Seacoast Artillery's Ninth What is it? Where is it? Contest

[steelcharge]

#9: Maxim-Nordenfelt Model 1891, 3pdr QF, on USS Olympia...?

[MKlein]

I really not interested in a rifled sleeve so I am totally where I want to be with second.
Maybe second wins a discount on the Krupp Howitzer.
Congrats to Cannon Cocker!!!!!

[seacoastartillery]

     You guys had me going full tilt last night trying to keep up, but there is no reason to make a mistake like I did with #9.  There is no effect on score, but I found, after looking at materials just linked by Steelcharge and a buried photo in our trip archive, that Flagman answered the Type in #9 correctly with two elements as required when he posted an answer in Reply #21.  The size of the gun is indeed a 6 Pdr. and the gun is an Anti Torpedo-Boat gun.  Except for the maker or designer, that is a complete answer.  Given that he also answered the location superbly, he is due FULL CREDIT on #9 and the score Matrix will be changed, (see redline change), to show that.

    After reading Skidmark's very gracious statement and considering him to be an excellent and gentlemanly competitor, he will indeed get a substantial discount on Krupp Gun No. 1 in the second Edition coming next fall.  An excellent researcher and Contest participant, thank you, Skidmark very much for making this Contest a real horse race!

    Congratulations are in order for Cannon Cocker for Winning this Ninth,  What is it?  Where is it?  Contest brought to you by Seacoast Artillery.  A very knowledgeable and persistent competitor, he did not lose heart as Skidmark began to knock them down, bing, bam boom.  It is our distinct pleasure to bestow upon Cannon Cocker the esteemed title of Cannon Hunter for the Ages with all of this title's rights and privileges assigned thereto. 

    Please send all of your contact data so that we may inform you when the first Production Rifled Cannon Liner is ready for shipment, after receiving your check for $10.  It will be a 1.000" bore, rifled liner, 29 inches long and 1/2 inch thick 1018 or 1026 steel, with an interior radiused  breech plug with a tight, screwed-in fit, un-vented. 

Mike and Tracy   Seacoast Artillery Company

[Zulu]

Mike & Tracy,
I really enjoyed this although I did not participate.
It was a horse race!
Thanks for your considerable effort.
Zulu

[Cannon Cocker]

Thanks Skidmark,  I was frearin fur me life for several hours.  You are a worthy opponent and luck had a lot to do with my winning.  Thanks Seacoast for the excellent contest and depriving me of sleep. Writing from my phone in the field, so I hope this makes it.

[Zulu]

Thanks Skidmark,  I was frearin fur me life for several hours.  You are a worthy opponent and luck had a lot to do with my winning.  Thanks Seacoast for the excellent contest and depriving me of sleep. Writing from my phone in the field, so I hope this makes it.

Luck??
The harder you work, the luckier you get.
Congratulations!
Zulu

[MKlein]

 Thanks Mike & Tracy for challenging my mind with this treasure hunt. #6 was the hardest, My wife jumped in this morning and we Googled so many combinations with village till my wife  finally found one that matched the pic of that store. Then it was on!
Cannon Cocker jumped on this race like a cat on fire! It was hard to keep up. Plus the lack of sleep.

[Graybeard]

   Seacoast Artillery Company just contributed $ 500 to Graybeard's Christmas Fund, so it is our pleasure to Sponsor the Mortar and Cannon Forum for yet another year!!  To show our appreciation to the entire membership for this privilege, we created a Ninth,

Thanks Tracy and Mike. Check came today. Much appreciated.

[Cannon Cocker]

      It will be a 1.000" bore, rifled liner, 29 inches long and 1/2 inch thick 1018 or 1026 steel, with an interior radiused  breech plug with a tight, screwed-in fit, un-vented. 

That sounds great!  Now I have to decide what to make with it.  Anyone who has any ideas about how to best use one of these super accurate Seacoast Artillery barrels, I'd like to hear it.  I'm kind of an accuracy nut, and my only thoughts so far are that I'd like the gun to be an exact scale period gun, and that the period sights should be able to keep up with the accuracy of the barrel.  Oh, and did I mention that these guys make the most accurate barrels you can get. 

[Cannon Cocker]

 
Luck??
The harder you work, the luckier you get.
Congratulations!
Zulu

Thanks Zulu,  It was a lot of work, in that I didn't know anything about any of the guns or locations other than some makers basic shapes which doesn't help much when needing the exact gun. 

