A golf ball mortar I just finished building. Fore!!

Menno van Coehorn would be proud!

Fired it yet?

Not yet. Gotta look up load data in the new Sierra manual.

Sierra has mortar loads for black?

Coehorn….not to be confused with corn hole.

Nice job. I like that. 😊

Nice work! Guess you’re not entirely useless after all.😜

Looks like great workmanship-which comes as no surprise from you. Wonderful work!

"Golf balls for the win"

Very interesting!

In the early days of Ramshot Powders, on of the thing they did to entertain gun writers during their annual prairie dog hunt was to shoot their bowling-ball mortar. I was there the first time they tried it--and the ball disappeared into the "Big Sky" of Montana. It eventually landed about 300 yards away, but there was some concern until then, partly because the Western Powders property was very close to the Miles City airport.

Jeepers, that'll pucker ya up.

gnoahhh, when do you go into full production?

Would make a great stocking stuffer for loony who has everything.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/b3zt9F9ZpU22nLGR7

touch hole, conventional fuse, or electric ignition?

by electric I mean like the nichrome wire igniters used for model rocket engines.

Very nice workmanship btw!

Conventional fuse. The tube is solid steel, no breech plug, turned and bored out of an old Mack truck axle. Now working on an idea I have for a gunner's quadrant so I have at least some quantifiable data to predict POI. Main use: shooting at crab pot buoys out on the Chesapeake Bay. Might use it for deer this fall, dunno.

Thanks gnoahhh.

🤠 👍

Off your deck, or are you planning to mount it on the foredeck of a boat?

In IIRC, Forester’s Commodore Hornblower, there’s a fair bit about the gunboats they used to shell the enemy. Cutting fuse to time the explosion of the shell, measuring out the powder for range, and using hawsers to swing the boat into alignment are gone into in some detail. Very interesting stuff.

Very nice.

Many years ago, a friend bought a demilitarized WWII Russian mortar and drilled a hole in the bottom to fit a short length of cannon fuze.

A couple of empty shot shells of black powder would send a can of Ga-Red peeled tomatoes a long, long way without bursting the can before it hit.

A friend ( who shall remain nameless) built one years ago, except it shot bowling balls. BIG fun!

WOW!!!

Gary
I’m gonna have to come and visit sometime.
That cannon would be fun!

Steve

I built a much more primitive version, a scrapyard special if you will. I used a threaded breech with a male stud that accepts a percussion cap. Press cap on stud fill breech with 500 gr of 1F, install breech, drop projectile down tube...ka whump. I used beverage cans filled with cement. Great accuracy, I once had a 100 yard, 3 shot group. Fish ducks hated my 'mortar'. All things are possible with a scrap pile and a lathe.

Very neat. Although it would present multiple challenges trying to chronograph that thing, (grin).

Yeah that.


Just how many pounds of FFG are in that fireball?

Now that's a work of art!

Well done, sir!

Ed

Set it up to fire level or close to it and use a Labradar on the “handgun” setting.

Or, calculate the time and distance of impact from instant of firing, factoring in the angle of the tube and weight/ballistic coefficient of the golf ball, and temperature/humidity at sea level where I live, and.....never mind.

gnoahhh,

Your cannon at the Savage Fest in Wellsboro is what rekindled my addiction. I'm in the process of starting a wagon carriage for my golf ball caliber Napolean cannon barrel. I originally built a ship style carriage for it but have since learned that it was the wrong style for that cannon so I did what any gun nut would do, I had the correct 18th century Naval style cannon barrel made for it and started collecting materials for a proper wagon wheel civil war style carriage for it. First step was having an Amish wood shop build me some wheels and then I assembled some decent oak and some strap metal and hardware.

Your brass turn screw elevation implement is a work of art! I am going to repurpose an old "C" clamp for the elevation screw. I just about have all the materials I need to make a go of it. I just need to get some shop time with my buddy to get it all together.

We could really make some smoke together!

Love those wheels.
BTW, it looks like you have some guns mating back in the rack. 😁

[quote=ROMAC]gnoahhh,

Youcannon at the Savage Fest in Wellsboro is what rekindled my addiction. I'm in the process of starting a wagon carriage for my golf ball caliber Napolean cannon barrel. I originally built a ship style carriage for it but have since learned that it was the wrong style for that cannon so I did what any gun nut would do, I had the correct 18th century Naval style cannon barrel made for the it and started collecting materials for a proper wagon wheel civil war style carriage for it. First step was having an Amish wood shop build me some wheels and then assemble some decent oak and some strap metal and hardware. Your brass turn screw elevation implement is a work of art! I am going to repurpose an old "C" clamp for the elevation screw. I just about have all the materials I need to make a go of it. I just need to get some shop time with my buddy to get it all together.

We could really make some smoke together!



[/quote

Indeed, Roger!

I've sourced wooden wheels from Amish artisans over the years, but a wheelwright in Colonial Williamsburg provided the wheels for a full scale 1790 Mountain Howitzer I built 30 years ago. A 3-pounder gun whose barrel was a scant 18" or so. A buddy cast two tubes out of bronze and gifted me one. Jeez I wish I had kept it but a fella offered me an obscene amount of money for it.....