Golf ball cannon, almost as much fun as my handgonne

[The Miner '49er]

75 grains of FFg, no wad or patch, barrel at a 70° angle dropped the balls between the 50 and 100 yard frames, an average of 65 yard downrange. I counted about six to eight seconds of air time from launch to plop, so those 700 grain balls are really cruising. The vertical streak in the blue sky is the ball. This still was captured by playing back my camera video at 1/4 speed. Now if a person could hand-hold that mortar it would be as much fun as the handgonne.

 

[Rich44]

Good news! I was hoping you would get one. I am having fun with my baby one also. I shoot a 1200 grain steel ball and it makes a good thud also. If you were to patch I believe it would increase a lot with that amount of powder. Here are some numbers that you maybe achieving. And a height of 150 feet, wow! Good luck with your new mortar. By the way, nice shooting spot and great picture taking.

 

[The Miner '49er]

Thanks @Rich44, that's a pretty neat and interesting calculator. Thanks for the calculation. Two questions, how was the velocity of 105 fps determined, and do you have a link to input numbers in the calculator?

 

[Edm]

I bought a mortar off this board that I fire Red Bull sized cement rounds from. I use 140 grains of 2f and pack it with sandwich bread before I load the round. Pretty impressive. I fire the rounds on Boy Scout campout then have the scouts retrieve the round so I can do it again. Good exercise…

 

[The Miner '49er]

@Rich44 made an earlier interesting post about his pinball mortar. In that post he offered the link to the calculator he used to compute my shot. I figured out how to use it as he described, and it works very well.

 

[Captndan]

My golf falls are pretty loose. What is the recommended wadding?

 

[The Miner '49er]

While I have read on another forum accounts of guys using bread, damp newspaper, cloth patches, etc., to increase velocity and report, I think that is a danger best avoided. I have also read that for safety, mortars must have a certain amount of "windage", which is space around the ball, to allow them to be shot safely especially if and when the powder in the powder chamber doesn't reach the ball. My mortar chamber holds 95gr of FF, but I shoot 65-75gr, so either none or just a tiny bit of the the powder reaches the ball when the tube is angled at 45°.This is totally opposite the tightly patched ball against powder that we do with ML rifles and pistols. I also found out that, again unlike a rifled gun, this windage allows the ball to begin moving immediately as the ignition gasses vent not only behind the ball but also around it. Tons of velocity probably arent wanted b/c its not much fun to launch a ball so fast you can't see it fly and have no idea where it landed. Just my 2¢ worth.

 

[The Miner '49er]

BTW in my handgonne, which also has windage around the ball and the smooth bore barrel, I put a wad of 1/2 coffee filter against the powder, then I drop in the ball, then the other half of the filter to hold it against the powder. I do this b/c when the tiller is on my right shoulder the barrel is level and I don't want the ball to roll off the powder and part way down the tube. I also just push hard enough to fix the two papers in place, no crush 'n crunch. While ML guns - rifles and pistols, handgonnes, and mortars all use the same propellent each must be handled very differently. 2 more ¢ just spent .