[wonderwolf]

Thinking about building a 3" or 4" muzzle loading mortar to shoot baseballs or soft balls?

I'm not sure how viable this is but I think it would be a neat project to do on the cheap. pattern it after a British 3" or 4.2" mortar I think. Something to play with while my dad is playing with his 24 pound Coehorn. I don't think I want to play with a bowling ball mortar just yet. Someday I would like to get a 10" or 12" siege mortar

 

[ontos106]

I have a quart can mortar 4" it works great
and every body has paint can they want to get rid of
so lots of cheap ammo most of the time they are free
glue quart can work too

 

[blackrifles]

I want to build one, thick walled with under 2" bore (golf ball) just to upset the local golfers, the ammo is dirt cheap and plentiful, nothing like sending their balls back to them, INCOMING!

 

[wonderwolf]

I want something that will really carry. I've seen 10" and 12" siege mortars hit targets out to 1000 yards. Now I'm not saying I want something that will go that far but I want to build something with some good range.

 

[panaceabeachbum]

If you have a source for cheap projectiles the baseball or soft ball idea would be great , dont know how far they will travel , I have a golf ball mortar I built from some 1/2" wall dom and about 600yds seems to be the max distance no matter what i try .

I know the guys shooting lead out of their g-ball mortars are getting 1000+ . The big problem with the gball is they are very hard to see in flight compared to the bigger stuff

 

[30calmachinegunner]

if your interested and have the material we can crank it out in an afternoon if you want. Myself I am wanting to build some 3" bore cannons with about a 4' long barrel, maybe even make it a breech loader, for a mortar I think I can come up with some hydraulic cyl. that have about a 8-10" bore

 

[rugman59]

3" bore and empty 15 oz. chili cans filled with concrete! And you thought the beans were noisy!

 

[Webleys]

3" bore and empty 15 oz. chili cans filled with concrete! And you thought the beans were noisy!

4 ft tube, 3 in bore, 500 grains cannon grade BP, food can full of concrete and a ziplock of gas on top of the can (the gas is for the optional, but popular, fireball).

The 81mm mortar takes a 3 3/4 in OD tube.

http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/2008/07040-4th/ddb 20080704 010-123-print.jpg

http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/2008/07040-4th/ddb 20080704 010-193-print.jpg

Bill McKenna at www.bigshotsofidaho.com made the tube for me.

http://www.bigshotsofidaho.com/pictures/tubes.jpg

He built my Bowling Ball mortar too.