyed if you start making exploding projectiles even if they are models from antique.
troy fairweather
Member
we made a q ball moader many years ago and fire some off on the forth but balls are hard to come by now. i am thinking of making a ball end mill to make a mold. i just have to find some aluminum big to make both half of the mold. lead maybe to heavy mit have to cast out of aluminum in my little forge.just with we could see where the q balls go after firing with 1/2 pound of pyrodex lol.
WestKentucky
Member
Are you talking better in the form of accuracy, or better in the form of effect on target? It can’t be too tough to make something more consistent than cast iron balls by using a lathe. Even civil war era machinery could do it, but the labor would have been unreal. Also, a aerodynamically induced spin stabilized projectile with hollow skirt would be more efficient at harnessing the burning charge and also should be more accurate than your average smoothbore.
entropy
Member
A reading of the DD (Destructive Device) section on the ATF's website might be in order.
ThomasT
Member
Here is a short read on how cannon balls were made. I am sure you know this but others may not. And I suspect like others have said making exploding cannon balls is a shortcut to serious trouble. The proximity fuse is a radar of sorts and to work would have to be mounted to a projectile that will fly point forward. So a round ball is out. You will need a rifled bore and that will require a breech loading gun.
https://www.quora.com/How-were-cannonballs-manufactured-during-the-American-Civil-War
https://www.quora.com/How-were-cannonballs-manufactured-during-the-American-Civil-War
Your correct! Well, sort of. Much of this is going to be theoretical. But! I plan on building the thing. What I don't plan on doing is putting an explosive charge inside. A smoke device or similar would be fine. I think putting the thing on target and being able to have it "go off" upon impact in a manner better than what they did during the civil war is a great challenge both mentally and physically. I guess I would like to start with an impact fuse. I've got something in mind. It's gotta be safe even if it's empty. Did they have anything like a fin or wing back then? Or perhaps a cannon size miniball? Was that ever done? Where there any improvements in explosives? Or was BP the mainstay? WK you get points for accuracy concept. Thx. Gary gets points for "where to go for education". About end mills. If you want to try to make a ball that's propelled by 1/2#BP you got some issues or one heck of a strong barrel. Are you trying for something like a 5" ball?
kBob
Member
You really need to get a hold of some books on artillery like the Park service "Artillery through the ages" which I think is still available as a very basic starting point.
Confederates experimented with folding fin projectiles in the hope of getting rifle type gun accuracy from smooth bores....sometimes it sort of worked ….and to keep projos going point first to allow the primitive contact fuze of the era to work ( these were basically all variations of those toy cap darts guys my age played with)
Confederates also experimented with casting the interior of a shell ( hollow projectile to be filled with bursting powder) with facets to aid in controlled fragmentation again sort of worked but BP is not the best thing for breaking up stuff in to LOTS of pieces. Cast iron generally breaks into a few large chunks and a lot of sand sized particles sort of unpredictive like. Had anyone thought to make the shells from an iron heavy bronze things might have gotten more predictable....
What you are calling a Proximity fuze is referred to in the Field Artillery of the US Army and Marine Corps as "Fuze VT" Most including some manuals will tell you this means "Variable Time" and this is correct as phase meanings do change. One estimates time of flight and subtracts a teenie bit and that time is setable on the individual fuze so that time IS Variable.
What it meant in the late 1930's when first developed and deployed was "Vacuum Tube" for that was the major element a Radio Frequency producing vacuum tube. The fuze consist then of an emitter shielded so signal goes out the nose and a receiver that detects relflected radio energy as the weapon get in the "proximity" of something that will return the signal.
The time element is there to insure that the radio emitter does not turn on until very near the target for if it was on any length of time it would be possible for an enemy to send a much stronger signal on that frequency rather quickly and tell the fuze to detonate while still very high and short of the target area.
Since you wanted to keep this ACW era tech I do not see how you might power such a unit, much less have a vacuum tube which I believe is a good 20 years down the road yet in giagantic mason jar size yet.
