South African Miniature Cannon Club-October 2007

[Double D]

My Friend  SMLE303 was down from  VA and I took him to the Cannon Club shoot. He had never shot cannons before.  He got all shoots on paper.  Which is better than me as two of my shot where never fired. Gotta put powder in before the ball.

[seacoastartillery]

     Double D,  don't feel too bad; Mike and I forgot to use the powder bag punch before inserting a fuse at the New River Valley Cannon Shoot in Floyd, Va.  The aluminum foil did it's job perfectly.  It kept the red-hot fuse flame from lighting the powder.  Egg on our faces for sure!!

     More beautiful pics; thank you.

Regards,

Tracy and Mike

[Terry C.]

Gotta put powder in before the ball.

Ah, yes, "dryballing."

Been there, done that.


How did you get the balls out? I know that some of the balls at these shoots are patched and tight in the bore.

When it happened to me with the caplock rifle, I screwed out the nipple and trickled a little powder into the vent hole. Couldn't get much in, maybe a 2-3 grains, but it was enough to pop the patched  ball clear of the muzzle.

My cannonballs are loose enough to dislodge and roll out, so I've never had to resort to any drastic measures to clear the gun.

[lance]

 Great pics Double D, i guess you don't have but a few shoots left to attend, so take as many as you can!!! well, shoots over there anyway

[Cat Whisperer]

     Double D,  don't feel too bad; Mike and I forgot to use the powder bag punch before inserting a fuse at the New River Valley Cannon Shoot in Floyd, Va.  The aluminum foil did it's job perfectly.  It kept the red-hot fuse flame from lighting the powder.  Egg on our faces for sure!!
     More beautiful pics; thank you.
Regards,
Tracy and Mike

I thought we chaulked that one up to "RESEARCH".

[seacoastartillery]

     Ah yes, research.  Well Tim, we certainly have done our share of that.  Safety is always our primary concern and each time we leave the range with all fingers still attached, we consider it a successful shoot. 

     We have heard quite a bit about sighting and some about powder charge, but relatively little about the ball, regarding those shot by the members of the SAMCC.  Are they ALL lead?  Any ball bearings being shot?  Are the sprues removed on the lead balls?  Are some swaged, (i.e., without sprues).  Are some rolled between steel plates to near perfect roundness?
And finally, how many members use patches, if any?  If so, what type?  Dry or wet?  Material?

Regards,

Mike and Tracy

[Double D]

Cast lead balls sprue and all felt wads provided by the club.  Some use patches of what ever material works they can find.  I have been using US commercial made pillowing ticking of late.  My friend gave so locally made lubed patches and I tried them this morning.



First shot  7 o'clock  6 ring, send shot  5  o'clock 6 ring, third shot 9 o;clock 3 ring.  Back to dry patches for the final three shots.

Here is my second target.



Was good enough with my Handicap to be high shooter and bring home the trophy.

Anybody good at reading patches?

Outside



Inside

[seacoastartillery]

     Double D,   thanks for the info.  No, neither Mike nor I ever got into any competition shooting with patched round balls so we do not know how to "read" patches.  What information do they convey to you?  We are just trying to get some idea of what to shoot that will be accurate out of our smooth-bore 100 Pdr. tube.  For cannon balls we are thinking about getting a mold to cast a diameter that is the Bore Size minus the Patch Material thickness times two.  We wonder if you have to figure the lead shrink factor here or not?


                               Bore Size:     1.000"
                       Pillow Ticking thk.  - .016"  (2 X .008" actual thk.)

                             Ball Diameter     .984"     Is this CORRECT???     Or, are we forgetting something?

Thanks, we haven't shot more than 25 patched balls between us in about 40 years, so any Cannonball size info. would be appreciated very much.

Regards,

Mike and Tracy

[Terry C.]

Shrink factor is measurable in large lead balls. My 1.125" mold actually throws a ball of about 1.118" - 1.120".

I'm not sure how much information a smoothbore patch can give. The way I understand it, 'reading' patches is more of a rifle thing. A good BP rifle shooter can tell from the patch how well the patch/ball is sealing the bore and engaging the rifling.

[Tropico]

Actually I am just the opposite.
I use a .490 roundball and an .010 patch on my  .50 caliber  smoothbore Queen Anne.
A .590 roundball and the same .010 patch on my .60 caliber  smoothbore Ketland Trade Pistol.
8 dimes and  a 1/4 slice of whole wheat bread in my Blunderbuss .
On my rifled .54 caliber lyman I use no patch at all ., the patches really hang and tear up trying to get them down the bore.
Anything I have 1" and up I do not use a patch with.

[seacoastartillery]

     Thanks guys.  Terry C. we are going to allow .004" for lead shrinkage in the .996" diameter cannonball mold we will order.  Tropico, we like the thought of a tight fit like you must have with that .490 ball with a .010 patch which has to compress the patch fabrick .005" per side.  So for the first and hopefully the last mold we will go with, a .996" mold will hopefully cast a ball of .992 +/- .001" or so, which will cause the patch to compress .004" per side, because our pillow ticking patches are .008" thick.  We like the idea of a tight, well centered ball.  Has to be more accurate than a looser patch which might allow some ricochet of the ball off the sides of the tube on the way out.  This cannon tube was made by South Bend Replicas and does have a liner with a properly installed breech plug, so we are not worried at all about raising the pressure a bit with a tight patch.  Fg powder should work just fine for this application.  More reasons to go shooting!  This is why we love cannons so much; it's the endless number of experiments you can do with them. 

Thanks again!

Tracy and Mike

[Double D]

Be sure and buy a 4 lb sledge to drive balls in if you patch them....how do i know....

Try a wood sabot.  Much easier and safer.  Switliks recomends for larger guns