[Double D]

That sounds great!  Now I have to decide what to make with it.  Anyone who has any ideas about how to best use one of these super accurate Seacoast Artillery barrels, I'd like to hear it.   

I  have a Parrot cannon up scaled from William Green plans made with LaSalle 1144 Ebony stress proof just before the big scandal over failures of this steel.  This was my my second cannon and I made a mistake putting the trunnions seats in at 170 degrees apart.  Then to fix that the old seats were plugged and welded only to learn the high carbon content was not conducive to to normal welding. 

I finally got with a Machinist who understood the issues and used some sort of preheat and special rod to weld the new trunnion in.

This gun has been sitting around collecting dust for almost 30 years waiting for a liner.

I will bore the barrel out to accept the liner slide it in and epoxy it in place.  Drill and tap the muzzle for a couple set screws to prevent torque and take on Fort  Pallet.

[flagman1776]

Thank you for the kind words.  I didn't enter to gain a prize but to test my knowledge...  and it was a challenge.  I only knew of the Olympia because my brother had shared his pictures of her. 
It was fun.

[Cannon Cocker]

I will bore the barrel out to accept the liner slide it in and epoxy it in place.  Drill and tap the muzzle for a couple set screws to prevent torque and take on Fort  Pallet.

You probably already know this and were intending to do it, but if you drill and thread a vent bushing with some copper, brass or steel allthread, you will effectively lock the liner in place, and eliminate the possibility of expansion and or sparks between the barrel and liner in the vent passage. 

I did a vent liner, then also did the muzzle pin thing only to realize afterwards that it was so insignificant compared to the integrity and shear strength of the vent liner that I didn't need to ruin the look of my muzzle. 

[RocklockI]

Well cannon cocker congradulations  ... here is a tip ,I'd ask Tracy for a complete 100 lb parrot gun , yes complete steel carriage and all , he'll just order Mike to make one 'post hast' .... and Mike proly will ...poor Mike .
 
They are nice and after all Tracy has always believed in an 'upgrade' from time to time . Once he even bought lunch . Proly should cut Tracy out and just talk to Mike . You might get a better deal !
 
Just trying to help .
 
Gary
 
 
 
"3:00pm Judge Judy is on  . Must see Judge Judy , K Mart sucks . And Tracy is an excellent driver"
 
 
 
 
 

[Cannon Cocker]

The Parrot has some great sights though.  That's one good possibility.  I guess I should find out what style rifling M&T are going to make available for these liners.  I can't imagine the sky is the limit when you have to make different expensive cutters for each style and twist rate. 

[RocklockI]

Cannon Cocker ,what ever yous guys decide on make sure you get 100 or so steel bolts (Projos) of the proper size .
 
What's a rifled "SeaCoast Iron Clad Killer" with out proper projectiles ?
I know 100 rds doesn't sound like a lot ,but it really is quite abit of shooting.
 
Maybe 150 even . Poor Mike .
 
Gary
 
 
 
 
 
 

[Cannon Cocker]

Thanks Rocklock.  And I'm sure Mike and Tracy wish to shank (I mean thank) you as well.

[WindElevation]

WOW,  You guys are fast! I'm still trying to find no.1........ Good Job!....... Gary

[seacoastartillery]

    There are a few loose ends hanging from this thread that we want to clear up.  The first is posting the maker's plate mounted on the 6 Pdr. Maxim-Nordendelt Q.F. Gun featured in #9.  Here it is:





The second is that we finally found a photo of this gun in it's Army or fortress configuration which is the same as that featured in the Victorian QF Gun and early machine gun site linked here:   http://www.victorianshipmodels.com/antitorpedoboatguns/Nordenfelt/index.html   This gun pictured is located in Finland at Soumenlinna Fortress in Sveaborg.






      An interesting site which gives some good pics is linked here:  http://www.suomenlinna.fi/    Be sure to look around on this site until you see a thumbnail image of two field guns with the breech of the one on the right with a large hole in it.  Who cares what kind it is. Probably a Krupp.  What is most interesting about this pic to me is the fact it is the only one I have ever seen in which you have a group of women and one guy viewing the cannons.  You can just imagine what the guy is thinking,  "Wow, some good looking women AND cannons; maybe my luck is changing?" In the photo he is thinking, what do I do?-what's my move?, what?, what?, what???  Shortly after this pic was taken, the pressure became too great for him and he suddenly dove into a snow bank and began making snow-angels to get some attention.  Glancing at his 3rd grade antics and muttering "loser!", the group moved on without him.  No change in luck for him that day!


