ebinmaine 67,506 #1 Posted June 16, 2023 A couple years ago Trina and I were given the opportunity to own a few hand made kit type black powder pieces. See this thread: One is the cannon in the following pics. It turned out that after we got ahold of it we couldn't figure out how to open the breach which was necessary for cleaning according to online instructions. It also was in need of one of two clips that hold the barrel down. One of my coworkers has a hobby forge and is familiar with black powder things so I'd asked him to have a look at it. He was able to get it back to a usable condition and even did a nice polish on the barrel. It was colored a brass ish tone but badly tarnished. Also while disassembling it the barrel was gouged a bit. (I'm perfectly fine with that). In process pic: Here's the after results... 8 3 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
oliver2-44 9,753 #2 Posted June 17, 2023 (edited) Semi off topic. But a good thread for a Cannon Story At a Scout camp on Lake Bridgeport, on top of a hill their is the remains of a small rock Civil War era Calvary Lookout. The camp has a program where the older Scouts did a different special activity each day. One day you become Calvary members you get issued era wool calvary coats to wear in the Texas summer heat. (Yes as their leader I had to wear one too) You learn to clean, load and shoot a black powder rifle. Then to work as a 4 man team cleaning, loading and firing 4 cannons. As part of the cannon training the Scouts had to practice and get the chant and drill dow before they could actually fire the cannon. Then after a couple of firings the cannon didn’t go off. After going through the safety procedures to insure the fuse and primer charge was out the Instructor asked “What do we do now?” After lots of guessing he said just add another charge to it and fire away. ….What a BOOM We later learned the prepackaged charges wrapped in aluminum foil were 1/4 charges. considering how much loader the 1/2 charge was then the 1/4 charge i could only imagine what a full charge would sound like. Then you put everyone with the black power rifles and cannons on top the lookout hill and defend it. Lots of excited boys making smoke and noise. I enjoyed firing the cannon as much as the boys did! Edited June 17, 2023 by oliver2-44 2 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
AlexR 627 #3 Posted June 19, 2023 Looks great!!! I'm guessing that is a 50 cal cannon? This is my boomstick that I made from a kit, 50cal Hawkins style. Its a lot of fun to shot, not so much getting it cleaned up haha. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ebinmaine 67,506 #4 Posted June 19, 2023 6 hours ago, AlexR said: Looks great!!! I'm guessing that is a 50 cal cannon? This is my boomstick that I made from a kit, 50cal Hawkins style. Its a lot of fun to shot, not so much getting it cleaned up haha. VERY nice. Looks a lot like the one we have in the thread above but yours is trimmed out much nicer. I keep forgetting to measure the cannon bore. It is most likely a 50 cal, yes. I might bring it to Cabela's and have them set me up with whatever we need. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
