Grandpa's mortar

[bigsprings]

I would like to share with you this mortar. This was my grandfathers and it has always been called a mortar. He was born in 1899 and I have no history of where he got it from. I received this along with his firearms when he passed in the early 90's. My late father always told the story of how grandpa would have horning parties and this was what he would bring.For those who don't know a horning party was held on wedding nights for the respective newlyweds. In the day and age of not living together before marriage, I guess that first night was " special". That's when grandpa would arrive in the dark of night and " Pack it full of powder, light the fuse and run like hell" . I guess this surely interrupted the goings on in the house. This is the family history of what I've received. I would like to know if any of you could shed some insight as to the age style, history etc. of this. Any help would be appreciated. The dimensions are as follows: 9 3/4 tall, 3 1/2 inches wide at the base, 3 1/4 wide at the barrel and a 1 3/8 bore. The bottom is concave and there is a touch hole in the breech. I'm not sure of the two countersunk holes although there seems to be a milled out sight line . Here are some pics, I lost the first post due to file size. Thanks in advance, Jason

[cannonmn]

That's what is usually called a Thunder Mug.  I doubt it was made from scratch as one, since the shape is very atypical.  The real purpose-made mugs usually have a wide base cast integral, so they will remain upright.  They also almost always taper down toward the top, and yours is opposite.  I suspect he found a piece of machinery which could be readily made into a noise cannon, and did it by drilling a vent.

[KABAR2]

If you note the key slot and the two dimples on this I believe this was part of some shafting for a large machine
it was cut off and bored out giving it new purpose in celebration. your grandfather may have made this himself,
do you know what he did for a living?

[bigsprings]

 I know he ran a Mobiloil gas station, and also dealt in antiques. I dont htink he had the equipment to machine that though. Most of the tools from the estate were wooodworking. I agree with the shafting, It is very heavy and may indeed be from some machinery. Rail car axle? I will get to making a ramrod, brush and cleaning swab for it. Other than the pitting, there are no cracks or signs of stress. I may give it a try this summer. What do you use for a wad over the powder? Thanks again, Jason

[Rickk]

For that size bore any serious amount of wadding is probably unnecessary. I couple of disks cut from corrogated cardboard on top of the powder charge may improve the boom performance somewhat.

Going beyond that and you may get yourself into trouble as the wall thickness is a bit on the thin side of accepted safety guidlines and you don't know much about the material or process that it was made from.



Rick

[Double D]

I would recommend against firing it all together.  For all you know it's a chunk of cast Iron.  Keep it as a memory of you Grandfrather.

This reminds meof the chuck of fragement for the Thurston Cannon explosion, that killed a kid.