Thread: Something to do of an evening

A few of my mates got together to fire off this 1/3 scale 32lb cannon, 23drachms of FFG and a half pound ball, hit the tree at a 150 yds !!
Cheers

How old is the cannon? Sounds like fun.

SWEET little cannon! I love the way you've got 'er rigged.

FFG? FFS!!!

FG ought to make her bark like BIG dog. FFG and I bet she ROARS!!

Ain't fired this beast in 10 years.




It's "safety cannon" designed to fire a line to or from a ship in distress. The weight weighs about 15lbs!. It'll shoot a Coors beer can full of concrete into the next county.

TOO damn much "civilization" around me now to shoot it.

Yuppies have no sense of humor.

My friends dad used to have a cannon like that, we would take it to home highschool football games and fire it off whenever we got a touchdown. We packed it with newspapers to get good concussion.

Originally Posted by Wullie

SWEET little cannon! I love the way you've got 'er rigged.

FFG? FFS!!!

FG ought to make her bark like BIG dog. FFG and I bet she ROARS!!

Ain't fired this beast in 10 years.




It's "safety cannon" designed to fire a line to or from a ship in distress. The weight weighs about 15lbs!. It'll shoot a Coors beer can full of concrete into the next county.

TOO damn much "civilization" around me now to shoot it.

Yuppies have no sense of humor.

4th of July is coming up and then you wont have an excuse. Some friends of mine bought a Civil War howitzer(repro) and damned if that thing werent fun! It could kill some trees!

G'day you blokes, I cannot seem to post a video of it going off on this site !! You bet it does roar, everyone seems to wet their pants when it goes off, blew the side out of a gum tree the size of a foot ball !! iffen you want to see the video PM me

cheers

Heelerau Ps that is a nice little gun Wullie, and I cannot fire mine at home, have to go to a mates farm as it is far to loud !!

That is so awesome! Must be a blast to fire.

Originally Posted by heelerau

A few of my mates got together to fire off this 1/3 scale 32lb cannon, 23drachms of FFG and a half pound ball, hit the tree at a 150 yds !!
Cheers

Edward Teach would have been proud of ya !

WHen I lived way out in the wilds of Jack County, TX my closest neighbor was a bit over a mile away as the crow flies. I had a 25lb keg of FG and I'd torch that thing off whenever I got in the mood.

One evening a buddy of mine and I were WAY deep into a tequila bottle and tired of solving the worlds problems and cussing politicians so I stoked her up. I'd usually put about 1/8th of pound of powder in it and like the gent above said, ram some newspapers down on the powder and let her beller. I got a bit carried away that night and I think I ended up with close to a half pound of powder in it. The cannon was about 30 feet off the side of the house and aimed off toward my gripy old neighbor. I figured a 0200 wake up would be about right so I lit the fuze, stepped back aways and got ready for the show.

The fuze burned down and SHE ROARED!!

It WAS a show. I'd bet fire flew out that barrel for 30 feet or more. The ground shook! The gun was a few feet back from where it started and both of us thought we'd done quite well.

We called it a night, and when I went into the house, I had two clocks that had been on the wall that were now on the floor along with about half the other crap that wasn't firmly attached to the wall nearest the cannon. Didn't hurt either of the old clocks which was a good thing and the rest of the junk got put back from whence it came.

As advertised, the next day, my old neighbor was griping and wondering what I'd blown up at 2AM. I told him wasn't me and he probably broke wind and his wife nailed him the pillow. He wasn't buying that version.
Bless his heart.

As expensive and hard to get as BP is these days, the old gun just sits mostly. I'm saving my FFG and FFFFG for my flinter in case I have to do some rapid fire at two rounds a minute to repel a zombie invasion.

Serving a gun in a reenactment is a blast! I've crewed on mountain howitzers and a six pounder, mostly using 4 ounce loads, about 1/4 wartime charges. They have a nice chest thumping concussion.
At the 125th Gettysburg reenactment my infantry unit lay prone about 30 feet in front of a battery of 12 pounders, if I recall correctly, and we were bounced when they ripped loose. Definitely not safe and I'm still a bit unsure of why they fired over us.
The most impressive shots I have seen were the dusk firing of 2 original 32 pounders at a state historical fort with flames jetting about 30 feet and a whale of a good chest thumping. Don't know what the charge was but they wadded it with mown grass.