Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Boom Times

"A bowling ball WHAT?!"  That's the reaction of most people who first see or hear about bowling ball mortars.  Yes, they really do shoot and can launch a bowling ball almost a mile, or a much shorter distance (depending on the powder and angle of elevation).  This is important  if you don't have a long field to shoot in. You can easily drop a bowling ball inside 200 yards. [More]
Yeah, I know-- you don't need it to hunt deer.

[Via Steve T

3 comments:

Henry said...

In New England, you could hunt duckpins with it.

Steve said...

But if you want to hunt deer with a bowling ball cannon, you'll need a suppressor. Which I imagine would be rather unwieldy.

Bill Twist said...

I have a mortar, but it's not a bowling ball mortar. It's a 3" bore, 6 caliber mortar, and I use 15 oz green bean cans, half full of cement and weighing just about a pound, as projectiles. Powder charge to launch them is about an ounce of 1F black powder, and at high elevation (about 75 degrees), it'll go almost 300 yards.

They fly like a giant shotgun slug, or a demonic shuttlecock.

Man portable, too: One man can pick it up. Two men can carry it, and four can easily carry it long distances.