Building A Model Cannon

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I have long had a keen interest in model cannons, so you can guess that when I saw David Spittles' "call to arms" in Black Powder, I immediately emailed him with my support. At around the same time I heard that Worcester Norton Shooting Club already had a model cannon firing section, with competitions. This I found was a super club, and only a few miles up the M5 from me. With the help of a friend who was already a member of WNSC I joined up.

I have a small collection of model cannons, with one particularly nice model, but under the MLAGB rules it must be proofed. Mine isn't. But here my past caught up with me! Some years ago I used to produce model cannons, though because of the potential legal ramifications these were non firing being bored only a couple of inches from the muzzle just for the look. I still have a small stock of these available, together with all the necessary foundry patterns, jigs, tools etc. to make these, but for use the barrels have to be legalised, and bored. To join in the fun of competitions I determined to build my own fireable cannon.

It has long amazed me how some people will spend hours on a lathe creating what they think is a cannon, without spending a little time researching what a cannon really looks like. Mine are based mainly on those displayed at the National Maritime Museum and the barrels and naval carriage are proper and authentic miniatures of the Bloomfield tube as used by Nelson in his

bothers with the French, and the later (1838) design by Monk. The oak carriages are also pretty accurate.

I took the patterns to a family foundry in Bristol, and had some cast in bronze and actually watched the metal poured. Being sixteen inches long the barrels can look pretty impressive when straight out of the moulds but after polishing they look superb. The next stage, of course, is getting them bored. It's possible to bore a cannon on a small lathe such as the ubiquitous Myford ML7 However there are specialist companies who can do this work to a very high degree of accuracy.

I took my blanks to such a company and had them bored to 18mm. The machine used costs around £1.5m and the finish of the bore is superb.

A note of caution here. A model cannon is a firearm, just like a repro pistol, and it must be on your FAC. My local firearms licensing officer deems that it becomes a firearm when the vent is bored i.e. when it is capable of being fired. We have agreed that they are entered on my FAC before that final boring so that I say within the law. If you intend building a cannon, I would urge you to get in touch with your local licensing officer to get his approval at each stage. To assist you I suggest you quote the MLAGB text or that of a club which like WNSC organises cannon shoots A naval carriage has an extremely rudimentary system of elevation, simply a wedge under the breech end. There was little need for any sophisticated aiming gear on a weapon to be fared from the rolling deck of a ship! It's therefore necessary for us to part with purity of authenticity and devise a simple screw mechanism for adjusting the elevation, and I am sure good results can be obtained.                          Continued on Next Page