Looking for a Place to Shoot a Cannon

This a bit out of the usual. I have a couple a small smoothbore cannon that I take out to my club and shoot at berms but I have one that doesn't work.

My club is out on the plains so if something leaves the range it can really travel. I did a couple of live fires there at a 100 yard range with massive berms but it is capable of more. The officers of my club felt, and I agree, that using the other ranges there is unsafe. It needs a really good backstop - like a mountain.

I have a reproduction of a Civil War 2.25" Bronze Mountain Rifle. It is made with modern techniques so it is pretty safe to shoot. It is rifled and I have a mould for casting lead Minie ball rounds that work with the rifling. The rounds weigh a bit over 4 pounds. I have light ones for a 200 yard or so range and rounds with heavier skirts for long range with heavy powder loads.

A backstop would give me a nice feeling that I know where the round ends up. It would also be great to salvage the lead since it costs.

It produces a heck of a muzzle flash but as long as I'm not sitting in dry grass there is little fire danger. I put the powder in aluminum foil so it won't fire burning junk out the barrel. It would be good if the shooting spot was fairly flat and level. I've made plywood targets that I attach 2x4 to and stake the 2x4 into the ground with rebar.

Any suggestions of a place?

Steve

I just have to say, that is COOL. COOL. I have no suggestion, but I would like to see it. Good luck.

I would go after hours to your nearest Smart Car Dealership.

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Originally Posted by Graves

I would go after hours to your nearest Smart Car Dealership.

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Let me qualify - non-felonious places to shoot a cannon. There are so many places and people that really deserve it but I doubt if the authorities would let me keep my cannon if I did.

Steve

Put that thing through a chronograph yet??? What velocities do you guess you get with your various weighing balls. What distance would you also guess these projectiles will travel in air and on the ground (level) rolling if not stopped with a burm?

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Originally Posted by CrufflerSteve

Let me qualify - non-felonious places to shoot a cannon. There are so many places and people that really deserve it but I doubt if the authorities would let me keep my cannon if I did.

Steve

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There goes my idea to shoot it into Congress. :(


I guess you could always take it on a South African cruise...

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Originally Posted by GunTroll

Put that thing through a chronograph yet??? What velocities do you guess you get with your various weighing balls. What distance would you also guess these projectiles will travel in air and on the ground (level) rolling if not stopped with a burm?

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If I ever get to doing live fire I'll try to measure velocity. A normal chrony would never work since the wave of gases is huge and would total it. I was thinking of taking a chrony with the sensors on as long a bar as it supports and laying them in a trench, perhaps with a small berm between them and the cannon to push gas and debris up. I could probably improvise some sort of sky screen up high.

It can be hard to get decent chrony readings with BP loads due to the wads and smoke. This would be orders of magnitude worse than a 45/70.

I believe the military get measurements by having some light wires that are clipped by the shell.

I did get some idea of the force in my live fire. I was shoting at a berm made out of a hillside. The 2.25" diameter, 4 pound round went 3 to 5 feet into hard clay. That's a lot of foot/lbs.

I spoke with a fellow who used one of these cannon in competition in the Midwest. He took it to Camp Grayling where they do 1000 yard shoots for rifled artillery. He found these buried themselves 8 feet into the ground at long range.

This explains all these movies where people go flying from being shot. They're actually being shot with a cannon. Hollywood just makes it look like a shotgun or pistol.

Steve

That is so cool.

Ive seen ones about 1/2 that size shot before, and even that was pretty intense.

There has got to be some wide open space somewhere around here though.

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Originally Posted by Sturtle

There goes my idea to shoot it into Congress. :(

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Damn it stu... now we are all on the list. [Beer]

I know they had cannons last year at the machine gun shoot that was this last month. Anyone know anything about the land they shoot on?

State lease. Or some of it. You talking about morgan county M.G shoot? If so he's got cattle all over that land now. I was just out there.

Present a bill about shooting toward cattle. If enough cows vote to turn down the bill, good for them, if not, sucks for those cows. ;)

Its a democracy not a republic so I think this might work. I had a friend who went to Thailand years ago and he told me he was offered to shoot a cow with an rpg for money. He declined but thought it sounded cool. A bit of a waste of meat for a country thats not know to grow fat asses like ours.

wyoming
half the state is BLM land
you can really let'em fly up there

Darn! I was hoping there would be someplace like a nice valley, but not too far from Denver. That's probably the one with flying pigs. [UZI]

If it is public and close to the front range it is trashed and in danger of being closed. I really don't want to drive to Wyoming to sight it in since I'm going to need a bunch of trips to get some data.

It really wouldn't be a good idea to be at all close to residences. It is seriously loud with blanks. It is beyond loud pushing lead.

If someone could help out with a location I'd be happy to let him yank a lanyard on a round.

Steve

(The little cannon fires golf balls.)
http://i692.photobucket.com/albums/v...n-dan-fire.jpg

Would approx ten acres be enough?

I just thought I'd post this link to move this up a bit. http://www.flickr.com/photos/9803617...03856342/show/
I'd love to be able to do enough load work to compete is this event.

If anybody has any places to suggest, I'm interested. I could take a small cannon out to sites to see if they are suitable. Saying 'Wyoming' doesn't help much. In many places where guns are okay, a cannon will freak people out. They worry about fire and such. I don't think that is an issue as long as some intelligence is used setting it up. There are millions of acres out there and there has to be someplace for this.

