Muzzleloading cannon

You can probably pack it full without much worry. It is short enough that it'll blow most excess out the muzzle. However, the rule of thumb with black powder guns is one grain per caliber (50cal gets 50grains of powder) and work up or down from there.

Paul K. Dickman

Are you going to use black powder or substitute? If so, I'd just start somewhere around the same as recommended for a 32 cal pistol. I used to shoot toilet paper packed into my black powder cannons, I have a 44 cal and a 75 cal. With the toilet paper packed in reasonable is makes a lot of noise but not much destructive power. One of my cannons has a cast iron barrel, the other is brass, I got them from Dixie gun works some 35-40 years ago.

Searching, one guy said he uses 25 grains of 3F black powder in his 32 caliber. Your barrel looks pretty stout!

RogerN

OK, I figure that I will fill the length equal to appx. 2 times the ID of the barrel. Can I use a better gunpowder than blackpowder? Something that does not cause so much rusting?

Thanks. It is made from 8620 steel, it is 2x stronger than the famous

How do you make wads with toilet paper, I want to start with the same.

I just used a square of toilet paper rolled it up into a ball, and rammed it down the muzzle, I used 3 or 4 crammed in their to attempt to build up a little pressure to make a loud bang, it worked. I doubt you can get enough black powder in that barrel to damage it. Savage had/has a muzzle loading rifle that you could shoot smokeless powder in. If I were going to try it, I'd use reload data for a compressed charge on whatever size my projectile is, then I'd take cover in a safe place for test firing.

RogerN

You can use pyrodex or one of the other substitutes, they are much less corrosive, but they're still dirty.

You still have to scrub it with hot soapy water, dry it and oil it. The substitutes just give you a little more time to get around to it. Blackhorn 209 is supposedly the cleanest, but I have never used it,

An empty .45acp case holds about 28grains of fff black powder. For what you're doing, just stuff a ball of toilet paper in for wadding and pack it down.

Paul K. Dickman

OK, great to know. I will see where I can get gunpowder.

Anywhere muzzleloader supplies are sold - but don't get your hopes up for real black powder , few places carry it any more because it's expensive to ship . Pyrodex or any other BP substitute will work as well as long as you can get FFF grade . I load about 30-35 grains in my .36 cap and ball revolver , good place to start . As others said , wad up a couple of pieces of TP and ram it in on top of the powder - packing it tighter will make the report "sharper" , it'll have more of a "crack" .

.33 id? About 10-30 grains and Id probably go with the smaller amounts

At that small a bore...it will sound like a pistol shot and not much else.

All you need to do is stuff some toilet paper in there with a rod and pack it down. DO NOT hit it with a hammer etc etc.. and make damned sure you take the ramrod out before firing. Put a nice 90' bend in one end of it so you can see the damned thing and paint it a nice bright yellow.

As for the wadding... 3/8ths-1/2" should make a nice bang.

Now for a modest Boom...use a bore at least .75" and about 25-40grs blackpowder.

You can simply rebore the barrel bigger with a drill bit.

Gunner

Hodgdon's Pyrodex was the first widely available substitute on the market. Pyrodex is less sensitive to ignition than black powder, and uses the same shipping and storage guidelines as smokeless powder. Pyrodex is more energetic per unit of mass than black powder, but it is less dense, and can be substituted at a 1:1 ratio by volume for black powder in many applications.[1] Pyrodex is similar in composition to black powder, consisting primarily of charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate, but it also contains graphite and potassium perchlorate, plus additional ingredients protected by trade secret. Originally available as loose powder in two granularities, RS (Rifle/Shotgun) equal to FFG black powder, and P (Pistol) equal to FFFg black powder, Pyrodex is now becoming available in Select and solid pellet varieties. While Pyrodex offers improved safety and increased efficiency (in terms of shots per pound of powder) over black powder, the level of fouling is similar; Pyrodex is caustic and corrosive.

Hodgdon also makes Triple Seven, one of the family of sulfurless black powder substitutes. Triple Seven and Black Mag3 are more energetic than black powder, and produce higher velocities and pressures. Still burning carbon, the carbon-based fuel burned here is from the sugar family, not from charcoal.

Western Powders Company introduced Blackhorn 209 in 2008. Like many other black powder substitutes, it is made to be a volumetric substitute of black powder. It is dispensed in "black powder powder measures" for muzzleloading applications. Blackhorn 209 is essentially non-corrosive, low-fouling, very consistent in gas generation, but non-hygroscopic.[2]

Most of those (other than Pyrodex) require more "containment" so you would be pushing more wadding in the barrel and packing it tightly.

There really isnt a need for cleaning such a cannon. When done shooting it..simply hit it with the garden hose and then give it a shot of PB Blaster or anything that will not evaporate until the next time you use it.

gunner