n-ssa nationals

[rampa room artillery]

any one coming to see the cannons at our nationals and out night cannon fire event?   hope to see some new faces up there,


  rick bryan

[cannonmn]

Rick, I was there for a couple of hours this PM (Saturday.)  I roamed the Sutler village and watched the first cannon relay firing.  I shot some video, kind of a general "sights and sounds" of the cannon match, nothing special, but I plan to edit and post it later this weekend.  I looked for cheap large lead balls, like 0.69-0.75 that would make suitable canister for some of my cannons, but the gent who sold me some quite reasonably last year had no bargains this time.
 
Maybe I'll try and make a gang mold for 0.75 inch dia. lead canister balls.  All I need is a big ball-end mill about that dia. and the rest should be easy.  I probably have such a mill among all the stuff I've saved up, just have to get motivated to look.  I need hundreds of these balls for some tests and I don't have time to sit there for days making them with a single-cavity mold.  Does anyone make a round-ball gang mold in 0.69-0.75 inch dia. that you know of?

[flagman1776]

I would think these molds would be common for lead as muskets are .69 & .75 bores. 

[cannonmn]

Molds are easy to find, but the gang mold I need doesn't seem to be around.  The mold needs to have at least 6 cavities.  Now I'm thinking of making a gang mold that casts short cylinders since it'd be easier to make, only a flat-end-cutting mill would be needed.  I don't think the shape would make a lot of difference in residual velocity at short ranges and the short cylinders would stack a lot better in the projectile.  WWII-and-later US artillery canister ammo used short steel cylinders if I'm not mistaken.