Steve

Just pushing this up once again. I've been unable to shoot anything for way too long due to family issues but should be free as the summer arrives.

Once again I'd love some sort of backstopped area so I could have hopes of retrieving 4 pound lead projectiles but anyplace would do.

If someone found a place I'd even let them yank the lanyard to see what a real gun is like.

Late last summer I found that the fifty caliber people had a range in Ft. Morgan and reached the fellow the week after they'd lost the lease to it.

Steve

Turns out it is more like 320 acres of land, but there is NO backstop at all, so it's a no go. Sorry to hear you're still looking.

you should check and see if dragonmans would let you its a gun range but from my understanding they allow everything there heck they blow up cars! it is public he owns a ton of military stuff i wouldent be surprised if he has a cannon! he owns like 6 different types of tanks! and museum full of real stuff!

http://dragonmans.com/

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Originally Posted by coop68

you should check and see if dragonmans would let you its a gun range but from my understanding they allow everything there heck they blow up cars! it is public he owns a ton of military stuff i wouldent be surprised if he has a cannon! he owns like 6 different types of tanks! and museum full of real stuff!

http://dragonmans.com/

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Forgive me if this appears twice but my reply went poof!

I went to Dragonman's years ago and there didn't seem to be much adult supervision. Just people blasting away with almost no ceasefire to check targets. I'm certainly not comparing ti to Rampart range but it was mainly people firing guns and not much interest in hitting targets.

I have 4x8 plywood sheets with some supports so they can be screwed into the plywood and rebarred into the ground. It would take a few minutes to organize that.

Steve

One last question. The south site isn't that far from me. Is it at all possible there? I've never been down there but it looks like the foothills. I live in Sedalia so it actually is close.

Steve

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Originally Posted by CrufflerSteve

One last question. The south site isn't that far from me. Is it at all possible there? I've never been down there but it looks like the foothills. I live in Sedalia so it actually is close.

Steve

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I don't think it's large enough, 200 yards to shot, maybe?

Steve,

Check your PM's.

I don't think the south site is safe. There are trails behind the berms, so if a shot bounced high it could go a long way in an unsafe direction.

What about Ben Lomond Gun Club? There's a 600 yard range there. www.blgc.org

You could also take it to the machine gun shoot in Cheyenne Wells April 30-May 2. Contact Bob McBride at 303-934-1915, fcsavhp@hotmail.com, www.rmfcsa.org

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Originally Posted by rondog

What about Ben Lomond Gun Club? There's a 600 yard range there. www.blgc.org

You could also take it to the machine gun shoot in Cheyenne Wells April 30-May 2. Contact Bob McBride at 303-934-1915, fcsavhp@hotmail.com, www.rmfcsa.org

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I'm a member of BLGC. They tolerated my smaller cannon but put their foot down on this and only allowed the 100 yard range with really high berms. They don't have very large berms at the long range and they were worried about these shots damaging the berm or just skipping over.

Steve

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Originally Posted by Tim K

Steve,

Check your PM's.

I don't think the south site is safe. There are trails behind the berms, so if a shot bounced high it could go a long way in an unsafe direction.

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If there are trails behind the berm it isn't safe. Especially, if you can't see the whole path. 4 pounds of lead leaving the berm could do some bad stuff. I rather not shoot than shoot unsafely.

Steve

Side note here, but how come you can shoot a cannon on school property but can't even take a gun onto school property?

Well,, there are a couple of other spots at the south site that go towards a hill.. I haven't really checked them out, other than doing a drive by.. But there are several other spots down there..

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Originally Posted by CrufflerSteve

I'm a member of BLGC. They tolerated my smaller cannon but put their foot down on this and only allowed the 100 yard range with really high berms. They don't have very large berms at the long range and they were worried about these shots damaging the berm or just skipping over.

Steve

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Bummer. I wondered if that was the club you'd mentioned. Bring it to Cheyenne Wells and you can shoot it over the horizon! Get set up as a vendor, and you can charge us hicks to shoot it. Maybe make a couple bucks.

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Originally Posted by CrufflerSteve

Forgive me if this appears twice but my reply went poof!

I went to Dragonman's years ago and there didn't seem to be much adult supervision. Just people blasting away with almost no ceasefire to check targets. I'm certainly not comparing ti to Rampart range but it was mainly people firing guns and not much interest in hitting targets.

I have 4x8 plywood sheets with some supports so they can be screwed into the plywood and rebarred into the ground. It would take a few minutes to organize that.

Steve

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yeah! oh well thought i would mention.

I was out at the south site on Wednesday, and decided to scout around for you a bit. I found a well used spot to the south of the main area on one of the trails that would allow you to shoot at 225 yards directly into a very high hill. It appeared to be totally safe to me.

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Originally Posted by rondog

Bummer. I wondered if that was the club you'd mentioned. Bring it to Cheyenne Wells and you can shoot it over the horizon! Get set up as a vendor, and you can charge us hicks to shoot it. Maybe make a couple bucks.

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Tim has some good suggestions. Taking it to a real shoot without prep would be like going to a shooting match with a gun I've never fired and loads I've guessed at aqnd never worked up. I prefer to totally miss targets without a lot of people watching.

I opland to do some short range shootng and gradually work out to longer ranges.

Steve