As Gary already told you, it was an excellent day with almost no wind at all which was appreciated as the temp was 47 deg. F., a little brisk. I bet you fellows didn’t know that Safety Rammer testing is a real “High Brow” activity. From the looks of some of the videos, it is. You could see parts of safety rammers pirouetting across the prairie like ballet dancers in the “Nutcracker” and a bit of what Gary wrote about too with his “skip bombing” comment. And in another you have wreckage flying everywhere as in a WWII clip of a plane hit by ack-ack fire.
The Clay Hand got whacked too! You’ll have to watch the videos to see which test firings did this. Don’t be disappointed about this; after each test, I counted every finger on the Clay Hand and found them all to be still attached. A nasty bruise, some black and blue, but you get to keep your fingers! It’s not a bad trade-off.
Lots of info in the pics displayed; take a close look.
Mike & Tracy
11) The gloved “Clay Hand” set-up is the same as before. You can see the interesting “Triangular” or Hook-Slant rifling of the 7” Brooke, 1/6 scale 1.167” Dia. bore if you enlarge this photo a bit.
11b) Got two emails for a better enlargement of the Brooke modified Hook-Slant rifling, so here is one from the original photo.
12) Cannon Fodder
13) Mike convinced me to leave the generator and the lights at home; he promised a bright sunny day. He lied. Fortunately the EX-F1 was up to the task and produced some excellent video clips at 1,200 frames per second.
14) I’m pointing to the wood/metal joint; it’s the type where the wood goes straight into the socket without the stress-riser of a reduced dia, step down style. Actually we made all of them like this as we didn’t have any 1” Ash dowel, only ¾”.
15) This shot was fired with a reduced charge of 400 grains of BP just to see if the Safety Rammer assembly would stay together and what would happen if it did. Normal charges for our cannons of this size is 518 grains to 648 grains. The last charge is an exact 1/6 scale representation of the 20 Lb., armor penetrator charge used by Rebel Artillerymen to defeat Federal Ironclads.
16) Movie Clip-Please click on link or image. For those unfamiliar with You-Tube style videos, you can enlarge the image by clicking the icon in the bottom right of the little movie window that comes up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfMoOtilcOo&feature=g-crec17) The reduced powder charge of Test 1 allowed the Safety Rammer to remain intact. This a good thing, right? WRONG, when you consider the whacking the handle gave the clay hand.
18) No tears in the heavy welder’s glove so the fingers are still attached, but ouch.
19) How the Seacoast “Sticky Worm” works every time on smaller .75” to 1.75” bore dia. cannons. That aluminum foils conforms to the hemispherically terminated, 15 deg, tapered chamber designed by CSN Commander John Brooke.
20) I am pointing to the copper plumbing fixture elbows and connector piece we used to build Seacoast Artillery’s first Safety Rammer in 2002. If you want instant separation as we do, this rig will do it. Cheap and easy to make, we rate this configuration as very effective too.
21) Seacoast’s first and original Safety Rammer prepares for flight. The handle piece is barely propelled, because of the rapid separation, but does some ballet moves across the prairie that would make a Russian ballerina jealous!
22) The Movie
23) The Clay Hand was untouched in Test 2, the copper, plumbing connector Test.
24) Rammer shaft destruction; how would you like to catch those pieces glove or no glove??
25) I am holding the parallel rammer and handle Safety Rammer per GGaskill. Not enough room between shafts to get it into the Clay Hand whacking position, so it was tested with the standard load of 518 grains for integrity after the test only. We were pleased to see that it failed like the others, most beautifully.
26) Mike does the honors and the .45 Colt cal. revolver is a reminder to me not to come up with any more “Special Projects” for the next few months, at least!
27) Movie clip of Test 3.
28) Wood metal joints failed quickly on this Parallel Safety Rammer.
29) Saving the best for last, here is the long awaited “Half Pound Bolt and Safety Rammer Test”. We used our armor piercing load of 648 grains of BP for this test. This load really makes the carriage scoot, but it’s also very accurate. Lots of action in this Video. You have to run it at least 3 times to see all the different things that are happening.
30) Test 4, the Video. The best one!
31) The configuration of the heavy 60 pound shooting bench, the chassis with steel rails, the landscape timber carriage and 7” Brooke bored testing cannon. Do you see how that cannon could go over the back edge and do a face plant on the ground? It did in this test. We all took cover behind the Suburban for this test. 7,600 Lbs of Detroit iron is pretty good cover.
32) Looks like another whacking occurred. Once again the fingers remained attached. That’s the important thing.
33) On view is an intact but scorched handle, a bent open steel connector and a thoroughly destroyed rammer shaft. These are the results. Tell us what you think!
