Okay- Sure, It's a Darwin award waiting to happen, but WOW... There's just something about explosives and that much kinetic energy... I used to shoot off the BIG July 4 fireworks...the normal "dinky" 3 inch shells are pretty pounding, but the bigger 10"+ shells were just pure Concussion.( And that's just from the launch-) Lotsa material there to feed your inner pyromaniac...
I'd still be pretty spooked about flying metal shards here, though. I've seen the aftermath of firing tubes that have ruptured, and you really can't imagine how steel can twist and rip like paper until you've seen it. There was a REASON we buried those tubes....
-- Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
So pretty much, all you need is a heafty pipe and a slight dose of insanity?
You need a hefty pipe that has been welded shut on one end and a hefty dose of insanity. Barrel-testing is an intricate form of engineering and if that thing were to fragment the shrapnel would sever your torso as if it were paper.
-- "Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
As of about 10 years ago, federal law stated that a person could own a breach loader no more than.50 cal without a special license. HOWEVER, there were no restrictions that I could find on muzzle loaders. Want a cannon with an 8-foot bore? Go for it, just as long as the projectile and charge go in the same way they come out. Technically, that thing is 50-state legal.
Don't Try This At Home
by
Detritus
·
· Score: 3, Informative
The BATF has no sense of humor. They have a long history of harassing, arresting and prosecuting people for "minor" violations of the law. You could end up the subject of a search warrant, your house torn apart, and facing felony charges in a federal court.
12301. (a) The term "destructive device," as used in this chapter, shall include any of the following weapons: (1) Any projectile containing any explosive or incendiary material or any other chemical substance, including, but not limited to, that which is commonly known as tracer or incendiary ammunition, except tracer ammunition manufactured for use in shotguns. (2) Any bomb, grenade, explosive missile, or similar device or any launching device therefor. (3) Any weapon of a caliber greater than 0.60 caliber which fires fixed ammunition, or any ammunition therefor, other than a shotgun (smooth or rifled bore) conforming to the definition of a "destructive device" found in subsection (b) of Section 179.11 of Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations, shotgun ammunition (single projectile or shot), antique rifle, or an antique cannon. For purposes of this section, the term "antique cannon" means any cannon manufactured before January 1, 1899, which has been rendered incapable of firing or for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade. The term "antique rifle" means a firearm conforming to the definition of an "antique firearm" in Section 179.11 of Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations. (4) Any rocket, rocket-propelled projectile, or similar device of a diameter greater than 0.60 inch, or any launching device therefor, and any rocket, rocket-propelled projectile, or similar device containing any explosive or incendiary material or any other chemical substance, other than the propellant for such device, except such devices as are designed primarily for emergency or distress signaling purposes. (5) Any breakable container which contains a flammable liquid with a flashpoint of 150 degrees Fahrenheit or less and has a wick or similar device capable of being ignited, other than a device which is commercially manufactured primarily for the purpose of illumination. (6) Any sealed device containing dry ice (CO2) or other chemically reactive substances assembled for the purpose of causing an explosion by a chemical reaction. (b) The term "explosive," as used in this chapter, shall mean any explosive defined in Section 12000 of the Health and Safety Code.
12303. Any person, firm, or corporation who, within this state, possesses any destructive device, other than fixed ammunition of a caliber greater than.60 caliber, except as provided by this chapter, is guilty of a public offense and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not to exceed one year, or in state prison, or by a fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or by both such fine and imprisonment
And no, it's not considered a shotgun. And this has been the law for a -long- time.
Re:anyone who uses units like this is a know nothi
by
datadood
·
· Score: 5, Informative
>Who uses units like that?
Anyone who deals with firearms and reloading.
Re:Cool, Yes. Legal? Smart?
by
adamy
·
· Score: 2, Informative
County Jail. Is this County Law or Federal?
-- Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Re:Reminds me of powerlabs cannon
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Informative
Bowling Ball Loft
by
c1ay
·
· Score: 2, Informative
We like having bowling ball contests at rocket meets. Check out the 2003 results at http://www.ahpra.org/BBL03results.htm The best shot this year was 6416 feet with a 16 pound ball:-)
--
Re:like a spud gun
by
Robber+Baron
·
· Score: 2, Informative
and connect a battery to a model-rocket solar igniter
Forget lugging a battery around and wasting rocket igniters...I'll go you one better! Go to a hardware store and get a gas barbecue igniter (the kind with the pushbutton that you click and it sparks) and drill a hole in the side and screw the igniter in.