Several rifled guns used expanding/deforming plates on the base that were small enough to fit down a tube but forced out into rifling on firing. Some had something much like a Minnie ball design but had the same issues as minnieballs (fragmentation of the skirt in firing and failure to have uniform expansion) and some used a lead cup over a coned shell base so the lead would be expanded as the charge drove it onto the shell in firing (again lake of repeatability and fragmenting in the bore and separation in flight caused issues.....but this was one of the more common types) Some used this design with paper mache instead of lead to reduce the danger of sepperated lead flying about and to attempt to make a shell that ALWAYS stripped its sabot (unfortunately sometimes the paper stuck)
Point detonating fuzes were very slow (enough so that when electronic point detonating fuzed became available they were called "Fuze Quick" ) and it was not uncommon for them to burrow completely into soft earth before they could detonate and be no better or not as good as a bouncing round shot or too long fuzed round shell. Some complained that canister from rifled guns spread to thin and unpredictably from rifled guns and since much of the Civil war era cannonading was cannister (what many mistakenly call "Grape") the 12 pounder Gun/Howitzer aka Napoleon ( the nephew not the original) stayed popular with artillerist through the war (not that they had much choice in what was actually issued them, but reported nicely of the thing)
-kBob
Confederates experimented with folding fin projectiles in the hope of getting rifle type gun accuracy from smooth bores....sometimes it sort of worked ….and to keep projos going point first to allow the primitive contact fuze of the era to work ( these were basically all variations of those toy cap darts guys my age played with)
Confederates also experimented with casting the interior of a shell ( hollow projectile to be filled with bursting powder) with facets to aid in controlled fragmentation again sort of worked but BP is not the best thing for breaking up stuff in to LOTS of pieces. Cast iron generally breaks into a few large chunks and a lot of sand sized particles sort of unpredictive like. Had anyone thought to make the shells from an iron heavy bronze things might have gotten more predictable....
What you are calling a Proximity fuze is referred to in the Field Artillery of the US Army and Marine Corps as "Fuze VT" Most including some manuals will tell you this means "Variable Time" and this is correct as phase meanings do change. One estimates time of flight and subtracts a teenie bit and that time is setable on the individual fuze so that time IS Variable.
What it meant in the late 1930's when first developed and deployed was "Vacuum Tube" for that was the major element a Radio Frequency producing vacuum tube. The fuze consist then of an emitter shielded so signal goes out the nose and a receiver that detects relflected radio energy as the weapon get in the "proximity" of something that will return the signal.
The time element is there to insure that the radio emitter does not turn on until very near the target for if it was on any length of time it would be possible for an enemy to send a much stronger signal on that frequency rather quickly and tell the fuze to detonate while still very high and short of the target area.
Since you wanted to keep this ACW era tech I do not see how you might power such a unit, much less have a vacuum tube which I believe is a good 20 years down the road yet in giagantic mason jar size yet.
Several rifled guns used expanding/deforming plates on the base that were small enough to fit down a tube but forced out into rifling on firing. Some had something much like a Minnie ball design but had the same issues as minnieballs (fragmentation of the skirt in firing and failure to have uniform expansion) and some used a lead cup over a coned shell base so the lead would be expanded as the charge drove it onto the shell in firing (again lake of repeatability and fragmenting in the bore and separation in flight caused issues.....but this was one of the more common types) Some used this design with paper mache instead of lead to reduce the danger of sepperated lead flying about and to attempt to make a shell that ALWAYS stripped its sabot (unfortunately sometimes the paper stuck)
Point detonating fuzes were very slow (enough so that when electronic point detonating fuzed became available they were called "Fuze Quick" ) and it was not uncommon for them to burrow completely into soft earth before they could detonate and be no better or not as good as a bouncing round shot or too long fuzed round shell. Some complained that canister from rifled guns spread to thin and unpredictably from rifled guns and since much of the Civil war era cannonading was cannister (what many mistakenly call "Grape") the 12 pounder Gun/Howitzer aka Napoleon ( the nephew not the original) stayed popular with artillerist through the war (not that they had much choice in what was actually issued them, but reported nicely of the thing)
-kBob
ThomasT
Member
I don't know if it would work on a round cannon ball or not but here is an idea. In one the Backwoodsman articles a writer stated he was using a "tail" on the back of a round ball shot from a shotgun to keep the ball flying point on. He did this because he had drilled a hollow point in the ball and the tail kept it stablized.
