We've been having torrential rains down here and are expected more of the same for this entire week. We moved our BBQ to yesterday since the weather was pretty nice...another 1" of rain early, but clearing the rest of the day. Unfortunately, we couldn't roll out the full scale mountain rifle since the ground was so soft and muddy (I didn't want all my purty grass ripped up
). We did have hours of fun with a coehorn and got to fire the first shots out of my 6" mortar I'm using for the Sikh project. I built a makeshift platform from large concrete slabs, cinderblocks and limestone rocks. We started at 2 oz loads and worked up to around 3.3 oz.
Highlights of the day were the inaugural firing of the cured ham...sure to become an annual event. We found a cured ham in the back of the trailblazer last week that missed getting brought in with the groceries the week before. Cured or not...a week of 100*+ temps in the back of the SUV deemed it unfit. I had to trim it a bit to get it to fit, but it slid ever so slowly down the bore. I used 3 oz and figured the ham would expand and seal the bore. It had an excellent report and it was quite spectacular to see a ham bone spiralling about 200 yards up in the sky. It rained pig fat out over the fields for the next couple minutes as well.
We also discovered a new way to fertilize the fields. A 6" cheapo plastic flower pot (the thin black ones that come with plants) fits perefect down the bore. Filled with sand, it gives just enough backpressure to give a real nice report. I had a bag of weed & feed that got wet and wouldn't work in the spreader, so we launched a pot full with 2.5 oz. Gave an excellent spread and was a whole lot more fun than walking behind a spreader!
The final load was 3.3 oz with about 3lbs of damp sand in a flower pot over top. Mortar recoiled(264 lbs) and cracked one of the thin cinder slabsbeing used as an elevation device in half! Seems like 3 oz is going to be the magic load for when is on a carraige...lots of uumpf and noise but not too much recoil onto the carraige.
I got to fire some maiden shots from some new gonnes as well. I think I got some of the neighbor's hooked on cannons now as well. Although one did inform me that he was out cleaning his stalls when a big one went off and he "almost crapped his pants", but he was polite about it and bore no ill will and even thought it was interesting after we discussed it (the 6" mortar) for a while. I think I will reserve the large bore stuff around here for the 4th and new-years and take it over to a buddy's with a lot more room for other days! The rest of the evening was roman candles and sparklers with all the kids. I got a kick out of one kid. He comes up and asks "Mr Halter, the cannons are cool, but do you have any non-adult fireworks?" They were quite excited to see me pull a case of roman candles from the back of the car.
All I took was video, so I'll have to convert it, edit it down and pull some still shots before I can post pics.