I also use a 2" pipe for the barell and a 2" to 6 or 8" adapter with a short length of the large diameter and a cap. Works real good!
--
You're using her as bait, Master!
My potato gun...
by
Aardpig
·
· Score: 2, Informative
A few years back, I built myself a potato gun. A 3-inch calibre potato gun. The "King Edward Howitzer" (as I liked to call it) was constructed from various pieces of PVC drainage piping. A short length of large (8" dia) bossed pipe connector was closed off at one end with a screwable inspection cap, and at the other end with a diameter reducer, going into a 4-foot length of 3" dia piping (the barrel). The bossed pipe connector served as a combustion chamber; to permit firing, a small hole was drilled in the side of the chamber.
Operation procedure was as follows:
Take 1 large King Edward or Maris Piper potato (these varieties are good, being waxy in texture), and ram it into the barrel, creating a plug of potato
Using a hospital crutch, push the plug down the barrel until it sits just above the junction with the combustion chamber
Unscrew the inspection cap and squirt about 3 seconds worth of hairspray into the combustion chamber. Replace the cap firmly when done
Point the howitzer in the desired direction, and hold a lit match at the hole in the side of the combustion chamber. Voila!
It made a hell of a whoop when it fired, and from time/distance measurements, we estimated a muzzle velocity of well over 100 mph.
-- Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Or maybe a rocket .....
by
taniwha
·
· Score: 2, Informative
(3) Any weapon of a caliber greater than 0.60 caliber which fires
fixed ammunition, or any ammunition therefor, other than a shotgun (smooth or rifled bore)
"Fixed ammunition" is ammunition that contains both the propellant charge and the projectile in a single unit, like a rifle cartridge. The mortar in this article uses separate-loading ammunition, with the propellant charge and the projectile loaded separately, and is not covered by this clause. (That's not to say that it might not be covered under some other clause, like 12302 which is not quoted. But it doesn't appear to be covered by 12301.)
the term "antique cannon" means any cannon manufactured before January 1, 1899, which has been
rendered incapable of firing or for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade.
This subclause makes me really question the truth of the whole post. Why on earth would a cannon that is "rendered incapable of firing" be considered a destructive device? I suppose you could use it as a battering ram, but then it's functionally no different from a big steel I-beam.
--Paul
It's Better to Post Nothing..
by
Avihson
·
· Score: 2, Informative
and be thought a fool,
Than to Post and remove all doubt!
Check out dillonprecision.com
Or
reloadammo.com
Try a google on reloading... Try educating yourself , But Wait, this is/.
Re:Reminds me of powerlabs cannon
by
EinarH
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Looks like that user limit from Geocities filled up...
Don't worry. Here is high bandwith mirror.
And that cow-shot is really bad-taste but funny as hell.
--
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Physics time...
by
James+McTavish
·
· Score: 2, Informative
They really don't comment on the stats in the article so I decided to figure them out for myself:
If you assume a flat field (from the pictures it isn't that bad of an assumption) and that they fired at 45 degrees, the vertial velocity would have been equal to the horizonal velocity:
Vh = Vv = V / sqrt(2)
The horizantal distance is about 600yards or 550m (according to google) so the horizontal motion is constant and described by:
D = Vv*t = 550
The vertical motion is described by:
y = Vv * t - 1/2 * g * t^2
At the end (the point we're interested in) y = 0 so:
Vv * t = 1/2 * g * t^2 or Vv = 1/2 * g * t
Substuting back in we can find that
550 = 1/2 * g * t^2
Solving for t gives us:
t = 10.5s
Pluggin that back in gives us
Vv = Vh = 51.9 m/s
Or the overall
V = 73.5 m/s or 264.6 km/h or 164.4 mph for you americans.
Given that I ignored air fiction and terminal velocity and all those non-ideal bits, the inital muzzel velocity would have actually been higher!
-- Karma: Abstruse (Mostly as a result of using words nobody understands)
Use Tennis Balls Instead..
by
R-2-RO
·
· Score: 2, Informative
This one is safer, but don't try it at home.
