Mortar Bingo

[lance]

  BINGO!!! after loading horse apples in the Dictator so Tim could get a pic for Walk the Walk. and after last weeks 75 bouncing balls episode, well, i figured Dom might just come down here and take the Dictator away from me ........anyway today was a nice afternoon for playing Bingo again. i know you guys thought i went overkill with the stakes, but i know horses, didn't work as you can see from the pics. i thought they might "only" take out one row of ribbon, boy, was i wrong!!! I'm thankful they left the stakes, and hoping Terry C will let my score count. i have another roll of ribbon,kinda saving it for any guests that might come over and shoot cement............. using the Dictator mortar made by Dom of Carpenter Replica Artillery, I fired a total of 22 golfballs. 3 short of the grid, 1 over the grid, 18 hits with 3 in the bonus square. I would fire a few and go look,doing this several times to make sure i  filled in a row for Bingo. i didn't call bonus, cause i was having fun and wanted to keep shooting till a row was filled. Thanks again to Terry C for making mortar Bingo a fun game to play. the two pics are front and back view of the grid, or what's left of it.......

[seacoastartillery]

     CONGRATULATIONS LANCE!!  We knew you could do it.  Looking at what your naughty horses did to your grid, we can understand the seasonal aiming pumpkin which looks like a great idea.  You know Mike and I were wondering why Dom didn't do what you were worrying about.  He's not too far away in PA, you know.   

     Did you do something notably different or did it rain and soften the ground?

Way to go!

Mike and Tracy

[lance]

 Thanks Mike and Tracy, I had to do some tweaking, plus we finally got some rain after a whole month without it. But!!! I would like to think it was my mortar shooting skills that allowed me to say BINGO.

[Tropico]

  I have been appreciating this thread and the other thread for some time now ! and everytime I hear or see photos of the horse apples and hear about firing them., or using them for sabots or wadding., it makes me laugh and giggle. I am sure alot of you do not know I own a rooter service., and the fact is this thread has brought a smile amongst several faces in our office . COOL BEANS guys !

[Double D]

Ah  Tropico....you aren't thinking...ya know I don't think your cannon will work very well for clearing tree roots out of sewer lines!!!

I think I would stick with Bingo.

[lance]

  I have been appreciating this thread and the other thread for some time now ! and everytime I hear or see photos of the horse apples and hear about firing them., or using them for sabots or wadding., it makes me laugh and giggle. I am sure alot of you do not know I own a rooter service., and the fact is this thread has brought a smile amongst several faces in our office . COOL BEANS guys !

  Tropico, here's the pic Tim took of me loading the horse apple. i'm tough, no gloves the least ya could do is print it out and hang it in your office............. remember folks! horse apples among other things are not allowed in mortar Bingo, check the rules that Terry C set up.

[seacoastartillery]

     Anybody going to take advantage of the Month long deadline extension to participate in Terry C.'s very well thought out, and FUN to do, contest?  Fortunately the December 1st deadline is on a Saturday, which means that those of you who hinted that you might be interested still have a full 24 hours of "Time Off" to get out of the house and get some fresh air, well maybe not so fresh, with the blackpowder smoke and all.  Take some time to recharge the batteries, yours, that is.  It's a great attitude adjuster!!

Have some fun!

Mike and Tracy

I think they are going for a 'side match' challenge, Lance.

But yeah, game is open to any caliber, firing any ammo that conforms to this section of the rules:

Only one projectile (of a commonly accepted construction method) of the proper caliber will be fired at a time.  No unconventional, unsafe, or illegal ammunition (such as explosive or incendiary bombs) is allowed. To simplify these rules, from this point forward all projectiles will be referred to as balls, even those made from soda cans, PVC pipe, etc.

And of course these rules still apply:

No baskets of stones or metal shards.
No preheated shot, boiling oil or tar, or molten metals.
No Greek Fire or any other chemical incendiary.
No dead, diseased animal carcasses or parts thereof.
No bees, wasps, scorpions, or other stinging insects.
No fecal matter (sorry Tim & Lance).

Otherwise, anything goes.

We need some concrete shooters. We've already had golfballs and big iron shot, we need to see some concrete fly!

New deadline is December 1, 2007.

[Don Krag]

If the weather cooperates and I get time to make some projectiles, we'll be doing it Friday. I fly out again  to northern AZ this weekend, so it'll be a week after before I get any pics up though.

