Gary and Blaster, You guys are still more than welcome to join us for the little 750 mile jaunt up to Cut Bank, MT. It should be fun, a good chance to get acquainted or reminisce about adventures of days gone by.
What we really need now is some suggestions as to which type of projectile to make for the big French Mortar, the half scale Paixhans Mortar of 1832. The original had a 23.62" bore dia. and was basically a large cylinder of cast iron which was bored out from solid. We are thinking of either a 5 gallon Water Jug filled with concrete or a 15" beach ball (sold at K-Mart) also filled with concrete. Here's why: we have a 2.5 caliber section of low-carbon, 12" ID, 1/2" wall, tube or a 6 caliber section of low-carbon, 15" ID, 1/2" wall, tube available to us at our favorite full service scrap yard. Anybody have any ideas which way we should go here? The 10.67" dia. jug will weigh about 180 lbs. and the 15" ball, about 140 lbs. We will start a new thread soon, so as not to get too far off this Montana Shoot topic, but a few ideas to get us started would be nice here.
Thank you gentlemen,
Mike and Tracy