What he did was chopped up newspaper and mixed it with water and a little white glue and made a paper mache' mix. Then he filled a tube just slightly smaller than the ball and made a long paper mache' plug. Then the plug was cut to a length and glued to the ball with an OAL that would load in the shotshell. Apparently it worked like he wanted because the hollow point hit and expanded to a huge mushroom.
Would this work on a cannon ball? Heck if I know. You would just have to try it and see. But I keep meaning to order a Lee .600 round ball mold and try this in a 20ga shotgun. I already load two .530 round balls in a 20ga shell and they work great. You have to use a Remington SP-20 wad because it has no fingers on the inside of the wad to prevent the first ball from seating all the way in. The .600 ball fits inside the hull with only a base wad needed for a gas seal.
What he did was chopped up newspaper and mixed it with water and a little white glue and made a paper mache' mix. Then he filled a tube just slightly smaller than the ball and made a long paper mache' plug. Then the plug was cut to a length and glued to the ball with an OAL that would load in the shotshell. Apparently it worked like he wanted because the hollow point hit and expanded to a huge mushroom.
Would this work on a cannon ball? Heck if I know. You would just have to try it and see. But I keep meaning to order a Lee .600 round ball mold and try this in a 20ga shotgun. I already load two .530 round balls in a 20ga shell and they work great. You have to use a Remington SP-20 wad because it has no fingers on the inside of the wad to prevent the first ball from seating all the way in. The .600 ball fits inside the hull with only a base wad needed for a gas seal.
kBob
Member
Ratshooter,
The Shell for the James gun worked something like that.....sort of like a Benneke style shotgun slug. I had first thought you were talking about the theory of putting a "kite tail" on a musket ball. Supposedly affixing a "tail" to a musket ball that consisted of a thin ribbon attached to the base of the ball over a wad would keep the ball going straighter from a smooth bore than without it. Think a foot long ribbon pinned or screwed to the sprue point at the ribbon's middle so as to leave two six inch tails to flutter about. I have never tried it but it is one of those seems like it aught to work ideas.....if however you pinned the ribbon on does not act as an obstruction and burning bits of wad and blown off ribbon do not ignite your next round.
-kBob
The Shell for the James gun worked something like that.....sort of like a Benneke style shotgun slug. I had first thought you were talking about the theory of putting a "kite tail" on a musket ball. Supposedly affixing a "tail" to a musket ball that consisted of a thin ribbon attached to the base of the ball over a wad would keep the ball going straighter from a smooth bore than without it. Think a foot long ribbon pinned or screwed to the sprue point at the ribbon's middle so as to leave two six inch tails to flutter about. I have never tried it but it is one of those seems like it aught to work ideas.....if however you pinned the ribbon on does not act as an obstruction and burning bits of wad and blown off ribbon do not ignite your next round.
-kBob
Loyalist Dave
Member
The DISCOVERY Channel came to the community where I work many years ago, and I was approached by a friend of my father's, to help a production company (they buy most of their shows from independent companies, or did ) to do a show for them. We were going to do a show on the history of some modern weapons, going back to when the first idea of them came about...., we were going to start with the hand grenade.
Well, it turns out we could do everything except build a replica hand grenade and detonate it. We were going to show how effective the old, burning fuse grenade was by popping it off surrounded by dummies, to show where the fragments went. Completion of such a device would have been in violation of the law "construction of a deadly and dangerous device", a felony. It's a law written for pipe bombs, but it applied to what we were doing, AND it would apply to what you are thinking of doing should you ever put an explosive component into the device...even if that is limited to old fashioned, black powder.
What we had to do was to contact the local fire marshall's office, because they have a "destruction range" where they destroy such devices when recovered in the community, and we were cleared to use that location under their supervision.
Alas, DISCOVERY laid-off several hundred people before we got our contract to start production of the pilot episode, and the inhouse fellow who was promoting our show idea was one of the guys who got "the axe". It never went forward.
