Little brass cannon, again

[SOLANCO]

Mount the swivel gun and 1/2 cup cannon powder charges.

Live on a high hill and on the 4th can seen displays from many townships all round.

 

[Captndan]

Hell at 10 we were making cannons out of electrical conduit.

Yeh they were called zip guns.

 

[2 shots]

now that is the most scary sort of shooting I have ever seen, looking up to see where it is going to land!

like shooting arrows up in the air

 

[Story]

I'm bringing out this old thread for this year's 4th of July. I got a package of firecrackers left over from Christmas so I might just get out and celebrate (if it isn't too hot)

How's the nephew doing?

 

[Eutycus]

Still grinning, I hope. He went to live with his mother and really needs that "male-role-model" thing in his life. Sad really

 

[SwampBilly]

I used to love fire crackers. I don't know how many cannons, rifles, and pistols I made that I used them in. Slide the cracker in and make sure the fuse stuck out of the end, throw a bunch of BB's, rocks and whatever down the barrel and light it... I made a cannon out of a block of wood, a pipe and an old hinge. I drilled a hole in one side of the hinge and attached it to the block of wood. The hole fit over the pipe I drove into the hole I drilled in the block of wood. I pushed all sorts of things into the back of the "barrel" then slid a fire cracker in and made sure the fuse stuck out the side. I then closed the hinge as a breech plug. I had a bar that held the hinge closed tight, and lit the fuse. Cool boom and stuff flew out the barrel. I miss those days...

I used a short piece of brass tube with a pipe cap on the end and a 1/16 hole drilled through it for the fuse.

The bore was just a little bigger around than the firecracker. Firecracker would actually throw a bullet weight a fairly respectable little distance out of the end. Maybe 150 ft.

 

[Eutycus]

How's the nephew doing?

I still feel it was all for the good, the memories are still there.

 

[Captndan]

Loaded marbles in mine.

 

[Story]

I still feel it was all for the good, the memories are still there.

When you do good things, you'll most likely never see the shores those ripples reach.

 

[NorthFork]

@Eutycus

Firecracker burns ARE a "badge of honor"! A Rite of Passage to manhood as well.

 

[SOLANCO]

Remembering a July 4th decades ago. Bunch of us at a waterfront house on the Great Bay in NJ. Philly fireman shows up with a shopping bag of confiscated fireworks, gets drunk, heads out to the end of the dock to set them off. Drops a lit cigarette in the bag and doesn't even notice. At least he had enough sense left to jump into the water.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Firecrackers were a heck of a lot more powerful when I was a kid. Can't get m-80's or cherry bombs any more. Used to et some kind of golf ball sized thing, when you threw it down there was a bang, not extremely so, but an instant huge pillar of smoke. The sort of thing magicians in the movies would use. I recently found one in a box of stuff that I had left in my mother's attic. After 60 years it was a dud, but brought back so many memories. I remember dropping lit black cats down an old mortar tube my uncle had from surplus That was back before the government got so picky about what private citizens had..