Asking the experts???

[Eyes Of Death]

Ok hears what I ended up with after I cut off the keyways and the multiple steps. She is 36” long 5” at the bottom and 4 Ό “at the muzzle.  Straight 5”, for 18”, 20” from bottom to end of taper then the 4 Ό starts and ends 16” later. So I need some help deciding what bore size to go fore. I live in Texas so my first choice is cola can bore (bigger is better). A reduced powder chamber of cores maybe 1 ½ X 2”. All so maybe a Texas Republic style carriage if there is a difference.

[Double D]

So you wanna make a big bore and a little powder chamber so you can have the best of both worlds.  Bigger is not always better even in Texas.

Have you figured out how you are going to get your 1 1/2 dimaeter cartridge into the powder chamber that is 34 or so inches from the muzzle.

You are very close to golf ball size.

What type of steel are you using?

[GGaskill]

If you drill to 1.719" (1 23/32), you can shoot 1 lb spherical lead balls as well as golf balls.

[Eyes Of Death]

Ok the steel shaft is 1018 I have two of this size and one twice the size. The bigger is 4130 or 4140 it was hard to get a good test on the rounded sides. Standing it up on end was out of the question. D D  I was thinking of making a spring loaded plunger type of device OD would be same as bore and spring loaded plunger the powder chamber size. As the rammer hits the back wall the inner plunger would slide out and push the foil packet of powder in the powder chamber. Sounds easy!!! GB size is also floating around in there to. (That would be my head)

[Don Krag]

I have some pics from the San Jacinto Monument of the cannon they have inside, but it was pretty dark so the carriages are hard to make out.

Where in Texas are you? There's a couple of us here in Bryan/College Station.

[Cat Whisperer]

Ok the steel shaft is 1018 I have two of this size and one twice the size. The bigger is 4130 or 4140 it was hard to get a good test on the rounded sides. Standing it up on end was out of the question. D D  I was thinking of making a spring loaded plunger type of device OD would be same as bore and spring loaded plunger the powder chamber size. As the rammer hits the back wall the inner plunger would slide out and push the foil packet of powder in the powder chamber. Sounds easy!!! GB size is also floating around in there to. (That would be my head)

Consider a design of powder scoop used with cannons with powder chambers:

Loooong scoop - dimeter to fit into powder chamber (make the chamber long enough) that is open on the top for the length of the scoop - fill the scoop insert into powder chamber, rotate 180 degrees dumping the powder.  Alingment is done by having a larger diameter disk or cylinder behind the scoop to ride the bore to center the scoop.  Make sense?  If not I can post a drawing.

I like the idea of aluminum foil wrapped charges too!

[Ex 49'er]

Get a piece of hard copper pipe about 6" longer than your bore and
a  hardwood dowel to use both for forming the foil bag and pushing
it into the chamber. Form the foil around the end of the dowel, pour
powder into foil cylinder, close open end, place bag in tube, place tube
in bore against chamber, push bag through tube into chamber with
dowel and then pull the pipe back out.
This setup can be adapted for any size of powder chamber.

[Victor3]

Get a piece of hard copper pipe about 6" longer than your bore and
a  hardwood dowel to use both for forming the foil bag and pushing
it into the chamber. Form the foil around the end of the dowel, pour
powder into foil cylinder, close open end, place bag in tube, place tube
in bore against chamber, push bag through tube into chamber with
dowel and then pull the pipe back out.
This setup can be adapted for any size of powder chamber.

I'm going to file that idea away for future use on a Mountain Howitzer project. Tip o' the hat to you on that one...

[Eyes Of Death]

 I chickened out on the big bore and went with the GB size bore. I don’t remember the member who talked about using a spade drill and shaft extensions. I would like to thank them fore the idea. It worked well. A few mods and it will be a regular tool I use fore boring. Hears a pix of the set up. It took just under 4 hours to do the 32” bore that includes pull outs to clean chips and switching extensions. It did leave a few rings in the bore. So time fore a reamer I fegerd this would happen and under sized the drill. And looks like the spade drill could do another barrel.

[Cat Whisperer]

COOL BEANS dude!

32" is a deep boring job!

At that depth, especially the first time doing a job like that, expect a few imperfections!  Good to plan on reaming it for a SMOOTH bore.

Keep the pix coming!