those lil mortars, pop real good if

[wallyW]

the york cannon mania mortar, the load has to be tight, so patch it if you have to ,35 grains will make it bang with a tight patch,

[Double D]

Ahh, that sounds like the voice of experience speaking...tell us more

[wallyW]

Ahh, that sounds like the voice of experience speaking...tell us more

------- lil short barrel things need a load of weight, or resistance  in order to have time to build pressure in the barrel and expell the load, just dont get carryed away with the  amount of force on the patched projectile, that is why  on a rifle there is such a thing as a bullet starter, once it is compressed it will slide down the bore better Mortars of bigger cal. and longer barrels work best with less powder, my  beercan mortars have a bore of 2".620 dom the can is app, 2".600,not much of any  windage as they say no need for a patch on these, with a load of 2 pounds or more the best performance comes ,, the more the load weight the longer time in the barrel and more pressure gets built up ,the longer it flys with less powder     more of the same goes for 16oz cans, so i use course bulders sand and water for the load, i never have split a can,  they sort of split when they hit the ground or a tree or the the ?target? going to try concrete filled someday , sand is cheep and easy ,  clean the barrel ,, CLEAN THE BARREL,

[John N]

My little Yorktown isn't too impressive when firing C-cell batteries, but then a battery's mass is much less than a lead round ball. One thing in the battery's favor is that they are easy to find and reuse. I have found that Duracell batteries are a tighter fit than most other brands, but the best downrange distance that my Yorktown throws a Duracell is about 75 feet (35-40 grain 1Fg).

As far as cement filled beer or soda cans I found the process fairly easy. I even used concrete instead of cement and didn't enlarge the cans' openings. Of course it took some hand feeding to clear some of the larger pebbles, but it took less than a hour to fill 33 cans using up a 60 pound bag of concrete. And that includes cleaning the cans after filling them up. The results were impressive - very solid, heavy projectiles. I fired one towards my 20 acre woods and the can took out a fairly sizeable branch high up in a large tree some 80 yards downrange. Never found the can however.