Homemade Cannon

[Buckrub]

Out piddling around yesterday looking at some of our fishing spots to see how high they are...........and saw this guy pull into a service station. We stopped and talked to him. He said he stumbled onto this pipe piece on his job a few years ago, and said "CANNON!!"..........and made the rest. He said he has a total of $40.00 in it.

He said he shoots Fffg BP in it.......and gets about 5-7 shots per pound. What does he shoot? Well, he fills tennis balls with concrete!!! Lucky that a tennis ball just exactly fits. I guess the caliber of this cannon is "tennis ball".

http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk131/Buck7088/Cannon_zps414a3f52.jpeg

[LW]

I wonder what that pipe would have been intended to be used for?

[Buckrub]

He told us.........some industrial use. They were building something.........and cut some of it off. He asked what they were going to do with that leftover piece, and they said 'trash it'. So he retrieved it. I don't remember the exact use.....in some big building under construction. He saw it and thought "CANNON". I doubt I'd have added 2 and 2 together so quickly like that.

[Niner]

I wonder why he uses 3f powder. Kinof a fine "grind" for black powder.

[Chad]

My Dad and his buddies build one when I was a kid. Not near as nice as that one, it was more of a redneck cannon. Used beer cans filled with sand, (course, beer cans were also used to patch exhaust pipes back then), grass for wadding, and a cup of black powder. Sent that can a looooong way.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Tater cannons is the only ones I've messed with and they used light fluid not gunpowder.
BKB

[Buckrub]

He said this thing would shoot that tennis ball a half mile..........

[hotshot]

Okay that may be the only thing faster than my serve!
That sounds like FUUUUUNNNNN
Chad does your dad still have that around?

[hotshot]

BTW,canyou imagine the stuff back in Rev War days they would stuff in a cannon? Nails, srcap metal, rocks in a pinch, fish hooks, chain.... nasty wounds!

[Niner]

Back in the days of sailing ships, they would shoot two canon balls joined together by a length of chain. This was intended to take out the mast of the ship that was being fired upon, thus crippling it and making it easier for the boarding party.

[DeputyDog]

I was at Yorktown a few years ago and was reading about the artillery they used on the battlefield there. The thing that surprised me the most, was the effective range on the pieces. I think the longest was only about 400 yards. Kind of surprised me that modern rifles are effective at ranges that were at the max for artillery back in the day.