The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

before i start please may i just state i am not building one at the moment, well yet anyway. this discussion is theory based acadeemia and thats all

under the shotgun license rules a shot gun is a smooth bored tube under 2" and longer than 26", and because of that rule i can own a cannon within those rules on my shotgun license

so lets work out some details please

first up a 2" lump of lead weighs 1.7lb in old english and in french thats 770gm. so how much powder do you stick behind it, i hear of 4lb cannon and 6lb cannon and 12lb cannon but i have never heard of a 1.7lb cannon. also theres nothing stopping you added 10 kilos behind it so what governs the size of ball and the size of powder used for it, is there some form of guide book or rule book on the design of cannons? also we are talking SHOTGUN LOADS HERE so that means multipul shoots not single solid lumps, but for now i shall rerefer to a load as a combined weight


the reason for that question is of course once you know what size charge is the respected norm the next point has to be what thickness of metal do you need to hold that charge in place. or as they say in the cannon world " does my breech look big in this"



without knowing what charge i am dealing with i cant work out any basics like cannon material, barrel sizes weight or even lesser bores, 45mm or 30mm and without those i can work out carraige shapes and forms either

is there anyone that can explain my paper work theory cannon to me please

try

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=black ... 80&bih=708

Have a look on Dixie gun works website.
I do have a book on traditional canons - may have some data in it.
You could ask Andy Allwood (allwoods stocks and mouldings) as he did have some for sale when he was an RFD a few years back.
I think they were made in France.
I believe there is a UK miniature canon society maybe part of MLAGB?

Its 24" minimum barrel length so you can go a bit shorter if required

mag41uk wrote:Have a look on Dixie gun works website.
I do have a book on traditional canons - may have some data in it.
You could ask Andy Allwood (allwoods stocks and mouldings) as he did have some for sale when he was an RFD a few years back.
I think they were made in France.
I believe there is a UK miniature canon society maybe part of MLAGB?

many thanks mag41 and the others for the reply, yes i have seen the miniture cannons but of course there FAC not shot gun licensed, i have eft a post on the NCAGB forum and oa few other places but their all busy blowing up stuff they have not replied yet,

i would like to know the name and author of that book so i can try to hunt down a copy

as for the link with cannon plans i have all ready printed off most of those all ready. i see there must be some form of design criteria that does bore size to loading but i have yet to work that out.


woud there be a difference between single load and multipuls , the thinking is that a single round ball has less gas passing around it than a collection of balls that would allow more gas to pass, or is that taken care of by a decent gas seal behind it in the breech

bigger bang wrote:
under the shotgun license rules a shot gun is a smooth bored tube under 2" and longer than 26", and because of that rule i can own a cannon within those rules on my shotgun license

As a member of the Sealed Knot, I used to have a small cannon on my shotgun license. It was built so it could be taken apart and all fitted in the back of my Ford Sierra. Still being used in the SK I think.

I have this idea that a rule of thumb (And this may well be total BS) for a cannon ball charge was.....place your ball on a flat surface, then slowly pour your blackpowder over the ball - you keep pouring until a perfect cone is formed - that's your charge.

Another rule of thumb seems to be powder charge 1/3 of ball weight.

All the measured data shown in the tables above used a charge weight of 1/3 the round shot weight. This was the standard service charge from 1760 onward. Earlier, the service charge was 1/2 the shot weight. The powder was of lesser quality and the windage greater, so ranges achieved would not have been that much greater than the figures above.

and here's something I've never hear before:
Footnote:
One of the reasons put forward for the international agreement that territorial waters extend 3 nautical miles from the coast, is that 3 nm was the maximum range of shore battery guns. The accuracy of this assertion can be tested using the software. 3 nm is 6076 yards, it is just possible to achieve this range by using a 64 lb gun with a long barrel (21 calibre) fired with a charge of 64 lb of powder (3 times the normal service charge) at an elevation of 41°, even then the gun must be mounted about 300 ft above the water to achieve the 6076 yd range.

http://www.ncagb.com/powder.html