[Don Krag]

Well, I had to stay a bit in AZ, so we didn't get to do any bingo shoot'n until yesterday. It was raining off and on and windy. We started with a 15-20 mph southwest wind, switching to a northerly 15-20 mph wind. Really makes adjusting for drift difficult. Add to that, we changed powder brands halfway through. I was shocked at how much of a difference that can make. We were lobbing 11-14lb concrete slugs. These were cast in small plastic flowerpots and weren't cylindrical. Depending how they leaned as they exited the barrel made a huge difference in spin/tumble and where they ended up! Dennis' range is set up for 75 yards, but he'd been dumping dead skunks at the end, so I set up a 25' square bingo board 5 yards less. This made the "board roughly 60-70 yards in range with 5' squares. After 2 1/2 lbs of powder and a range resembling the lunar landscape, we gave up. That...and I had to head home to meet my son at the house since his school bus was coming. Even not getting more than a few squares on the board after over a dozen shots, it was more fun than I've had in a long time. Got some good video and great still shots from it!

I slapped together a quick 2x4 base, which surprisingly held up. It flexed a bit on the last "orbital" shot, but the 70 yard shots were pretty low charge. We were shooting at about a 60* angle, which made for good fun watching the concrete rain down, but just added to the wind issues. I love the reaction to the last shot in the video. I didn't let Dennis know I had just dropped 3oz in until after it went off. We never could find the slug. It's a couple hundred yards out in the tree line behind the field now. We heard a tree limb snap, but still couldn't find it.

Here's a few still shots. The video link is after, but sometimes it takes a day for it to be accessible on youtube.








Video link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ucw7iU6Ea8

[seacoastartillery]

     Don, those are great stills!!  Can't wait to see the video.  WOW, truly medieval, flaming flower pots!  Wasn't that a standard munition back in the 15th or 16th century?  Do you know any food can that would be a good fit?  Is the bore diameter 6 inches?  Looks like a 3 lb. coffee can is just a tiny bit over that size.  You made a great looking tube; any idea when the carriage will be unveiled?

Thanks for posting!

Tracy and Mike

[Don Krag]

The video is up and running and the link is there at the bottom of the pics. I'm hoping Santa's elves can finish up a Canon Rebel XTi with macro and zoom lenses by Christmas so I can have some really nice pics after out New Year's party.

I can actually see how much blowby there is watching the video frame by frame. The coffee cans are a couple mm too big, but I might make a mold out of one since the inner size should be perfect. We ended up stripping the plastic off the flower pots and just using the concrete, anyway. There was one that fit really well that we used over and over until it hit in some wet soft ground in the high grass and disappeared forever. I thought about getting some 6" hemispheres from King Architectural Metals and trying some spherical concrete casting. Paint them with tool dip or epoxy paint and they should work well...maybe even make some wooden sabots for them.

I cut all the oak sections to be made into the spokes and have patterns for the fellows. I'm making 60" British pattern wheels which are the correct ones for the piece. I still keep in periodic contact with the British museum guys and they've been a big help with dimensions. I'll be finishing out the axle the week after Christmas, then I have to go back out to Tuba City, AZ for a week or two. I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of January, though. I can't wait to have a wheeled carriage and trailer as opposed to hefting a 230 lb hunk on and off a tailgate!!! I have a smaller medieval carriage for a separate project in the works as well.

[Terry C.]

Don, great pictures and video! I'm looking forward to seeing that mortar on its carriage when you are done.

I especially like that 'orbit' shot!


Well, this game has run its course and it's time to declare a winner. We've had golf balls, iron balls, and cement filled flower pots.


Based on the scoring guidelines set forth in the rules, the winner of the first GBO Mortar BINGO Challenge is (drumroll)...


Mike and Tracy from Seacoast Artillery Company, with their South Bend Replica's one-half scale 8", 1797 Mortar. Great shooting!


This is the end of this match, but not the end of BINGO. The rules are there and anyone can play at any time, for any reason. Or no reason at all. Just get out and do it!

[seacoastartillery]

     Thanks Terry.  We sure did have a lot of fun participating in this contest and we hope that other mortar shooters might give it a try, because it's a really good way to see exactly what your mortar will do. 

Regards,

Mike and Tracy