Newbie unknowen cannon

[577]

Hello
I have an old cannon without trunnions with a small cutout on the middle
of the underside. Muzzel loader about30 in long 2.25 bore.
A set of straps hand made with babit metal between.The story is it was taken
from Poncho Villa troops on this side of the border.
Thanks
577

[skratch]

Sounds interesting, need pictures from different angles, and more of the history,, There are many folks on this forum much more informed than me. I'm sure you will get some info if you can provide more details.   

John,,,,,,,,,,,
 

[steelcharge]

Sounds very interesting!

I have a quite big interest in the Mexican Revolution and I know all sorts of oddities of cannon were used, old muzzleloading smoothbores, modern (back then)  breechloading field guns and often also homemade guns were used. So by your description it doesn't sound impossible at all, but I somehow doubt the association with Pancho Villa. If you could post pictures of the thing, it would help VERY much.

[KABAR2]

.557 Yes please some photos..... I have a friend in N.Y. who has a collection of Poncho Villa artillery shells.... crudly cast and machined and very interesting what they were able to produce with limited foundry and machine shop/blacksmith shops at their disposial.....

[577]

The cannon is old and not home made. Several people I have showen it to think it
was from an early 1800 hundreds river boat .The cut out in the bottom center looks
like a hold down point.The old man I bought from said his dad took it when they were on their ranch
having a large meeting.Most of the time the ranch had few cowboys on it.The Mexican did not
expect a large group so when the shooting started they wheeled the cannon braking the wooden wheel flipping it over twisting the bolts holding it too the carrrige.They cut it loose and left it
The local newpaper did a piece on the battle.
Thanks
577

[BoomLover]

  .. Again, sounds interesting, but pics do help, a lot! Various angles, with something in the picture to provide a reference for size....

[steelcharge]

.557 Yes please some photos..... I have a friend in N.Y. who has a collection of Poncho Villa artillery shells.... crudly cast and machined and very interesting what they were able to produce with limited foundry and machine shop/blacksmith shops at their disposial.....

I'd really like to see a photo of those too! I've always been intrigued by the description of a mexican revolutionary made shell in the West Point Museum catalog of 1929, but never got around asking if they still had it.

And now I'm also even more interested in this "Pancho Villa cannon", it sounds just like the kind of cannon I like.
By "homemade" I didn't necessarily mean "built from scratch by them" but more like that they modified old guns or mounted them on carriages made by themselves, thus creating unique guns. The mexican revolutionaries certainly did also build complete cannons themselves, many of them breechloading rifled guns.

[flagman1776]

What you are describing sounds like a carronade. 

[onegreatshot]

Gosh, need photo's and the newspaper article. This is very interesting, sorta like bring out a gallon of ice cream and giving you a spoonful. NOT ENOUGH.

[577]

poncho's cannon
click on pic. to enlarge

[577]

 more pics of:
poncho's cannon
click on pic. to enlarge 

[skratch]

Where was this cannon found ? If near Columbus, NM it may be a Mexican piece although the carriage don't look like it was designed for a long pull.

Oh, you might get a BB gun and get after those birds ! 

[577]

I am responsible for the carriage as there wasn't one with it, except the bent bolts on the straps. I replaced those and put the 12 x 12 on a model T axle which the old gentleman told me it had. The original carriage is located behind his son's home in Arizona in an arroyo (as stated by him). We wanted to have it mounted for support. I'm looking for my bill of sale which has his name on it. We purchased it about 25 years ago.

The bird flavoring was put on this spring by the occupants of the tree above the cannon. I was hoping one of you folks would be able to identify what type of cannon it is. I may have to search the newspapers in that area as the raid was written up by the local papers. No markings whatsoever are on it.

