[HockaLouis]

The rule of thumb for cast wall thickness is 50% of the bore I believe. But that's not steel.

I chose to buy professionaly reproduced fully-cast steel-lined bronze and cast iron for my both my 18th C. Cohoern mortar and swivel cannon, respectively, for safety's sake. All it takes is one accident...

[W. C. Quantrill]

My scale Carronade is a 1.6" bore with a 1.25" wall thickness at the muzzle, and 2.25" at the breech. It was cast for me by John Hern of Hern Iron works at CdL, Idaho. I had him cast in a high pressure seamless steel bore liner. It will punch holes through car bodies at 1/4 mile with an appropriate lead ball and powder charge.

I chose not to turn my own barrel, although I could have.



Barrel on my deck, 2x6's. for size reference. Weighs right at 100 pounds.

[Scratchammo]

Originally Posted by W. C. Quantrill

My scale Carronade is a 1.6" bore with a 1.25" wall thickness at the muzzle, and 2.25" at the breech. It was cast for me by John Hern of Hern Iron works at CdL, Idaho. I had him cast in a high pressure seamless steel bore liner. It will punch holes through car bodies at 1/4 mile with an appropriate lead ball and powder charge.

I chose not to turn my own barrel, although I could have.



Barrel on my deck, 2x6's. for size reference. Weighs right at 100 pounds.

Nice piece!

[W. C. Quantrill]

I strongly advise obtaining a copy of this book. It is the bible on cannons.

Your friend should obtain this book and study it before getting into the sport. It contains 300 pages of detailed information, charts, graphs, drawings and dimensions of about every known type of cannon.

This is but one of a number of pages with comparisons of guns and loads.


Some details concerning charges.

Before I had John Hern cast my barrel, I contacted Mr. Tucker while he was at TCU, and we visited with him several times before I obtained my cannon. Mr. Tucker is an authority on cannons, and has 3 books out on them. There are several companies with cannons for sale. It might be worth your time to contact them about clubs that shoot cannons in your area, and get involved with them. Another thing to note is that the pressure in the barrel increases substantially as the angle of the barrel is elevated.

[St8LineGunsmith]

Originally Posted by Ranger-6

Your friend might want to check FFL regulation.

There are no regs preventing anyone from building a muzzleloading black powder cannon
.
a cannon with a 1" bore needs to have a minimum 3/8" wall thickness using 1018 or 1026 mild steel DOM but if you are using 4140 or 4150 Chromalloy you can get away with using 1/4" wall thickness as long as you dont go over board on the powder charge.
175 gn charge should be safe but I would proof test it with at least 250 gn charge to make sure it is going to be safe to shoot.

Most cannon breech plugs like an 8 pound mountain howitzer are shrink fitted then welded.
with a small bore cannon such as the one your friend wants to build you can thread the end of the barrel and use a threaded breech plug.

[Scratchammo]

Originally Posted by W. C. Quantrill

I strongly advise obtaining a copy of this book. It is the bible on cannons.

Your friend should obtain this book and study it before getting into the sport. It contains 300 pages of detailed information, charts, graphs, drawings and dimensions of about every known type of cannon.

This is but one of a number of pages with comparisons of guns and loads.


Some details concerning charges.

Before I had John Hern cast my barrel, I contacted Mr. Tucker while he was at TCU, and we visited with him several times before I obtained my cannon. Mr. Tucker is an authority on cannons, and has 3 books out on them. There are several companies with cannons for sale. It might be worth your time to contact them about clubs that shoot cannons in your area, and get involved with them. Another thing to note is that the pressure in the barrel increases substantially as the angle of the barrel is elevated.

Good info. Maybe I need to check those out.

[Scratchammo]

Originally Posted by St8LineGunsmith

There are no regs preventing anyone from building a muzzleloading black powder cannon
.
a cannon with a 1" bore needs to have a minimum 3/8" wall thickness using 1018 or 1026 mild steel DOM but if you are using 4140 or 4150 Chromalloy you can get away with using 1/4" wall thickness as long as you dont go over board on the powder charge.
175 gn charge should be safe but I would proof test it with at least 250 gn charge to make sure it is going to be safe to shoot.

Most cannon breech plugs like an 8 pound mountain howitzer are shrink fitted then welded.
with a small bore cannon such as the one your friend wants to build you can thread the end of the barrel and use a threaded breech plug.

Wow, 175 grains would pack a punch! Hell, it might even be a good punt gun lol.

[HockaLouis]

Amazing. Yeah, that poor cannon, having to somehow cope with firing quite less than double a standard musket charge.

[St8LineGunsmith]

you want to use more powder use thicker barrel material.
get some 1/2 thick 1026 DOM you couldn't blow that up if you tried

[griffin81]

I've seen bowling ball cannons made out of welding gas bottles they work well!