Patching Cannon Balls

[Slowpoke]

:crackup: :crackup: :crackup: :crackup:

 

:master: Quite Right, Squire Robin.. Back to the naval rounds..nobody mentioned 'hot-shot', RED-HOT iron shot or Bar-shot used to set enemy craft a-fire... :curse: :curse: :curse:

 

[jgray]

:relax: The safety comment was geared toward modern re-enactors or shooters who would be more concerned about their safety and that of any spectators.

:agree: That setting the battlefield on fire is not a major concern for actual combatants, until they find themselves lying wounded on a burning battlefield. :hmm:

 

[grlmpl]

In col. george b rodney,s book called, the sea scorpion, taking place around 1805, he mentions making a 24 pounder cannon rifled by building a tube flat with lands and rolling it up to put in barrel, mentions Colonal Ferguson thought of it in 1778 and a man named Robins in 1741, cannon patched with green hides. Book was printed in 1935.

 

[strongarm]

A friend of mine built a scale model of a Napoleon cannon and decided to shoot it off in Northern Wisconsin over the 4th of July couple of years ago. He fashioned a ball out of a downrigger weight(used on Lake Michigan. He did use newspaper as wadding between the ball and powder charge. He expected it to fire and go into the lake by his property.

Well it went over the lake and landed in someone's front yard. He ended up in court and the judge ruled to get that ((&**(&^%%$#$% thing out of the county or else he would be locked up and have the key thrown into the lake.

With this in mind, I don't think :curse: you need a patch.

 

[robinghewitt]

Well it went over the lake and landed in someone's front yard. He ended up in court

When that happens it's generally not a good idea to go ask for your ball back, in fact I'd probably opt for complete denial and swear I was shooting blanks ::

 

[Stumpkiller]

Honest, your honor. I was shooting newspaper wadding only. Must have been a late hit from the Perseid Meteor showers that took out Mr. McFeeley's lawn gnomes.

For many years I sweated the arrow stuck under the eves of our neighbor, Mr. Davidson's, house. He was not a patient man, at least not by the time I was in grade school, but luckily his eyesight was not keen. The shaft and head outlasted him.

 

[rifleshooter2]

Never patch a cannon ball. Cannons are designed to have a certain amount of windage. If you patch the ball you will create excessive pressure.
Andy

 

[robinghewitt]

If a lead ball was not quite round or met a small obstruction it would simply deform or shave a bit off itself then carry on.

Unfortunately, cannon balls are made of iron. I think that is why they have windage :hmm:

 

[lanedh]

About a month or so ago I posted a squib about the hot shot furnace still existing at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas about 60 miles west of Key West, FL. The heated shot were to be fired at ships. I don't believe hot shot were ever used aboard ships because the furnace to heat the shot would have to be immense and the risk of uncontrolled fire in the ship was too great (IMHO).

 

[SquirrelsaurusR]

btt

 

[bezoar]

Actually shot were indeed heated up on ships for awhile. From what i can find, the Turkish empire was about the last to discontinue the practice.

 

[rootnuke]

When fighting a battle you are unlikely to worry much about setting fire to the battlefield :crackup:

now THATS funny. :crackup:

 

[Kiltiemon]

I believe hot shot WAS used in ship to ship bombardment. See "Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War 1600-1815" (can't give you the publisher, but I'm certain someone here can). Book has picture and info on a copper flush toilet circ. 1770's for shipboard use as well!!!

Jim

 

[capnwilliam]

That sounds like an interesting book, Kiltiemon. I would hesitate to say that ship-to-ship use of hot shot NEVER occurred; but I doubt that it was common.

Capt. William