what did we do wrong

[2nd artillery]

We had our little gun out this weekend. After all the festivities ended saturday we were going to do some live shooting with our musktes. But some one came up with the idea useing the musket balls in the cannon. We found a 12x5 sheet of cloth and streched it up along some sumac trees. Now back about 75-100 yards we had the cannon. it has a 1 1/2 inch bore. I dont know how much powder we used but the first time we used 20 musket balls (735) and sorta wrapped then in tin foil like we do with out cartridges. we aimed and fired. It it the lower left corner and the balls never separated and it just put a single tear in the clothe. The next one we used 15 balls but we put them down loose with a small peace of foil to hold them in. That one missed high right and we saw where some of the balls hit the trees. The next one was the same way and it hit the clothe tward the left but the thing was balls just left streches in it and none of them went through. This was only my first time doing this but i would like to know what did we do wrong?

 

[Thamaz]

This sound strange.

The balls didn

 

[2nd artillery]

well we used what we had. It suprised us too that the balls didnt seperate.

 

[bezoar]

well you should load like a normal shotgun here. load powder, a .25 inch cardboard disk, then the musket balls, then another.
The normal way to load that in ages past was to sew the musket balls into a cheap flannel/cotton bore sized bag that would come apart upon firing the gun.

 

[Tumblernotch]

Once you get your load fixed so the balls properly spread, you also want to set your targets up to see how much your balls do spread. In other words, pattern your cannon. To get as many balls as possible to hit a target at a given distance, you need to lower your elevation so as to place as many balls in the upper part of the shot cone into the target as possible. The balls in the lower part should strike the ground in front of the target and richochet up into the target. This places the maximum amount of your shot into the target. You will have to experiment with the charge and the trajectory of the shot a good bit.

Here's a rough sketch of how this works:

This method was used with great effect during the Civil War.
:grey: :blue:

I'm sorry it came out so small. I hope it's viewable. I have to leave and don't have time right now to fix it.

PS I forgot to add that this is much more effective if the ground in front of the target is dry and hard or stony. And you also have to take safety into consideration. In battle, they weren't too concerned with that like we have to be. ::

 

[musketman]

This sound strange.

The balls didn

 

[Will Bison]

If your bore is 1.5" then use balls just a bit under .5", say some .490's. Construct a foil cylinder of bore diameter. Drop in seven balls and form the first layer. Now put in four more layers of seven balls each for a total of 28 balls.

Make some sabots from scrap plywood. They should be an easy slip fit and the thickness should be the same as bore diameter. The sabots can be cut with a hole saw.

A good range would be about 50 yards for this type load.

If it's not obvious, the loading sequence is powder, sabot, shot.

Some fun targets can be constructed of scrap sheetrock. I cut pieces about 18" X 5 feet and prop them up with sticks to simulate troops in the open. Yes, you may paint faces on them.

Have fun.

 

[2nd artillery]

As I said before we used what we had. But with all this new info I want to go do it again, but the right way this time.