My Cannon

[survivalhike]

Hopefully you can see the picture I tried to attach, but this is a statement to how difficult it has been for me to pare down my supplies for a lighter camping trip.

This is a three feet long golf ball cannon (painted Chicago Bears colors of course) that fires golf balls using black powder. It's louder than a .45 and no one has ever seen or recovered any of the golf balls. It's like looking at a gunshot.

We shot one of the golf balls at point blank range through a 1" thick piece of plywood, and it made a hole that looked like it was cut by a laser. The whole mess cost around $50 including powder and golf balls. A great investment. Where I live this unit falls under the black powder firearms laws ,and is only illegal if used in any manner that a regular gun would be illegally used.

This has nothing to do with survival, but I wanted to share a cool picture with all of you. I hope you dig it!

[Fog_Harbor]

We used to make something similar as kids; ya take three drink cans, poke a side hole in the bottom of one, a larger hole in the bottom of both the others, and cut the top off of the third. You tape them together, side hole on the bottom, and the one with no top on top. Place a tennis ball in the top, lighter fluid in the bottom, then light it. Not exactly the results you got, but fun as a kid none the less (not to mention less bodily damage if it hitts you!)

[Sarge47]

Hopefully you can see the picture I tried to attach, but this is a statement to how difficult it has been for me to pare down my supplies for a lighter camping trip.

This is a three feet long golf ball cannon (painted Chicago Bears colors of course) that fires golf balls using black powder. It's louder than a .45 and no one has ever seen or recovered any of the golf balls. It's like looking at a gunshot.

We shot one of the golf balls at point blank range through a 1" thick piece of plywood, and it made a hole that looked like it was cut by a laser. The whole mess cost around $50 including powder and golf balls. A great investment. Where I live this unit falls under the black powder firearms laws ,and is only illegal if used in any manner that a regular gun would be illegally used.

This has nothing to do with survival, but I wanted to share a cool picture with all of you. I hope you dig it!

I could use one of those on the Looonnnggg par holes. What a drive!

[HOP]

What grain golf ball and do they come in hollow point.

[survivalhike]

Can't tell ya...Secret family recipe.

Though I would venture to say that at least the tape comes off the balls in flight. Whether the ball actually deforms or not I have no idea, but I wouldn't be too surprised if it didn't look too good once it came to a stop.

The reason we have to tape the balls with electrical tape is to get a tight seal between the inner barrel and the projectile. The first couple shots just rolled out the end of the barrel and wouldn't have harmed an ant hill because the gas was escaping past the small space left between the barrel and the golf ball. Until we figured out that compression is directly related to force of explosion which is directly related to distance the projectile will travel, we had very poor distance...no more than about fifteen feet.

[HOP]

You might try a patch like in black powder muzleloading a litle lube might help also.