The moral of the story is better check with your state and federal laws and see how far you can go with your project before you cross the line into some laws that would cover your project, even though not written to stop your project.
LD
OK. more points for KBob. But distraction from the era leading into history takes 1/2 point. Kidd'n. I know vacuum tubes don't count. neither do laser guided BP anything's. I know lot of you will tell me how many ways I'm breaking the law. None of which is the point here. Recall the term 'Theoretical". Anyway, you can build your own fireworks where I live. Anyone with any interest or history will find amazing similarities with this quest. Thanks for the warnings but full speed ahead and damn the … well you get it.
ThomasT
Member
Hi Kbob. No tail like a kite. Just a short section of paper mache' solid tube glued to the back of the round ball. The author of the story said you could most likely also use a section of wood dowel rod as long as it was close to the bullet diameter. But it would be much heavier than the paper tail. The guys name that wrote the article is Robert Miller. He writes some cool stuff.
A tail does work. But not to the point I want. I can hit a 3x4' target from 350yds by looking down the barrel. Putting a tail on my lead balls did little. Mostly they did have problems with being dependable. I thinking of hollow tail or a sabot. For an impact fuse I'm considering of using the type of fuse they used to fire the cannon to be used to set off a charge on impact. A safety has to exist. it has to be able to stand to force of being fired. since the fuse mass is slight, I thing not much more then a tooth pic inserted into the fuse would work. Now, how to build on of the fuses. An electronic fuse used for impact would be simple and might need to be built while attempting this endeavor. Was kno4 ever used?
RecoilRob
Member
Some local guys were into the Civil War shooting competitions and they had a cannon. One of their methods to increase accuracy was to float the balls in a bucket of mercury then paint the part that was visible. This was the lightest point and would be loaded toward the muzzle and should make the flight more consistent. They won many contests and were firm believers that their mercury balls were a key ingredient. I cannot remember if their piece was rifled or not, but loading the projectile in a consistent way can't hurt accuracy and might be something to experiment with.
One of their methods to increase accuracy was to float the balls in a bucket of mercury then paint the part that was visible. This was the lightest point and would be loaded toward the muzzle and should make the flight more consistent. They won many contests and were firm believers that their mercury balls were a key ingredient. I cannot remember if their piece was rifled or not, but loading the projectile in a consistent way can't hurt accuracy and might be something to experiment with.kBob
Member
OK now that was using the old noggin! Though these days one might get in as much trouble having that much mercury around as one would making a loaded shell.
-kBob
-kBob
Officers'Wife
Member
Some local guys were into the Civil War shooting competitions and they had a cannon.
Don't mind me, I'm trying to imagine how much enough mercury to float a cannon ball would be worth on the metals market. Not to mention the possible legal ramifications of storage for the stuff. If I remember my kitchen table chemistry lessons mercury weighes in at about 108 pounds a gallon and even a 3 in diameter ball would take at least a gallon.
Add to it - again remembering my table lessons - lead is soluble in mercury so it could only be used with cast iron or concrete. Using either would have the mercury absorbed in the pores of the projectile and make handling as well as firing hazardous. No offense but that doesn't sound like my idea of a good time.
RecoilRob
Member
When I was a little kid my friend down the streets Dad worked at Westinghouse and he had a bucket of mercury in the garage. Why? Can't say...but it WAS fun to play with! We knew we shouldn't eat it or if we had an open wound on a hand not to stick it in....but floating various things that obviously wouldn't float on water was pretty neat. Have no idea where the Civil War shooter guys got their bucket-O-mercury, but it didn't seem out of the normal to me at the time. The one guy also had kegs of black powder to feed the cannon in his basement. 250lbs in each corner IIRC....because he didn't feel it was safe to have that much all in one pile.
Oh....if any of you are golfers you can float balls on a concentrated Epsom salt solution and do the same marking at the light point trick. Might be surprising how many top-brand balls will show an obvious imbalance and unless you mark that spot and align it with your target you'll get drifting while in flight or rolling on the greens. I used Dunlop 100's as they were the most consistent floating balls I could find and found they putted true.
