Dad Builds 700 Pound Cannon for Son's Birthday 410
Hugh Pickens writes "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. 'It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg,' says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. 'I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift,' says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a cannon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. 'Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top,' Logan says."
You'll shoot your eye out, kid (Score:5, Interesting)
Though Daugherty said he is still stunned that he had to get clearance from the NSA for the archaic artillery piece
Why would he need clearance from the NSA?
Cannon Are Fun (Score:5, Interesting)
My kid brother, the machinist, made a scale replica of the 24 pounder long guns on the USS Constitution (Old Ironsides). He didn't cast iron; he machined it from a solid piece of modern steel (so it was WAY stronger than the originals).
Then he made a scale carriage, machined (because it was so hard) from seasoned timbers from an old dock being disassembled.
It was 1/4 scale, as I recall. When fired using modern muzzle loader powder (and totally guessing at the charge), it shot a beercan filled with cement about a quarter mile :-)
He sold it eventually to a collector, but what a cannon that was!
Re:That's Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, there's been at least one successful revolution... google the battle of athens, tenn.
Cannon are fun (Score:5, Interesting)
My wife's uncle builds and shoots them. Years ago, he competed with his cannon, in both round shot and rifled competitions, with self-cast balls and "bullets" (I forget the correct name for them). These days he just does it for fun.
You do have to be careful with them, though. Last year (2008) on the fourth of July, he took his small (2.5") cannon down to the city park like every year, to fire it as part of the city's early morning festivities. That went well, and on the way back he decided to stop off at my house and wake us all up, since my kids usually go down to the park. Unfortunately, he forgot to lower the tailgate of his pickup truck before touching off the powder. It blew an 8-inch hole through his tailgate. The cannon didn't have a projectile loaded, just gunpowder and a wad, but the force mangled his tailgate.
Re:That's Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Technically, yes. There's nothing in the constitution that denies Bill Gates the right to own a nuclear weapon is there? Nothing even close. I suppose you can interpret the private ownership of WMDs to be unconstitutional because of their definition of mass-destruction, thus by their existence in private hands violating other citizen's right to liberty.
And now to nitpick; The Civil War was hardly a bitch-slapping. It was the single bloodiest event in US history, out classing (in sheer destruction) all other wars thus-far combined.
It could have fallen on either side at many different stages of the war. Had Davis pushed into Washington first-thing, it would have been over before it started (as DC was relatively undefended) Or had Lincoln's generals not been a bunch of screw-ups etc. And, of course, the almost million dead between direct conflict, starvation, disease etc again, a little more than a bitch slap.
Now, whiskey rebellion, fine, or even prior to that when Massachusetts or Maine threatened to secede, or Delaware considered joining the Confederacy, or (as in an above post, MD) those were mere bitch-slaps. Man, those whiskey rebellion dudes really were push-overs.
This American Life episode (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a really great episode of This American Life here: http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=734 [thislife.org] that is relevant to this story. Act 1 has Sarah Vowell (a liberal anti-gun person) whose father is a gunsmith who built his own cannon. She tells about going out with him to fire it for the first time.
Re:Legal? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Legal? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:A battery (Score:2, Interesting)
I hear that they're often loaded with a salt, and frequently used in bar fights.
Only on one side. That is why it is called "a salt-end battery."
(go ahead and mod me down if you want for making bad jokes)
Re:Cost? (Score:2, Interesting)
Life Lesson (Score:3, Interesting)
My father was part of the Revolutionary War Re-enactment Militia back in the 70's, and we used to raise merry Hell with our cannon. I can remember firing Quaker Oatmeal canisters full of sand (puff rounds) several hundred yards out to sea off Cooper's Beach in the Hamptons.
One time, they did a parade in Sag Harbor, but the village wouldn't let them fire the cannon. It was only a 2-pounder, but they still wouldn't let them fire it. They were afraid it would break the windows in some of the historic buildings, which admittedly, are several hundred years old. Well, they held off until the very end of the parade, then fired it anyway. No damage, scared the HELL out of the judges and the crowd loved it.
However, now the gun had to be cleaned.
Dad and Walter took it to the end of the pier and got ready to clean it, when dad noted that the bore was the exact same diameter as a "D" cell battery. Walter noted the same thing, and in a few minutes, they'd charged the cannon and rammed a D-cell down the bore.
Now...a cannon with just a wadding load makes a huge "BOOM" with a big cloud of smoke. Very showy, very flashy. The gun rocks back a little, and that's it.
However, a cannon with an actual round in it makes a sound not unlike a Howitzer from those old WWII movies. A kind of "PAH-WOOOM", followed by the sound of ripping canvas heading down range. The smoke cloud is much narrower, and oh yeah? The cannon jumped it's blocks and went flying down the pier like a scalded cat. Probably scared the bejabbers out of a few baymen that day.
Dad was already hopping in the truck, Walter was chasing after the cannon before it rolled off the pier, and they both threw it in the back and took off before the cops could come.
They cleaned it at home this time.