Bowling Ball Mortar at our Cannon Shoot.

[W.R.Buchanan]

Today, Saturday 28 May 2011 was the first day of our annual Cannon and Mortar shoot at the Ojai Valley Gun Club north of Ojai CA.

There was a bunch of cool little guns there ranging from one that shot 1.5" Steel balls, thru a bunch that shoot beer cans full of cement, to one the shoots bowling balls. There was also a real live 45-70 Gatling Gun, and the guy had loaded all 2000 rounds of ammo for the weekend with a single stage rockchucker press. He is very serious about not having any squib loads lodging a bullet in bore and blowing up his $145,000 Gatling Gun.

Everything is set up on our 200 yard line with a variety of targets to shoot at. Any hit by anything is pretty much luck of the draw. However it is easy to know when somebody gets close as you here the ooh and ahhh's down the line.

The Bowling Ball Mortar is the star of the show and shoots 14 lb bowling balls nearly out of sight strait up on nearly every shot.

3 OZ of 1F Black Powder is the routine charge..

I was only able to take a few pics before my Camera Battery went dead (I'm an idiot) but you can get a pretty good idea of this gun from the pics I did get.

The gun is made from 8.5" 1" wall 4140 Chrome-Moly tube. 120,00 psi strength. It weighs 600+ lbs.

It has a solid breach end which goes up into the tube 6" and is held in place by both the trunions, and then seal welded inside and out with several passes of 7018 rod..

The internal breach face is radiused to fit the 8.550 dia of the balls (Apparently bowling balls are 8.550+/-.015) the bore is 8.565 ish and then there is a counterbore in the breach face to accomidate the charge, no wadding of any kind is used.. It will hold up to one pound of powder. When they "proofed" the gun at one of the Coalinga cannon shoots.they loaded it with One Pound of powder and it shot a 14 lb ball 1.25 miles! There is no doubt in my mind that this gun could live thru a full pound of Bullseye completely unscathed. It is that strong!

The mount for the gun is able to function both as a mortar mount or a cannon mount allowing either style of usage with 90 degrees + of travel. The normal usage is set at about 80 degrees vertical and results in about 300-400 yards distance and elevation of nearly 1500 ft AGL. If you don't track the ball right out of the gun you loose it!!! This is done in the interest of recycling the bowling balls as many times as possible, and finding them is the issue. Believe me everytime this thing goes off it is an "event" worthy of note:

Just lowering the the altitude setting 5 degrees results in the balls hitting on the back side of the large moutain we use as a backstop. The balls are impossible to find then.

This is one of the coolest guns I have ever seen in my 61 years!

Today I saw it fired as a cannon for the first time. The drop at 200 yards was about 2 feet !!!

Here's some pics and I will try to post some more tomarrow.

Randy

[tomme boy]

Were the balls singing when they were flying? Local person has one here. He loads a 1lb charge all the time in his. This one was set up like a modern mortor. Really neat.

[phatman]

That is one stout gun!
Very nice build quality.

Cheers, John

[dunno.458]

I'd pay to see that in action.

Who knows what hoop's one would have to jump through to build and fire one legally in Australia. I hate to think.

One can only dream and watch you crazy Americans.

[dunno.458]

And how much does a bowling ball cost?

[M4bushy]

I love the toilet plunger ramrod.....lol

[tomme boy]

The guy here picks them up at yard sales. He said he paid around 1-2$ for each one.

[W.R.Buchanan]

this guy gets the balls from Bowling Alleys and he pays $1-3 each, and he says sometimes they just give them to him when they find out what he is using them for. Some of them do whistle as they fly, some don't.

This one doesn't really use the ram rod. Only used when he is in cannon mode. Otherwise you dump the powder into the chamber with a long funnel and then drop the ball in while knealing off to the side in case the ball crushes some powder and it goes off. You wouldn't make it thru that unscathed. the least of it would be getting the hair burnt off you and looking like tar baby. It would probably kill you!

Like I said he is using 3 oz of 1F black, and you can see by the pic the flash is impressive. I'd like to see it fire at night. Now that would be really impressive. 4th of July?

The hillside in tha background in one of the pics is the backstop I was talking about. The top is 400 yards from where the gun is set up.

You'll note the elevation of the barrel?

If he drops the elevation just a little, the balls land on the back side of the hill! Every shot the ball goes up nearly out of sight!

I only wish all you guys could see this thing go off. It is impossible to describe it adequately.

I'm going back up today to take some more pics, and wil post latter today. ( Sorry this didn't happen, event got blown out by high winds, and gun was moved to a different venue for Sunday)

Randy

[45-70 Ranger]

Too cool to say the least!

Wade

[Trailblazer]

I am a member of OVGC. Last went to this shoot many years ago. There were scattered low clouds that day and the balls would disappear up through the clouds and then magically reappear as they fell. Fun to watch!

[mazo kid]

Just lowering the the altitude setting 5 degrees results in the balls hitting on the back side of the large moutain we use as a backstop. The balls are impossible to find then.

The first bowling ball mortar I saw was about 35 years ago, built by a machine shop instructor. He used a 12 ga. shot shell full of 1fg powder as a measure for the charge. He had a bright colored ribbon tied to an eye bolt that was secured in the bowling ball. I asked him if that was to track the ball when he shot it, his response was "no, that's so I can find the ball when it impacts!" Try it, you'll like it! No more lost balls.

[Winger Ed.]

This picture was posted on another public forum site, so I figure its OK to post it here.
Its another historical replica BP mortar, scaled down to fire bowling balls.
If I remember correctly, it was built by a Aussie, and the load is 4oz. of 1F.

Its not a night shot, but pretty close.

I can't find the picture, but there is a picture out there of a guy shooting a really spectacular night shot with one of these. Its fired from the beach, going out over the ocean.
For added 'effect', he places a 1Qt. freezer bag full of gasoline on top of the ball.

[DanWalker]

We have a cannon shoot here every summer. The bowling ball mortars are a hoot.
If you do a Google Earth Search for "Stuckenhoff Range" in Casper Wyoming you can actually see the targets painted on the surface of the earth.

[Survival Bill]

That Looks Like a Blast Very Cool.. what a great show that would be to see in real life.... thanks for the pics and story on it...

[smokemjoe]

I made one also, using a 3AA 2400 weld tank, 4 oz. of fuse and 3fA fireworks powder, mixed. will push a 10 lb. ball 900 yds.