Thank you
577

[GGaskill]

It looks like no cannon known to me (not that I know all cannons) and its general style makes me think it is a field expedient made by someone with some knowledge of muzzle loading artillery and some access to a machine shop of some nature.  I guess it is steel from its appearance which makes me think it might be a repurposed piece of farm equipment.  But I am not a farmer either so no idea what it might have been.

It would require examination by someone with good knowledge of several fields.

[Double D]

Looking at  Georges comment and  "anecdotal provenance"   I would not shoot this thing on a bet.

Here is the why's.

1.  It might fail and destroy its self.
2.  It might be a historically significant artifact and  fail and destroy its self.
3.  It might be a historically significant artifact and have substantial value and fail and destroy its self.

Preservation should be foremost until you can prove or disprove any of the elements.

To preserve it do not take a wire wheel or grinder to it.  That oxidation and coat of rust is protective.  Simply oil it and get it out of the weather and leave it alone until you find out what you have.   The best oil for this type preservation linseed oil.  wipe it on and let it soak into the metal about 15 minute and then wipe the excess and buff it dry. 

Get busy with the research. Learn very thing you can about  Pancho Villa and the battel you reference.

Find the bill of sale.  See if the guy still has the carriage.  Get it.  If you can get restore it. 

Check around for metal or salvage yards that might have those guns that identify metals. Theh will be able to tell you wat the gun is made from. 

Keep us advise of what you find out.



 

[cannonmn]

Look like home-made salute gun.  Without pivoting trunnions you can't elevate it to hit anything.  I don't think Pancho was that hard-up to drag something like that around.

[steelcharge]

Look like home-made salute gun.  Without pivoting trunnions you can't elevate it to hit anything.  I don't think Pancho was that hard-up to drag something like that around.

I'm not too sure about that.

This gun clearly is a "homemade" piece, probably built in some of the railroad workshops where supposedly shells and other guns were also made. You can even see the lathe marks at the muzzle and the shape/style of this gun doesn't fit to any other gun I've ever before seen.
The other homemade guns that I know of were bigger rifled breechloaders but, there were also small, odd-looking guns called "dynamite guns". These "dynamite guns" are the reason which make me believe that this really could be a cannon used by Villa's troops. The dynamite guns were similarly constructed, a very simple shaped tube on a very small carriage without any elevation mechanism. Mounted in very similar way also, by a strap over the barrel, bolted to the carriage.

I'll see if I can find one of the photos showing those "dynamite guns", but the newspaper article about the raid would also be great thing to have.

[Backswampcub]

Interesting that pancho used a railroad workshop to build his cannons. The first thing I thought was that it was made out of a train car axle

[BoomLover]

That was my first thought too, you just beat me to it! LOL....I do know of one very similar to this in southern California, made from a Marine Drive Shaft, turned out at a Machine shop with a lathe capable of turning a 47 foot long shaft for Ship Props...

[steelcharge]

Here's the photo of the "dynamite guns":
http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth63344/m1/1/sizes/xl/?q=%22Military%20and%20War%20-%20Wars%20-%20Mexican%20Revolution%22

They're the small guns in front of the limbered field gun (which is one of the homemade rebel guns) although this photo doesn't label them as "dynamite guns", another one from their front-side does. I'll see if I can find that one too.
Since the troops in this photo look like mexican federal troops (the caption also says so) these must be captured guns.
You can see that those guns also are mounted to the carriages by "over-the-tube strap" and lack elevation mechanisms.
The wheels on those guns probably came from some farm equipment or other machinery.


For some interesting photos of other Mexican Revolution cannons (homemade & others), check out this link:
http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/mexican-artillery.htm

2 photos that I really like are on the second page, right side middle and bottom ones. The bottom one shows some very simple shaped muzzleloader and a group of rebels brandishing swords, guns and banners. The bottom one seems to shows some really tiny muzzleloading howitzer or similar and a guy behind the gun handing something to another man next to the gun. Powder charge perhaps? Many, many different varieties of cannons used in that war.

[RocklockI]

The bore looks to be way off center !