Back in the day when he played war-games, we would build 'mortars' or cannons with just the following items.. Soup cans, duct tape, lighter fluid, and tennis balls. It was a ton of fun to blast tennis balls at each other. It didn't hurt (too bad):) Simple to make, takes 10 minutes once you have the cans. We would cut out both ends on all but 2 soup cans. Duct tape them together end to end.. (duh), then take one of the cans that only has one open end and using a nail or somethng, punch holes in it bottom.. lots of 'em, then duct tape that can to the others. the last can and be duct taped to the bottom end of the cannon, and using a can opener, create a small hole on the side of the last can. Done! Tennis balls fits in the can perfectly, and rests in the next to last can, pour some lighter fluid in the last can in the small opening that u made and set it off with a match.:)
My description is pretty horrible, i know.. well, I said not to try it at home anyway.
-- Thank you. Drive through. (:wq)
Re:This was a great link
by
Tintivilus
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Re:Only four ounces of powder
by
imsabbel
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Most people SERIOUSLY underestimate the power of gunpowder and explosives. I guess this comes from too many movies showing the hero surviving handgranates detonatin 5 feet away act.
"a few ounces" is around the payload of a normal offensive hand granate. A AIM-9J missile has less then a pound of explosives in the warhead and can destroy a jet fighter.
I once tried what happened if you take about 5 grams of nitrocellusoses and fire it closely enough confined that a deflagration to detonation transition happened. I couldnt really hear the initial blast (dont know why, perhaps ear overload), but 5 seconds later the sound returned from the other side of the valley i live in like a thunderclap.
At that moment i was REALLY happy that i was smart enough to burry a hole 2 feet deep and insert a bigger metal tube to stop fragmentation.
Use D size batteries as the projectiles. The mortar tube will be a 3' steel pipe with a diameter slightly larger than the D batteries.
Drive the pipe in the ground about a foot and at the proper angle. There should be a couple of feet of pipe sicking out of the ground.
Light an M-80, drop it doen the tube, drop in the battery, and BOOM, there goes the battery on its way across the valley!
We used to do this and the range is fantastic. If you do it, use your head and be careful. M-80's are serious shit.
I'd type this better, but it's really hard to do with so many fingers missing.
Re:What? No gratuitous damage shots?!?
by
Upphew
·
· Score: 1, Informative
"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."
From the other posts here, I gather that BATF categorizes these things as "destructive devices" and therefore a license is required to possess or manufacture them.
This might also be a general product safety issue. You're not allowed to use homemade propane cylinders, either--they have to have them inspected and tested. It's not because propane cylinders are inherently dangerous when used correctly, or even because you're expected to do something stupid with them. It's because if you screw up the manufacturing then they are extremely dangerous.
Similarly, a homemade cannon may be a source of amusement, you may have no intention of abusing it, and properly manufactured it can be quite safe. Nevertheless, the government may choose to regulate such devices just because if not manufactured and used very carefully, a cannon could conceivably be converted rapidly and efficiently into a whole pile of deadly shrapnel.
The government requires a lot of potentially dangerous products (automobiles, firearms, pharmaceuticals) to be be tested before they reach the hands of the public. You have to have a licence to use an automobile; you have to have formal training to dispense drugs. Why wouldn't there be paperwork for a cannon, too? It makes sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay- Sure, It's a Darwin award waiting to happen, but WOW... There's just something about explosives and that much kinetic energy... I used to shoot off the BIG July 4 fireworks...the normal "dinky" 3 inch shells are pretty pounding, but the bigger 10"+ shells were just pure Concussion.( And that's just from the launch-) Lotsa material there to feed your inner pyromaniac...
I'd still be pretty spooked about flying metal shards here, though. I've seen the aftermath of firing tubes that have ruptured, and you really can't imagine how steel can twist and rip like paper until you've seen it. There was a REASON we buried those tubes....
Sig currently under construction. Mind the gap....
You need a hefty pipe that has been welded shut on one end and a hefty dose of insanity. Barrel-testing is an intricate form of engineering and if that thing were to fragment the shrapnel would sever your torso as if it were paper.
"Place me in the company of those who seek Truth, but deliver me from those who believe to have found it."
As of about 10 years ago, federal law stated that a person could own a breach loader no more than .50 cal without a special license. HOWEVER, there were no restrictions that I could find on muzzle loaders. Want a cannon with an 8-foot bore? Go for it, just as long as the projectile and charge go in the same way they come out. Technically, that thing is 50-state legal.
The BATF has no sense of humor. They have a long history of harassing, arresting and prosecuting people for "minor" violations of the law. You could end up the subject of a search warrant, your house torn apart, and facing felony charges in a federal court.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
BS.