    Filling in another visual gap, we found this pic from 1898.  It shows, Smith, the gunner beside his POM-POM Gun, a Maxim-Nordenfelt machine gun on the US warship, Vixen.  A US Navy photo with an unknown location.  Thanks, double D. for the accurate description of the POM-POM.





[quote author=Cannon Cocker link=topic=271184.msg1099633460#msg1099633460 date=1356833756

The Parrot has some great sights though.  That's one good possibility.  I guess I should find out what style rifling M&T are going to make available for these liners.  I can't imagine the sky is the limit when you have to make different expensive cutters for each style and twist rate. 

     We have the square cut, (with very small radiused groove edges) Parrott rifling head and the larger 1.167" bore Brooke rifling head now, but we are planning on maybe two more to get started, a 1.000" bore, James System rifled liner with "flat" groove bottoms and maybe an Armstrong field gun rifled 1.000"liner which has lots of smaller, shallower grooves very much like modern, big gun rifling.

     

Thanks Rocklock.  And I'm sure Mike and Tracy wish to shank (I mean thank) you as well.   

     After Gary's wild-eyed comments, I think 'shank' is the proper verb as in "to shank".  To shank or not to shank, that is the question!

Mike and Tracy

[flagman1776]

The Smith photo (USN, unknown location) is what confused me as the barrel appears to be jacketed...  Water jacketed?...  which the sample was not. 

    There are a few loose ends hanging from this thread that we want to clear up.  The first is posting the maker's plate mounted on the 6 Pdr. Maxim-Nordendelt Q.F. Gun featured in #9.  Here it is:





The second is that we finally found a photo of this gun in it's Army or fortress configuration which is the same as that featured in the Victorian QF Gun and early machine gun site linked here:   http://www.victorianshipmodels.com/antitorpedoboatguns/Nordenfelt/index.html   This gun pictured is located in Finland at Soumenlinna Fortress in Sveaborg.






      An interesting site which gives some good pics is linked here:  http://www.suomenlinna.fi/    Be sure to look around on this site until you see a thumbnail image of two field guns with the breech of the one on the right with a large hole in it.  Who cares what kind it is. Probably a Krupp.  What is most interesting about this pic to me is the fact it is the only one I have ever seen in which you have a group of women and one guy viewing the cannons.  You can just imagine what the guy is thinking,  "Wow, some good looking women AND cannons; maybe my luck is changing?" In the photo he is thinking, what do I do?-what's my move?, what?, what?, what???  Shortly after this pic was taken, the pressure became too great for him and he suddenly dove into a snow bank and began making snow-angels to get some attention.  Glancing at his 3rd grade antics and muttering "loser!", the group moved on without him.  No change in luck for him that day!


    Filling in another visual gap, we found this pic from 1898.  It shows, Smith, the gunner beside his POM-POM Gun, a Maxim-Nordenfelt machine gun on the US warship, Vixen.  A US Navy photo with an unknown location.





[quote author=Cannon Cocker link=topic=271184.msg1099633460#msg1099633460 date=1356833756

The Parrot has some great sights though.  That's one good possibility.  I guess I should find out what style rifling M&T are going to make available for these liners.  I can't imagine the sky is the limit when you have to make different expensive cutters for each style and twist rate. 

     We have the square cut, (with very small radiused groove edges) Parrott rifling head and the larger 1.167" bore Brooke rifling head now, but we are planning on maybe two more to get started, a 1.000" bore, James System rifled liner with "flat" groove bottoms and maybe an Armstrong field gun rifled 1.000"liner which has lots of smaller, shallower grooves very much like modern, big gun rifling.

     

Thanks Rocklock.  And I'm sure Mike and Tracy wish to shank (I mean thank) you as well.   

     After Gary's wild-eyed comments, I think 'shank' is the proper verb as in "to shank".  To shank or not to shank, that is the question!

Mike and Tracy

[Cannon Cocker]

   
 
The cutters you describe could be used to make many different style barrels.

