Help ID a little cannon......

[KABAR2]

Someone has put this up on another site trying to Id it, one fellow though it was a Lyle gun............

Sorry no powder can not my photography,  I am thinking home made by the dia. of the trunnions.







 I have asked the owner for measurements it appears that it has a 2 inch bore.

[cannonmn]

I'd say it is a typical 19th C. salute cannon, locally-made one-off.  A common characteristic of these is the muzzle-heaviness.  They may be the only cannon the maker ever made, so they didn't know how to calculate preponderance and that figure always turned out negative for whatever reason, in their designs.

Salute cannons were the only way civilians could make a "bang" on holidays, back in 19th. C.  Loud firecrackers like M80 etc. were not yet available since the pyro formulas involving chlorates and perchlorates had not yet been invented.

The shape of this piece is rather unique, but its function was pretty common.

[KABAR2]

Answer on measurements:

" Dimensions. The bore is 1" ,its approx 15" long, muzzle end diameter is 2 3/4 " breech is 4 " diameter. Hope this helps"


Yeah Cannonmn I think your right, especially since the bore size shrunk so much.

[Cannoneer]

I pretty much agree with what Cannonmn has said about this tube, but it may be even more probable that a privately owned hardware store was responsible for this cast iron salute gun. I've read that in the  latter part of the nineteenth, and into the twentieth century, that hardware stores across the country were having foundries cast these small salute cannons (of many different profiles, and having no markings on them) that were then offered for sale in their stores. If I recall correctly this practice came to an end basically because of incidents where barrels exploded, causing injury to kids that were firing them.