Fort Wellington 24 pound cannon firing

[callmeshane303]

Be cool.

Here is what to do. 1. Oil the cannon. 2 make up some 6" thick egg carton type soft paper wads. 3. Use full military powder charges. 4. Make weight equivalent rounds of paper bags filled with 1/2 flour and sand. 5. Aim at 5 rounds in 5 minutes - strive for 1 every 30 seconds.

[woody1time]

I was walking my dog down by the old docks and the cannon went off, made me and my poor little jack russell jump 5 feet! lol. Good vid!

[MrJodete23]

Skip to: 2:26 for the shot ;)

[TheLevette16]

A 24 pound cannon requires a service charge of 1/3 the weight of the shot. Needing historically, 8 pounds of black powder to fire. Since Fort Wellington is administered by Parks Canada, as per black powder safety regulations, the charge that they are using should be 1/3 of 8 pounds.

[LutzDerLurch]

@TheLevette16 I think it is more about Costs than safety, to be honest.

[nicksynnz]

Stuff all smoke from a 24lb cannon. It seems like they used something from hollywood to create a flash. If this was the true 1 lb of cannon powder needed to shoot a true projectile then the amount of smoke would have been awesome. This is a fake.

[LutzDerLurch]

@nicksynnz Reenactors usually never use more than a few ounces of Powder. Its amatter of Cost. The Original Charge back then was som 1/4 to 1/3 of the Balls weight. With a 24 Pounder that is 6 to 8 Pounds of Powder.

With roughly 20 Bucks per Pound, that would be rather expensive to shoot.

[nicksynnz]

@LutzDerLurch Thank you for that, I realise the cost of black powder as I do a fair bit of shooting myself. 6-8lb of powder at out prices would be $400. Thank you for clarifying this issue. It is always great to see cannons firing even if it is not the full powder charge :)

[LutzDerLurch]

@nicksynnz Yes. The Problem is, that the bigger the Bore, the More Powder you'd need to get an impressive "Bang". A Charge that just makes a .77 Brown Bess go "swoosh" is more than sufficient to have a .50ish Rifle go "Bang" up to 3 or 4 Times.

I am hoping, at one point, to get a british light Sixpounder, and also do some livefiring. Problem is, that the proof-house over here requires even Cannons being proofed with the finest and most explosive swiss FFF Powder and excessive Charge.

[LutzDerLurch]

@LutzDerLurch And I doubt a Bronze Cannon can withstand 2 lbs FFF Powder and a Double Ball, although I am sure it would withstand the seemingly sufficient Proof they used in the 1770s of 3 lbs of excellent Cannonpowder and double Ball. And I would rather notn have them Fools blow up a costly reproduction. :(