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Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son's Birthday
Hugh Pickens writes "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. 'It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg,' says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. 'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift,' says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a cannon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. 'Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top,' Logan says."
Though Daugherty said he is still stunned that he had to get clearance from the NSA for the archaic artillery piece
Why would he need clearance from the NSA?
Here I sit, all broken hearted.
Came to poop, but only farted.
My kid brother, the machinist, made a scale replica of the 24 pounder long guns on the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides). He didn't cast iron; he machined it from a solid piece of modern steel (so it was WAY stronger than the originals).
Then he made a scale carriage, machined (because it was so hard) from seasoned timbers from an old dock being disassembled.
It was 1/4 scale, as I recall. When fired using modern muzzle loader powder (and totally guessing at the charge), it shot a beercan filled with cement about a quarter mile :-)
He sold it eventually to a collector, but what a cannon that was!
Of course, there's been at least one successful revolution... google the battle of athens, tenn.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
My wife's uncle builds and shoots them. Years ago, he competed with his cannon, in both round shot and rifled competitions, with self-cast balls and "bullets" (I forget the correct name for them). These days he just does it for fun.
You do have to be careful with them, though. Last year (2008) on the fourth of July, he took his small (2.5") cannon down to the city park like every year, to fire it as part of the city's early morning festivities. That went well, and on the way back he decided to stop off at my house and wake us all up, since my kids usually go down to the park. Unfortunately, he forgot to lower the tailgate of his pickup truck before touching off the powder. It blew an 8-inch hole through his tailgate. The cannon didn't have a projectile loaded, just gunpowder and a wad, but the force mangled his tailgate.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Technically, yes. There's nothing in the constitution that denies Bill Gates the right to own a nuclear weapon is there? Nothing even close. I suppose you can interpret the private ownership of WMDs to be unconstitutional because of their definition of mass-destruction, thus by their existence in private hands violating other citizen's right to liberty.
And now to nitpick; The Civil War was hardly a bitch-slapping. It was the single bloodiest event in US history, out classing (in sheer destruction) all other wars thus-far combined.
It could have fallen on either side at many different stages of the war. Had Davis pushed into Washington first-thing, it would have been over before it started (as DC was relatively undefended) Or had Lincoln's generals not been a bunch of screw-ups etc. And, of course, the almost million dead between direct conflict, starvation, disease etc again, a little more than a bitch slap.
Now, whiskey rebellion, fine, or even prior to that when Massachusetts or Maine threatened to secede, or Delaware considered joining the Confederacy, or (as in an above post, MD) those were mere bitch-slaps. Man, those whiskey rebellion dudes really were push-overs.
Historically, Americans are just very distrustful of our government. That's why the founders had to put the 2nd Amendment in the Constitution to get the people to support it enough for ratification. It's also why it's hard to get stuff like government controlled healthcare passed here.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.