I have been shooting cannons, but not very well for over 20 years, mostly not well. When I got to South Africa, I hooked up with the South African Minature Cannon Club and learned how to realy shoot a cannon.
My first shoot had me shooting the late Mike Pilgram's Napolean. Here's Mike aiming his gun in.
Take a close look. Notice the muzzle flare. It's the same diameter as the cascabel. Those are your sight elements The barrel is quite long-longer sight radius.
Mike is also shooting his gun off a platform . Not only does it raise the gun more in line with your eye the platform also provides a solid base for the gun to shoot from. Trust me when I say you need a solid base. The SAMCC guys learned a long time ago, that the platform is more accurate to fire from than the ground.
You've seen this picture before, it's me making my first run at the club.
Here is the target from my first shoot. This was shot from Mikes gun. I now shoot the club gun and haven't even come close.
Here is the firing line
All guns are loaded on the line. Just like any muzzleloading game every body has their own technique. Some use the club furnished wads and balls, others use patches and ball.
Once all guns are loaded the Range offcier moves down the line and fires the guns using a linstock. No fuses. The priming powder is a combination of fine grained fast burning smokeless rifle and pistol powders. FFFFG would work, but in South Africa you don't get choice, you get black powder. Call the magazine and tell them you need a kilo of powder, then drive out to the magazine and they give you a kilo of what ever they have. No Choice.
There is one more trick. Here is the revision.
Placing your target. First you should have the barrel on your gun about level. Place your gun on your shooting platform. Then place your target so that it is in your line of sight while laying behind the gun. If you have to strain to look down the barrel you won't get a consistent sight picture.
Then of course sighting. We've covered this before, but I am going to do it again.
Pick a sighting point. 6 o'clock is a good place to start.
For elevation align the top of the cascabel with the muzzle ring at 6 o'clock on target.
Next for windage note where and how far to the right of the vertical center line the 3 o'clock of the cascabel and muzzle ring align.
Fire and adjust.
To adjust for elevation move your point of aim from 6 o'clock the distance the shot is above or below the desire point of impact.
Adjust for windage by moving the 3 o'clock position away from the first vertical reference point equidistance in the opposite direction the shot is right or left of the of the reference point.
Fire
