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Making Cannons?

9K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  Rock and Glock 
#1 ·
so here's one from left field...

I have a buddy who makes salute Cannons. He has made .750 and 1.00 bore. He has punched grapefruit sized holes thorugh brick walls with muzzle loading 1.00 Cannons.

My question is this: what can you legally get away with here? how big of a bore can you make?
Can you make breech loaders? do they have to be blackpowder or could you go smokeless?

i am not in a hurry to do so, but a 3" breech loading smooth bore cannon would make an interesting decoration for the front lawn...

Thoughts?
 
#2 ·
It is perfectly legal to build your own muzzle loading cannon, but a breach loader is illegal.

If I can find the law I will post it.
 
#4 ·
I am a welder and a few people have ask me to build cannon's . I have ask a retired Leo that is a gunsmith he says to stay far away from making one . I don't know if he is saying it because we live in Maryland or for federal laws .

I am too much of a chicken to make any .
 
#5 ·
Make the bore the diameter of a beer can. Empties don't go very far, but sand-filled cans do and make a big dust cloud when they land.

Don't ask.
 
#6 ·
Here is what I know .. Most back powder guns are not consider firerams so you can have a sbs if BP. Also if the guns is a black powedr cannon then yeah not a gun or DD .

However it would be best to stick with ball rounds. Expolding rounds are a no no unless you have belowe the fed amont of expolding stuff or you have a tax stamp for it ala 40 mm rounds.

Bear in mind somthing like a 90mm at gun while legal to own will need a tax stamp . My local dealer has a 75mm AT gun that fires shells but is type 3.

Again check the law states are different and I am not a lawyer
 
#11 ·
clarify please? i don't know what an AT gun is.

i also don't know what "sbs if BP" means, well i figure BP is black powder, but the sbs part...

...also "gun or DD" DD..?
 
#8 ·
ha. I am a welder too. was certified pressure vessel welder for oil and gas, now i build capitol equipment for the packaging industry. i am also a machinist. went to school for welding, machining, and computer drafting.

the other thing would be finding info on loads. Say you build a 2" cannon, however much your projectile weighs, how much powder do you use? i would imagine using two pieces of heavy wall DOM pipe one slipped over the other, would yeild a good barrel, but blowing that sucker would be nasty news.
 
#12 ·
The people that wanted our company to build them had drawings and were private citizens . I turned down the jobs because i do not know how they would be used and because of libility laws , for the few dollars we could make it would not be enough .IMO
I always have work so i can turn down some things that have potental problems .
 
#14 ·
My bad AT means anti tank gun . My dealer has a 75 mm german gun from the war that firers Fixed shells thus a DD which means
"Destructive Devices (DDs)—there are two broad classes of destructive devices:

Devices such as grenades, bombs, explosive missiles, poison gas weapons, etc.
Any firearm with a bore over 0.50 inch except for shotguns or shotgun shells which have been found to be generally recognized as particularly suitable for sporting purposes. (Many firearms with bores over 0.50" inch, such as 12-gauge shotguns, are exempted from the law because they have been determined to have a "legitimate sporting use".)"

Short barreled shotguns (SBSs)—this category is defined similarly to SBRs, but the barrel must be under 18" or a minimum overall length under 26". and the barrel must be a smoothbore.

That said if black powder then you can have a sbs assuming it is not some normal gun made to be black powder as I remember ..

But yeah you can own something like a cival war cannon etc assuming it does not fired a fix shell

For example there is a guy local who sell mortars that fired bowling balls

Again there is more to the law then this but this is the basics of it


Also while we are at it Gatling guns and any crank fired guns are legal rifles and not macigun guns if no more then one round is fired per pull of trigger


Oh and here you go Black Powder / Cannon - United States of America - Ownership.
According to United States Federal Regulations, a cannon that is not capable of firing fixed ammunition (fixed ammunition refers to a projectile and powder charge than can be loaded as a single unit) and manufactured on or before 1898, and replicas thereof, are antiques and not subject to the provisions of either the Gun Control Act of 1968 or the National Firearms Act of 1934.

from http://www.cannonsuperstore.com/black_powder_cannons.htm
 
#15 ·
This replica was sleeved down to about 2.5" to keep it shootable and affordable. Projectile is a 3 lb lead ball on top of a quarter-pound charge of cannon-grade black powder. The latter has the look of fine gravel... way slower burn rate than even Fg. At a measured range of 112 yards we could hit a target about the size of a truck tire 50% of the time - recognize we had to re-aim after each shot, and the pre-measured powder charges were hardly precise from shot to shot.

Towing this thing on a flat-bed trailer on I-10 west of Phoenix generated a fair number of slack jaws and open mouths.
 
#17 ·
...cooler than polar bears toenails....

what is the velocity like on that thing?
 
#16 ·
Sweet!

So pgrass said he thought breech loaders were illegal, now i know from a historical and military standpoint a breech loading black powder cannon without fixed ammo might be an anachronism, but if it fits within the confines of the law as written you could theoretically devise a pretty nasty AT device. breech loading would allow you to stay behind cover, speed up reloads, and ease cleaning. go crazy on your size, like a 6" or 8" bore, say if you could push a 15 lbs ball or slug(maybe even a rifled slug like a shotgun?) to 600-900 fps, yikes, nasty business.
 
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