[seacoastartillery]

   Flagman,  Maybe I caused you some confusion by throwing that pic of the POM-POM gun in there, manned by gunner Smith onboard the US Navy ship Vixen.  I just wanted to present an image of that gun to go with Double D.'s excellent description of it and history of it's use in the Second Boer War in South Africa, that's all.  That true machine gun is in no way connected with our 6 Pdr. QF Gun, except the maker, Maxim-Nordenfelt is the same.

     

   
The cutters you describe could be used to make many different style barrels.  

     Therein lies the beauty of our proposed plan.  Just as we have said previously, the 1.000" bore tubes will come first and the 1.750" bore size later.  The square rifling form can be used with a little modification here and there to produce not just Parrott, James and Armstrong sleeves, but also Britten form rifling, Enfield, and Armstrong-Whitworth too.  It is extremely versatile.  The Rifling Form that we cannot find anywhere is the Civil War Sawyer Rifle form.  Remember the 100 pounder that was attempting to blast the Rebels on Sewel's Point from Fort Wool (Fort Calhoun) on the Rip-Raps between Fort Monroe and Sewel's Point in Hampton Roads, Virginia?

 



     If anyone can find a good photo or diagram of this Sawyer Rifling, we would very much appreciate it.

Thanks,

Tracy and Mike

 

[Cannon Cocker]

Was the rifling on the bigger Sawyer guns the same as the 3.67", 4.2", and 5" guns that seem to have the same rifling pattern? 

[MKlein]

U.S. Patent Office has some stuff
http://www.civilwarartillery.com/patents/sawyer.htm

[seacoastartillery]

     Cannon Cocker,   Thanks for the excellent photos of Sawyer's patented shell.  Skidmark,   You're patent drawings started me on a  long search to find out more about Sawyer.  I guess the photos and the patent drawing answer the question of what Sawyer's field gun rifling form was. But I still wanted a photo of a Sawyer cannon muzzle.

     It is quite embarrassing, but I must admit that, after 4 hours of internet searching, I gave up and started doing it the way I was taught in 7th grade, called, "book larnin"!  I went through most of our collection, before I found it in the book I should have started with,  Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War  by Hazlett, Olmstead and Parks.  Here is an image of the muzzle of the only known example of Sawyer's Rifled Cannon that exists today:





    There is no ebook under this title, but you can look it up under Sawyer's Cannon if you are interested in more info.  He was a prolific inventor, inventing things as diverse as a Ratan Making Machine for cane chair makers, to artillery fuze assemblies.  It is interesting that he and his brother, Addison colaberrated on several artillery inventions and that Sylvanus Sawyer was the first cannon maker to ever supply a cast steel rifled gun to the government in 1861.  According to the book the grooves of Sawyer's cannon were abnormally deep at .125" in the six pounder shown and the lands and grooves were almost equal with the width of the lands slightly greater than the groove width.  Sawyer was a pioneer among ordnance inventors in the U.S., with a working rifled cannon in 1855.  He did not have the luxury of knowing that the average groove depth of six pounders would be only a third of what his were.
 
      Finally, as it stands right now, we can't really answer Cannon Cocker's question, because we can't really know if his 100 pounder Sawyer Rifle tested at Fort Calhoun had the same rifling form of his other guns, but if we were to make an informed conjecture, it probably did.
 
      So, getting back to the reason for this research, the question simply put is this:  Can Seacoast Artillery Company accurately re-produce the Sawyer Field Gun  rifling form?  YES, we can, and you know it will be accurately and faithfully re-produced, because we have to deliver one more 7" Brooke in the upper midwest, so we can stop by and measure the width depth and corner radii of the grooves and lands just as we did with the big Parrott in Denver's City Park and the Treble-Banded Brooke at Fort Moulrie, South Carolina and the James System rifling in Titusville, Pennsylvania on a rifled and banded 42 Pdr. Gun M1845 and a James Type1 at Wilson's Battlefield in Missouri.   
 
 Tracy & Mike
 

[Cannon Cocker]

     
     It is quite embarrassing, but I must admit that, after 4 hours of internet searching, I gave up and started doing it the way I was taught in 7th grade, called, "book larnin"!  I went through most of our collection, before I found it in the book I should have started with,  Field Artillery Weapons of the Civil War  by Hazlett, Olmstead and Parks.

Don't feel bad. I looked around on the web while my copy sat next to my keyboard without a look.