Cannon ball fit
- Thread starter Rfp10000
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Cannon ball are generally made of iron, and run as much as a 1/4 inch smaller than the bore.
Cannon are loaded horizontally. And the ball won’t roll down the bore, or at least not solidly as needed to be safe to fire, but has to be pushed.
Some sort of wad had to be loaded first and then usually a wad on top.
Often ball was set on a wad in the casson, often made of wood.
Rifle guns from the end of ml times had an expanding brass or copper ring that fit in to the rifeling doing the work of a skirt on a minie.
Ships used solid shot a lot. And on a battlefield ball would be shot at long range, however the typical shot in a cannon on a battle filed was case, loose small shot in a bag or can called canister
This is sometimes called grape, but grape was a little different than case and canister just in degree.
Grape was usually aboard ship and tge shot was bigger. Ships generally had larger guns than field.
During the revolution field guns were generally in the four pound range, small vessels six to twelve pounds and big war ships eighteen, twenty four, thirty twos and some forty eights though that was going out of style. So they had more room for bigger small balls for cannon shot.
Cannon are loaded horizontally. And the ball won’t roll down the bore, or at least not solidly as needed to be safe to fire, but has to be pushed.
Some sort of wad had to be loaded first and then usually a wad on top.
Often ball was set on a wad in the casson, often made of wood.
Rifle guns from the end of ml times had an expanding brass or copper ring that fit in to the rifeling doing the work of a skirt on a minie.
Ships used solid shot a lot. And on a battlefield ball would be shot at long range, however the typical shot in a cannon on a battle filed was case, loose small shot in a bag or can called canister
This is sometimes called grape, but grape was a little different than case and canister just in degree.
Grape was usually aboard ship and tge shot was bigger. Ships generally had larger guns than field.
During the revolution field guns were generally in the four pound range, small vessels six to twelve pounds and big war ships eighteen, twenty four, thirty twos and some forty eights though that was going out of style. So they had more room for bigger small balls for cannon shot.
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NO! No 'ring around the rosie'!
Youngblood
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Anything that tight would make it a pipe bomb. You must have “windage”, thats wiggle room. Theres a standard formula i cant recall right now but for example a 3 pounder runs 2.91 inches and the correct ball is 2.84.
Windage is 1/40th on a smoothbore gun.
