Friend's cannon hunting trip way down south

[cannonmn]

A friend took a trip way down south to study cannons.  He found lots and lots, and send me pix.  I selected some I found especially curious, mostly stuff I've never seen before, and put them into this slideshow.  My friend has the pix copyrighted and encoded with a security feature so please don't publish them.  I actually added the text with his copyright words to put them here, it was easiest way to convey the copyright since when you just look at the bare photo you can't see the proprietary encoding that's been done already.

Here is the copyright holder's statement as to any use of these photos:  "For research purposes these photos can be used and shared without permission but it is unlawful to use these photos for commercial purposes, or copy the entire contents of the disc, without first obtaining the written permission of CannonRest."

I have no idea what the little bronze breechloader with the conical breech is all about, if anyone knows please tell me.

There are two eccentric breech guns here, the green one clearly antique, unfortunately incomplete but that lets you see the innards.  The other is a modern 65mm mountain gun made by ABS, the same French firm that made a whole lot of French 75mm guns M1897, which also had the eccentric breech of course.  The third member of that "family" is the one-pounder infantry gun, famously used by the USMC and US Army during WWI to take out German machine gun positions.   

Then there's a big Blakely rifle, looks pregnant!  The wrought-iron Armstrong that apparently spent some tiem submerged is quite a sight.  I've never seen a hollow spherical langridge round like the one shown, looks pretty wicked!

I put in some pix of the studded shells for good measure, this was known as the "Beaulieu system" after the inventor.  It was very widely used in Europe and Asia from the 1860's thru as late as 1890's in some places.  The Beaulieu 4-pounder rifled gun was introduced into the French Army in 1858.

The very long slender Whitworth may be the only survivor of its type, I've never seen another muzzle-loading Whitworth like that, although one breechloader that closely resembles it except for the breech, has survived.

You can stop any photo by clicking on it, then if you want a larger image, click on it again (and again.)

http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/forums24/?action=view&current=8ba06ec2.pbw

[Victor3]

 Great pics. I'll take the shiney black one with three wheels, please 

 If I ever get it together and make a breechloader, I think I'll go with an eccentric. I don't think I've seen a design with a better combination of easy manufacture, user-friendliness and strength in any other antique cannon.

[cannonmn]

This is what the friend who took the photos says about the green-painted eccentric-breech gun:

The original idea for the eccentric breech was made by Lieut. Col. Clay, who was Superintendent of the Mersey Iron Works, Liverpool.  The Clay guns were made in the early 1860s.  Peru bought several of them and, like nearly all of that country's artillery, they were removed to Chile after the War of the Pacific.  The only known survivor is the 3-inch gun as shown in pics C0493-C0517.  Two were imported by the Confederacy. one of which was in the West Point collection until a dim-witted officer contributed it to a metal scrap drive.    Unfortunately, the gun could not be effective as a bag gun, note the rectangular hole cut under breech for the escape of excess gases.

That may be why part of the breech is missing on this one, too much gas escaping blew the rear part of the breech housing off.

[cannonmn]

I just looked at my pix taken of all the West Point cannons ca. 1986, and there's a large eccentric-breech cannon outside on one of those long rows of cannon barrels.  It has a brass plaque on it in addition to the cast brass number plate, so that will have a description.  I can't read the plaque at all in my pic, way to far away.  If anyone has the text of the plaque on WP trophy no. 382, please let me know what it says.  I'll bet that's the captured Clay cannon.

[cannonmn]

The West Point Descriptive Catalogue of Trophy, Obsolete and Experimental Cannon (1914) describes Trophy No. 189 as follows: 

3-inch Clay wrought-iron breech-loading rifled field gun.   Captured at Danville, Virginia, April 27, 1865.  Patented by Lieutenant Colonel Clay of the Mersey Steel and Iron Co., Liverpool, England.  The underside of the breech is enlarged to receive a screw-plug whose diameter is a little over twice that of the bore; a hole in the plug forms, when the latter is unscrewed half a turn, a continuation of the bore, through which the charge is inserted.

[cannonmn]

There's a description of the Clay breechloader on this page, and a drawing of the mechanism on the next:

http://tinyurl.com/9cqdvd