.60 caliber, except as provided by this chapter, is guilty of a public offense and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail for a term not to exceed one year, or in state prison, or by a fine not to exceed ten thousand dollars ($10,000) or by both such fine and imprisonment
12301. (a) The term "destructive device," as used in this chapter, shall include any of the following weapons:
(1) Any projectile containing any explosive or incendiary material or any other chemical substance, including, but not limited to, that which is commonly known as tracer or incendiary ammunition, except tracer ammunition manufactured for use in shotguns.
(2) Any bomb, grenade, explosive missile, or similar device or any launching device therefor.
(3) Any weapon of a caliber greater than 0.60 caliber which fires fixed ammunition, or any ammunition therefor, other than a shotgun (smooth or rifled bore) conforming to the definition of a "destructive device" found in subsection (b) of Section 179.11 of Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations, shotgun ammunition (single projectile or shot), antique rifle, or an antique cannon. For purposes of this section, the term "antique cannon" means any cannon manufactured before January 1, 1899, which has been rendered incapable of firing or for which ammunition is no longer manufactured in the United States and is not readily available in the ordinary channels of commercial trade. The term "antique rifle" means a firearm conforming to the definition of an "antique firearm" in Section 179.11 of Title 27 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(4) Any rocket, rocket-propelled projectile, or similar device of a diameter greater than 0.60 inch, or any launching device therefor, and any rocket, rocket-propelled projectile, or similar device containing any explosive or incendiary material or any other chemical substance, other than the propellant for such device, except such devices as are designed primarily for emergency or distress signaling purposes.
(5) Any breakable container which contains a flammable liquid with a flashpoint of 150 degrees Fahrenheit or less and has a wick or similar device capable of being ignited, other than a device which is commercially manufactured primarily for the purpose of illumination.
(6) Any sealed device containing dry ice (CO2) or other chemically reactive substances assembled for the purpose of causing an explosion by a chemical reaction.
(b) The term "explosive," as used in this chapter, shall mean any explosive defined in Section 12000 of the Health and Safety Code.
12303. Any person, firm, or corporation who, within this state, possesses any destructive device, other than fixed ammunition of a caliber greater than
And no, it's not considered a shotgun. And this has been the law for a -long- time.
>Who uses units like that?
Anyone who deals with firearms and reloading.
County Jail. Is this County Law or Federal?
Open Source Identity Management: FreeIPA.org
Missing the cow picture, though.
We like having bowling ball contests at rocket meets. Check out the 2003 results at http://www.ahpra.org/BBL03results.htm The best shot this year was 6416 feet with a 16 pound ball :-)
and connect a battery to a model-rocket solar igniter
Forget lugging a battery around and wasting rocket igniters...I'll go you one better! Go to a hardware store and get a gas barbecue igniter (the kind with the pushbutton that you click and it sparks) and drill a hole in the side and screw the igniter in.
I also use a 2" pipe for the barell and a 2" to 6 or 8" adapter with a short length of the large diameter and a cap. Works real good!
You're using her as bait, Master!
A few years back, I built myself a potato gun. A 3-inch calibre potato gun. The "King Edward Howitzer" (as I liked to call it) was constructed from various pieces of PVC drainage piping. A short length of large (8" dia) bossed pipe connector was closed off at one end with a screwable inspection cap, and at the other end with a diameter reducer, going into a 4-foot length of 3" dia piping (the barrel). The bossed pipe connector served as a combustion chamber; to permit firing, a small hole was drilled in the side of the chamber.
Operation procedure was as follows:
It made a hell of a whoop when it fired, and from time/distance measurements, we estimated a muzzle velocity of well over 100 mph.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
like these
its legal becouse the key word is FIXED Ammuntion. its not Fixed ammuntion becouse its not a self contained cartridge
This subclause makes me really question the truth of the whole post. Why on earth would a cannon that is "rendered incapable of firing" be considered a destructive device? I suppose you could use it as a battering ram, but then it's functionally no different from a big steel I-beam.
--Paul
and be thought a fool,
/.
Than to Post and remove all doubt!
Check out dillonprecision.com
Or
reloadammo.com
Try a google on reloading... Try educating yourself , But Wait, this is
Don't worry.
Here is high bandwith mirror.
