There can't be another one, can there?

[cannonmn]

This thing weighs about 75 lbs.  The two wooden spoked wheels fell off long before I got it.  The carriage looks 20thy C. to me, has some arc welds underneath, but age of barrel etc, I don't know.

It fires 12 ga. black powder blank shotgun shells.  The way it works now is there's a bronze block, spring loaded, that can be pushed down to clear the breech opening.  You push the shell down so the block goes down, then push the shell into the chamber.  The block comes up under spring tension.  Then you cock the hammer back until the sear holds it, using a removeable lever.  The firing pin runs through the falling block.  Then pull a lanyard attached to the trigger lever under the breech.  There may have been a cartridge extractor at one time, but not now.  The floor plate looks like it had something in it, maybe either an extractor actuator or something to operate the block from outside the cannon.  I will  take it off some day and see what may have been there.

The top carriage can recoil over the bottom carriage about two inches.  There are both recoil and counterrecoil springs inside the two steel tubes.

So are there more of these out there or is this "the one?"

http://s17.photobucket.com/albums/b62/cannonmn/miscforumsetc/forums25/?action=view&current=1f3f2fc0.pbw

[Cannoneer]

Cannonmn,

 This one fascinates me, I've never seen the like of it before. I know this is just pure speculation, but if I had to make a guess I'd say that this was scratch built by a good machinist/gunsmith who was satisfying his own imagination in designing it; at least I've never seen a similar breech mechanism made by Strong, Brown, Lavigne et al., not that I've seen a whole slew of these guns. Why is there such a dearth of sites with information on these salute cannons on the internet?

[cannonmn]

I'd agree, probably a one-off machinist project.

The rsn there aren't more sites with salute gun info is that there aren't that many people really interested in it, and probably fewer people who own the things anymore.  I was really surprised at the section on them in the latest Flayerman, just generic info on Strong, but the values they gave, I'd like to be able to buy at.  I think they said a fairly large Strong breechloader should be about $1500.  Bring 'em to me!