Quote Originally Posted by Denno View Post
Hello,

Just thought some of you might be interested in my new purchase.. a .69 Mini Cannon
I have been wanting one for quite a while now and a few of us in the club decided we would look into it. After looking around there was nothing that really ticked the boxes we where after. We had decided on .69 as the prefered cal but the ones we could find to buy anywhere where quite expensive and they did not seem to have the quality finish we where after. Luckily one of our club members is pretty amazing at CAD and engineering etc so plans where drawn up by him and sent to be made. It was quite a long wait but well worth it.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8386/8...2a02a9e325.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8089/8...c88fe35454.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8247/8...4772df308c.jpg
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8514/8...1473f2b4dd.jpg

There are also a couple of videos on Youtube if you search for Fulwoodshootingclub.

A few questions though.. we are looking to cast our own balls, we are using patched balls at the mo so will be casting .685 balls from range scrap, as we are using patched balls I think this means we do not need to worry about the hardness of the lead?

Next question - the proof house said they proofed the cannons with 2 & 1/2 inches of blackpowder - err what is this in grains? So far we are using 30 grains of pyrodex and it seems a fairly tame load but is making nice groups (no idea what a good group is with one of these as they have no sights!) but at 10 yards we can get 2 inch groups with concentration.

hope this is of interest.

Denno
Very nice. The proof load used for your little cannon appears to be the amount of powder that occupies the bore to a depth of 2.5 inches from the bottom of the chamber. For instance, IF the cannon was .75" bore, then it is pi x 0.375 x 0.375 x h - h being 2.5.

I'll let YOU work it out.












Oh, alright. It's 0.9352 cubic inches. Easiest if you make a model of the bore and fill it up to the 2.5" line THEN measure that weight of mini-cannon grade BP - say FFg for the one that you have. OR, just do the same for Pyrodex RS - NOT P!!!! The Pyrodex RS should weigh around about 90% of the equal volume of BP - remember, it is VOLUME that you are looking for.

Remember also that this was the proof load and reduce your final load accordingly - 75% of whatever it was might be fine.

tac

PS - I'm VERY interested to know what grade steel you made it from - please PM me if you care to.