And that cow-shot is really bad-taste but funny as hell.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
They really don't comment on the stats in the article so I decided to figure them out for myself:
If you assume a flat field (from the pictures it isn't that bad of an assumption) and that they fired at 45 degrees, the vertial velocity would have been equal to the horizonal velocity:
Vh = Vv = V / sqrt(2)
The horizantal distance is about 600yards or 550m (according to google) so the horizontal motion is constant and described by:
D = Vv*t = 550
The vertical motion is described by:
y = Vv * t - 1/2 * g * t^2
At the end (the point we're interested in) y = 0 so:
Vv * t = 1/2 * g * t^2 or Vv = 1/2 * g * t
Substuting back in we can find that
550 = 1/2 * g * t^2
Solving for t gives us:
t = 10.5s
Pluggin that back in gives us
Vv = Vh = 51.9 m/s
Or the overall
V = 73.5 m/s or 264.6 km/h or 164.4 mph for you americans.
Given that I ignored air fiction and terminal velocity and all those non-ideal bits, the inital muzzel velocity would have actually been higher!
Karma: Abstruse (Mostly as a result of using words nobody understands)
This one is safer, but don't try it at home.
:) Simple to make, takes 10 minutes once you have the cans. We would cut out both ends on all but 2 soup cans. Duct tape them together end to end.. (duh), then take one of the cans that only has one open end and using a nail or somethng, punch holes in it bottom.. lots of 'em, then duct tape that can to the others. the last can and be duct taped to the bottom end of the cannon, and using a can opener, create a small hole on the side of the last can. Done! :)
Back in the day when he played war-games, we would build 'mortars' or cannons with just the following items.. Soup cans, duct tape, lighter fluid, and tennis balls. It was a ton of fun to blast tennis balls at each other. It didn't hurt (too bad)
Tennis balls fits in the can perfectly, and rests in the next to last can, pour some lighter fluid in the last can in the small opening that u made and set it off with a match.
My description is pretty horrible, i know.. well, I said not to try it at home anyway.
Thank you. Drive through. (:wq)
Looks like it was the Field Museum in Chicago [ref]
Most people SERIOUSLY underestimate the power of gunpowder and explosives. I guess this comes from too many movies showing the hero surviving handgranates detonatin 5 feet away act.
"a few ounces" is around the payload of a normal offensive hand granate. A AIM-9J missile has less then a pound of explosives in the warhead and can destroy a jet fighter.
I once tried what happened if you take about 5 grams of nitrocellusoses and fire it closely enough confined that a deflagration to detonation transition happened. I couldnt really hear the initial blast (dont know why, perhaps ear overload), but 5 seconds later the sound returned from the other side of the valley i live in like a thunderclap.
At that moment i was REALLY happy that i was smart enough to burry a hole 2 feet deep and insert a bigger metal tube to stop fragmentation.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
That guy behind the cannon built it too: Cannon And this Bombard as well: Bombard Yes, they're replica of medieval (1470) cannons.
Now, don't come with some stupid metal tube.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
Use D size batteries as the projectiles. The mortar tube will be a 3' steel pipe with a diameter slightly larger than the D batteries.
Drive the pipe in the ground about a foot and at the proper angle. There should be a couple of feet of pipe sicking out of the ground.
Light an M-80, drop it doen the tube, drop in the battery, and BOOM, there goes the battery on its way across the valley!
We used to do this and the range is fantastic. If you do it, use your head and be careful. M-80's are serious shit.
I'd type this better, but it's really hard to do with so many fingers missing.
"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."
I for sure wont be borrowing your bowling ball!
This might also be a general product safety issue. You're not allowed to use homemade propane cylinders, either--they have to have them inspected and tested. It's not because propane cylinders are inherently dangerous when used correctly, or even because you're expected to do something stupid with them. It's because if you screw up the manufacturing then they are extremely dangerous.
Similarly, a homemade cannon may be a source of amusement, you may have no intention of abusing it, and properly manufactured it can be quite safe. Nevertheless, the government may choose to regulate such devices just because if not manufactured and used very carefully, a cannon could conceivably be converted rapidly and efficiently into a whole pile of deadly shrapnel.
The government requires a lot of potentially dangerous products (automobiles, firearms, pharmaceuticals) to be be tested before they reach the hands of the public. You have to have a licence to use an automobile; you have to have formal training to dispense drugs. Why wouldn't there be paperwork for a cannon, too? It makes sense.
~Idarubicin