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Blackpowder, bowling balls and sewer pipe! (Fire in the hole!!!)
One Fine September Morning... ^

Posted on 09/27/2003 8:39:41 PM PDT by mhking

Ah, serendipity. Being in the right place at the right time.
As it happened, this fine and sunny September Sunday morning found me and a few others at the local gun range, sighting in- or trying to- some rifles. Some were cooperating, some weren't. A normal outing to the range, really...

Until this fellow pulls up and starts unloading a big 'ol hunk o' pipe.

Pipe? Bowling balls?

I thought he was going to bury it as a new target stand or something.... 'til I saw the Bowling Balls. I then immediately knew it must be what some call a "punt" mortar! I'd seen similar handmade ones on the 'net and in magazines... naturally, we all completely forgot about our own rifles for the moment.

How far'zat thing go, anyway?

The Gun Range is a nice place- raised, covered shooting line, plenty of tables, well-kept grounds. The first line of targets is at 100 yards, with small berms and pipe target stands at 200, 300 and 400 yards as well, plus a trail/road to drive up to 'em if you need to. And at 500 yards, right at the base of the stand of trees off in the distance, is a full-size steel cutout of a moose, painted day-glo orange. Above, the guy with the mortar is pouring in some three ounces of Fg (coarse) Pyrodex black powder...

This sucker is huge!

This thing is huge! Probably weighing some 150 pounds, half-inch-nominal wall pipe with a massive two-inch-thick breechblock welded on one end. The touchhole or fuse passage leads to a small "chamber" in the center that holds the powder in a single spot, rather than letting it cover the whole 8.5" bore.

Crude, but it works.

Crude, yes, but it works. The owner is reluctant to do any additional welding on the pipe, for fear of making a weak or brittle spot, so he just stacks up whatever's handy to hold it, oh, 'bout there or so. This thing's so cool I want to make the guy some adjustable legs like the old 4.2" Chemical Mortar had....

Fire in the hole!

Three ounces of Pyrodex, an old garage-sale-special bowling ball, an old chair and some sewer pipe... Fire in the hole!

I'll be over here where it's safe...

He's not running, but he ain't dawdling either! Let's see, the fuse burns at about one minute per foot, there's about six inches there... dum da dum... carry the three...

KABOOM!

HOLY FREAKING BATTLESHIP MISSOURI! By the time the shutter snapped, the ball was, in relation to this picture on your screen, about six monitors up and climbing. It was whistling. I lost track of it since I was trying to get the picture, but the guys say it cleared the treeline by probably another hundred yards.

Let's do that again!

Let's do that AGAIN! Rod out the fuse hole, make sure there aren't any errant embers, pull the mortar up out of the divot it created, weigh out another charge of powder, another bowling ball... This time I was watching downrange with the camera pointing at the cannon... Holy Creeping God, ladies and gentlemen! That ball was screaming out of there! I'd wager it landed over 600 yards downrange.

I should have brought out my Radar Chrony. I'd guess that ball wasn't moving over 700 fps, possibly as low as 400 fps, but jeez, think of the mass! That ball's what, eight to ten pounds?!? What's the Hatcher's Index of a projectile weighing fifty-thousand grains moving at 400 fps? "Body armor" against this thing is eight feet of dirt over a concrete bunker!

Excavations?

Think Grandpas' old thirty-thirty is a kicker? How about a hundred-plus-pound gun that pushes itself into the dirt six to eight inches each time it goes off? This is not a shoulder arm.

After all four balls were expended, we helped load it back in the guy's car. I noted that there were some divots from earlier shoots... he said he gathers up old balls whenever he can find 'em, then when he has a few, on a nice day he'll come out and blow 'wm downrange. Says it always draws a crowd. I said "so there's already a few balls out there in the swamp, eh?"
"Oh, more than a few, yeah."

He says he also has a short cannon that takes small tomato-sauce cans and another mortar that takes soda cans. The soda cans, it seems, don't hold together well- the force of firing blows the can off the concrete fill, which then blows up in the air.

Besides, he says, NOTHING beats seeing that bowling ball howl downrange as far as the eye can see.

I agree. :) The pictures don't do this justice; this is something every Tinker or gadget freak should see in person at least once in their life.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News
KEYWORDS: bang; banglist; boom
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To: Tennessee_Bob
Do ya lay out a grid for a dollar pool and play anvil bingo ? We do..........we bring a native american so it's OK to gamble of course.........:o)

Stay Safe !

221 posted on 09/28/2003 7:25:34 PM PDT by Squantos (Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.)
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To: Darksheare

Night Fire

222 posted on 09/28/2003 7:26:19 PM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4 ("Fahr na hole!")
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To: umgud; Shooter 2.5
Re: H110 in .454 Casull. I use about 31 gr w/300 JFP to produce 1800 fps and about 55,000 CUP. I don't shoot 45 Colts in it. I can load 14 gr of Unique under the same 300 JFP and get 1275 fps with only 38,000 CUP, which is easy shooting.

I find that 29.5 grains produces a much more accurate load with a GC bullet. Of course when building a cylinder bomb I pushed it up to 36 (it hits hard and sharp on the wrist) .... faster but not as accurate.