250lbs in each corner IIRC....because he didn't feel it was safe to have that much all in one pile.Oh....if any of you are golfers you can float balls on a concentrated Epsom salt solution and do the same marking at the light point trick. Might be surprising how many top-brand balls will show an obvious imbalance and unless you mark that spot and align it with your target you'll get drifting while in flight or rolling on the greens. I used Dunlop 100's as they were the most consistent floating balls I could find and found they putted true.
shoobe01
Member
I'd think that better rockets would be an avenue I'd rather go down than improving a non-rifled ball. Rocketry is legal, as long again as there's no warhead, so that might give some fun. Start with scaled down ones, and/or reduced propellant charges to keep the range onto the model rocket field.
And, some fun in that the Congreve and Hale rockets pressed into service didn't work during the war due to storage wear, so improvised ones were made, and a few used off multiple-launch carriages even. Which is awesome in a few ways, but also means that making up your own design of a 19th c rocket is entirely plausible. Just grow out your sideburns and get a period correct lab coat so you can be a wartime inventor.
And rockets go point first, so some interesting ideas for fusing. We've established radars are a no go, and I suspect lasers (the other option for prox fusing) is not plausible in the mid 19th century either, but standoffs? A big stick out the front so the rocket detonates a few ft in the air to get better (notional) fragmentation?
Also, assembly instead of casting. Bet you could get a hell of a lot better fragmentation by gluing balls (or a continuous rod a la AAMs...) to the casing. Etc.
And, some fun in that the Congreve and Hale rockets pressed into service didn't work during the war due to storage wear, so improvised ones were made, and a few used off multiple-launch carriages even. Which is awesome in a few ways, but also means that making up your own design of a 19th c rocket is entirely plausible. Just grow out your sideburns and get a period correct lab coat so you can be a wartime inventor.
And rockets go point first, so some interesting ideas for fusing. We've established radars are a no go, and I suspect lasers (the other option for prox fusing) is not plausible in the mid 19th century either, but standoffs? A big stick out the front so the rocket detonates a few ft in the air to get better (notional) fragmentation?
Also, assembly instead of casting. Bet you could get a hell of a lot better fragmentation by gluing balls (or a continuous rod a la AAMs...) to the casing. Etc.
Shoobe01 POINTS! Got my old lab coat from when I was a critical care nurse. Got a green one when I did a lot of wood shop stuff. I know I can look up how they made friction fuse but I'd like someone here to teach. Why not hit it instead of pull it? Then it's an impact fuse? OW, I really was hoping that you were going to say something like, "Mercury!!! All you need to do is adjust the space time continuum with a micro blackhole and …." Well, it seems like a simple specific gravity experiment would find something similar to the soft spot. or better yet, just create one. Steel bolt on a side otta due it. Thread it in. shave it round. WaLa! But yeah! A dab of rocketry and some firework tech and who knows?
Officers'Wife
Member
Again, I don't want to say anything that makes it sound like I am encouraging you to annoy the great white father in Washington or even worse, become an accessory before the fact to that annoyance. I have had a person with far more experience with the great white father tell me that annoying the friendly folks at the BATF causes a reaction far greater than the impact of the offense.
As for the other, I've also been told it's not nice to mess with mother nature. Therefore manipulating micro black holes to adjust the space time continuum would also be very rude. You are not implying that I am rude are you? (Picture me with arms crossed and tapping foot.)
George Weingart in his book "Pyrotechnics" has a very good description of the fusing of fireworks rockets as well as the fusing of pyrotechnic "shells". You can get a PDF copy online that may, if not answer your question, give you ideas on a procedure you can modify to work in your case.
RetiredUSNChief
Member
Winged cannonballs did exist, in which "winglets" attached to the ball fit cannon barrel riflings. These came about during the 1860s, later superceded by the advent of the ogival shell.
ThomasT
Member
You know, There are about eight one liners in the same vein as Rodney Dangerfield I can come up with for that line and each one could get me banned from here. So I won't.
I have 6 pounds of Mercury. But its not enough to float a very big ball.I have the full set of Time Life Civil War series books and of them has a section on cannon shells. Its impressive what they had invented for the war. It seems like they had several fused shells but I don't remember the details of what they had.
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