Golf ball mortar I just finished building. I bet I could hit Joe Martin's house from here. (Of course, why would I want to shoot Joe's house?)





It'll be at Noxen. Fore!!

Jeez, Fireball must think I'm nuts - I didn't time the screws or wing nuts. Mea Culpa.

We made one to shoot D batteries back when I was in high school, but it wasn't that fancy. A chunk of pipe with an endcap, lantern striker, a couple hinges on a slab of plywood, and a turnbuckle hooked to a tacked on washer to adjust elevation 😂

Nice. What makes it go bang?

Black powder.

I don't like things that make loud noises. They scare me. Ima go take a nap.

This is the work of a man with too much time on his hands

Hold my beer!!! Cant wait to see that go off. Lol

Beautiful craftsmanship! - as always!

What's the finish on the 'barrel'?

My buds and I woulda had fun with that back on the farm!!

Thanks Mike. Finish is good old black stove paint. It's what we used on our cannon barrels back when I was into reenacting.

Joe can be your forward observer.

Super nice Gary. That would be a lot of fun!

Imagine pulling that out of the golf cart and setting it up on the first tee...

FORE!!!

Well done!

you guys are hilarious!!!

You think they are funny here!! You should come spend the weekend with us at the Rendezvous. Lol. My guts hurt by the end of the weekend. I will video the golf ball cannon going off.

Joe

I'll bring the golf balls since I have plenty and can't seem to do much good with the clubs. What a hoot! You are the man Gary.

and that threaded bolt is not plumb

Be careful boys my son lost half of his hand with a black powder cannon !!! it was 50 years to the day when my grand father lost half his arm forth of July with a muzzle loader !! the the old timers said gramp could still out work any other man drunk or sober!
and my son went on to finish 3rd in the nationals that year in shotput .he has also gone on to be one of GE,s top engineers .world wide hunter fisherman and also gun collector at the at age of 40, including many savage 99s so not all bad

...er, "PULL!"

Indeed, black powder is not to be taken lightly. I served on several muzzle loading cannon crews earlier in my life - 12-pound Napolean gun and 3" Ordnance Rifle, Civil War, and 2-pound galloper, 6-pound battalion gun, and 3-pound grasshopper, Revolutionary War (British, 42nd Reg't of Foot - The Black Watch). At one point we had to complete the National Park Service artillery school in order to be allowed to discharge the beasts on Park property - a wonderful class to take (if they even still hold it). I have a lot of respect for black powder.

An older friend of mine, since deceased, was serving on a 12-pound Napolean gun at an early Civil War re-ennactment in the late 60's at Sharpsburg, MD, right down the road from where I grew up. He rammed a charge home without swabbing because his loader offered the charge at the muzzle out of sync with the drill, plus they were "in the heat of battle". He knew better than to ram a charge into a bore that hadn't been swabbed, but did it anyway and lost most of his right hand.

The worst mishap I personally witnessed as a re-ennactor was a blind (!!!) yo-yo who left his rammer down the bore of his Springfield and sent it twanging over the heads of a line of Confederate infantry. All the guy wanted to do was take part in one re-ennactment and his life would be complete, so we dressed him, put him in between two guys whose sole job was to lead him around and watch that he didn't do anything stupid. They weren't paying attention.... (It was an incident that lead directly to the Park Service banning ramrods on the "fields of battle". Thereafter all we could do was dump the contents of the blank cartridge down the musket barrel without ramming the paper/wadding on top of it, which made for a wimpy report - so we started using double charges in order to get a loud bang.)

Then there was the time our drummer boy fearfully pointed out the two neat round .58 caliber holes, in and out, in his drum after we were all done for the day. We never figured that one out, and of course every Confederate opposing us that day swore and declared he didn't screw up and load a live round instead of a blank....

Fun times.

Very nice, now you need to build an industrial strength golf ball cleaner. That black powder residue would stain golf balls something fierce.

Many years ago when my BIL lived along the Ottawa River his neighbour had a scale model of a Civil war canon. They were firing lead balls into the river. I forget the exact scale of the piece but the ball was about 1 inch in diameter. They would place a charge in then grab a handful of grass for the wadding and then push the ball in. They were shooting at ranges between 200 and 300 yards. He built the gun himself using brass for the barrel and oak for the carriage. That was over 30 years ago.

Nick