Double D. we sure do envy you, getting to meet all these fine GBO members as you cross the country. But we are becoming a bit apprehensive about the possibility of receiving a hefty bill from you for all this Krupp promotion. Whether you bill us or not, we sure do appreciate your efforts. It will make selling all those hundreds of $29.95 Chinese-made copies so much easier!
Thanks to everyone for your kind comments. To keep everyone happy and in good humor we are redoubling our efforts to get the last few howitzers regulated and spent the whole day Saturday out at or prairie range shooting small arms and Gary's cannon and then tried to duplicate his house to house shot (across a suburban street-long range).
Neither Mike nor believed that he could get 90 feet our of his new Krupp. We were wrong, he did just that with the miniscule charge of only 3.8 grains of powder. That's 1,842 shots per can of powder! To keep his neighbor friendly, Gary rotated the gun 90 degrees and after waiting for a couple cars to go by, he proved to us that 30 yards was not just possible, but expected! The first cracker flew out to that range so quickly that we didn't see it go, just saw the flash and puff of smoke way down the street. He did other shots with similar results.
About cleaning, a helpful hint from Gary who has tons of experience firing Krupp and other firecracker cannons, is to thoroughly clean and then dry after 15 to 20 shots. With the Krupp, you can keep those close tolerance parts like the sliding and rotating breech block moving after 6 shots by doing a partial cleaning with tap water on a Q-tip swab. Gary also found that if you ignore a thorough cleaning after 15 or 20 shots that BP residue can pile up at the ends of those milled grooves in the breech block, limiting rotation of the breech block to less than the 90 degrees required. He found that a rotation of 75 to 80 degrees resulted in a misalignment of the capped nipple and the striker tip, causing the striker to impact the breech block at the edge of the nipple recess (threaded hole). This results in a failure to fire, because the cap is not struck and also has the potential to slightly damage the breech block where it is impacted. Take Note: This
Will Not Happen if you clean your cannon regularly.
We received some valuable packaging advice from Dominick Carpenter, who has shipped hundreds of cannon, similar in size and weight to our Krupp, all over the United States. We really appreciate his willingness to share proven methods with us and wish him much success with his new line of finely made and good looking 'Cheroot Cane Guns'.
In our spare time we are preparing a very simple diarama of the Northern coast of Germany in 1870, seen through the eyes of a French spy ship as intelligence officers in the French Navy studied the coast for possible bombardment and amphibious assault.
Tracy and Mike
