Today GB mortars loaded with Fox Balls and simple shells whizzed over and smacked into the high plains 90 miles north of Denver, Colorado. They had to compete with small arms fire, but managed to hold their own and were much easier on the ears. Gary Lorenz let us take his really nice bronze GB mortar up there, but unfortunately he came with it.
After we found out he had $ for gas, he was much easier to tolerate.
We will try to get a movie we took of the firing of a 'Special' projectile out of Gary's bronze mortar posted tomorrow if possible. We managed to get a couple in-focus pics of T&M's Mallet's Mortar Jr. firing solid steel Fox balls in slow-mo.
Mike and Tracy
Gary's beautiful bronze mortar is a product of his creative mind and our Mallet's Mortar was inspired by the largest functional mortar, 36" bore, that the British ever developed in the Nineteenth century. The original is located today in the UK at Fort Nelson. Ours is a 1:21 scale re-creation, built for fun, authentic in most details.
You can see here that they have, indeed, been fired.
Do you see that puff of smoke going horizontally toward the camera? We made the vent that way just like the original. You must be aware of that during firing to avoid injury.
We caught this steel ball just as it emerged from the tube. The movie was filmed at 300 FPS.
What you see here is actually the fifth frame of a 300 FPS movie. There were 3 frames of 'Blow-By' and vent smoke, then one muzzle flash with ball right at the muzzle similar to the photo above this one, and the fifth frame that you see immediately below:
While I diligently practiced with our GB mortar, Mike played with his .310 Cadet Martini. Nice scope mount, Mike!
Tomorrow we hope to post a very special movie of Gary's mortar firing a simple shell golf ball.