223 posted on 09/28/2003 8:36:06 PM PDT by Centurion2000 (Islam : totalitarian political ideology / meme cloaked under the cover of religion)
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To: 300winmag
Whew........glad yer still with us ! I had a buddy that was loading 231 powder @ 4.5 gr in his 45ACP plinking ammo. Well he wound up "babysitting" and reloading and thus charged each round with 9 grs of 231.

He was shooting a Norinco clone of the 1911A1 and it sounded like the old super vels of old. Rockets. After about a box and a half of super noise on my side of the indoor range barrier I asked him what in hell he was shooting ? He told me , I hoisted the Bullshit flag and got out my puller and checked one of charges on one of the ranges scales .

We stopped using that load. Took the Norinco to work next day and had our NDE folks run it thru the system. Nary a burp or crack showed. He was lucky he didn't frag the entire firing line.

Reloading is a task that one must pay attention to or they get hurt very easy. Sometimes before they even get the ammo near the firearm.

Zen and the art of reloading ...........:o)........Stay Safe !

224 posted on 09/28/2003 9:12:55 PM PDT by Squantos (Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.)
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To: Squantos
Reloading is demanding, exacting and definately requires attention. At the same time, it is relaxing and addictive to me.
225 posted on 09/28/2003 9:49:07 PM PDT by Centurion2000 (Virtue untried is innocence)
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To: stands2reason
I am really sorry people died but thats something you have to get over. I am sure if it had happened to somebody else the Aggies would be making jokes over it. I've met to many of them.
226 posted on 09/28/2003 10:02:31 PM PDT by U S Army EOD (Feeling my age, but wanting to feel older)
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To: mhking
BTTT
227 posted on 09/28/2003 10:30:03 PM PDT by knews_hound (Out of the NIC ,into the Router, out to the Cloud....Nothing but 'Net)
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To: U S Army EOD
I think you meant to reply to another poster. I just made a comment that I wish I knew about FR back then.
228 posted on 09/28/2003 10:52:26 PM PDT by stands2reason
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To: festus
That last photo looked like an awfully tight group for something aimed by propping it up on a chair with a plank.

That's where the butt end of the pipe went in the ground on recoil; to keep from drilling the hole deeper than the length of the "cannon", the shooter simply moved it, chair and all, a few inches each shot.

229 posted on 09/28/2003 10:57:50 PM PDT by Old Professer
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To: Cannoneer No. 4
Night shoots were always such visually interesting deals.
230 posted on 09/29/2003 4:47:13 AM PDT by Darksheare (And something just for the DU lurkers (_*_) You been mooned!)
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To: SLB; Squantos
I plead the fifth. $;-)

Click the Gadsden flag for pro-gun resources!

231 posted on 09/29/2003 5:59:31 AM PDT by Joe Brower ("What is a left-wing socialist but a Marxist without a gun?" -- Don Feder)
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To: umgud
Re: H110 in .454 Casull. I use about 31 gr w/300 JFP to produce 1800 fps and about 55,000 CUP

Ouch! Now that's gotta hurt.

I have never fired a Casull, but my shooting buddy is interested in them so I may get the chance to shoot one soon. I have enough land to shoot on so he brings his new toys up here to try them out.

I recently built a range out back with 2 covered shooting benches, steel target stands, and a pile of oak logs for a backstop. So now I can try out my handloads for accuracy at a measured distance instead of just burning powder punching holes in soda cans. Keeps me pretty busy at the loading bench though, and my wife isn't too happpy about that.

232 posted on 09/29/2003 6:08:04 AM PDT by epow
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To: Eaker
For those of us 4,000 or so miles away, pictures would be appreciated.

Just a suggestion (if not already said a couple hundred times) let someone else fire it first.

-todd
233 posted on 09/29/2003 7:56:41 AM PDT by thackney (Life is Fragile, Handle with Prayer)
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To: Eaker
You know that pics are required for the rest of us when you all pull this off...
234 posted on 09/29/2003 8:26:44 AM PDT by mhking (Anyone who disagrees with me is mentally ill and should be shot.)
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To: thackney
You know.......it is great that so many people are worried about my health!!!

;<)

235 posted on 09/29/2003 8:45:41 AM PDT by Eaker (Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.............hmmmmmmmmm ;<)
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To: mhking
You bet!!

I think that a "peep hole" cam stuck in a finger hole would be great. I just don't know if it could hold up!!!

;<)

Thanks for posting this!

236 posted on 09/29/2003 8:48:00 AM PDT by Eaker (Amateurs built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic.............hmmmmmmmmm ;<)
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To: Eaker
I would think with your luck, you might want to build up to this...

It won't blow you up, but you might shoot your eye out.

237 posted on 09/29/2003 8:49:04 AM PDT by Tijeras_Slim (Ideas in tagline are closer than they appear.)
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To: mhking
That's the coolest thing I'ev ever seen. Even beats the pumpkin chunkin!
238 posted on 09/29/2003 8:52:45 AM PDT by Gamecock (Paul was a Calvinist!)
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To: Eaker; archy
I think archy made a great point...if you fabricate the breech plug to hold the charge, the "tube" doesn't have to be able to hold all the pressure. You might have picked this up already, but it's worth a repeat if you're still in the R&D phase.
239 posted on 09/29/2003 9:20:50 AM PDT by in the Arena (Never Forget...Never Ever Forget...)
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To: SLB
Agree........Things I did as a child would have moved me into the criminal column too !

Stay Safe !

240 posted on 09/29/2003 9:31:49 AM PDT by Squantos (Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt.)
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