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Jul 29th Cannon Shoot

Every family has strange traditions… one of my family’s particularly odd ones is attending the annual cannon shoot. I was lucky enough to have this story published in the NFA’s firearms journal, their bi-monthly publication that they send to members. For more information on the NFA (and how to become a member) visit their website here.

 

My parents have the second weekend of September booked off indefinitely for the annual cannon shoot. Its a full weekend event, most folks drive out Friday and camp out until Sunday.  I have attended it a few times over the years and have seen my step-dad’s cannon do a lot of shooting over the years, he’s had it for about as long as I’ve been alive and definitely as long as I can remember. In 2016 I went and assisted my friend Brad who had made his own cannon and mortar, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. What I enjoy most about the competition is that its not really that competitive, I think there’s more competition on who can make the best joke on the firing line… in fact there is a trophy for that, called the “Screw Ball” award. Another aspect that I always find a bit interesting is that my step-dad and his friend Germain, who run the cannon together, are usually the youngest guys there by about 25 years. So naturally there’s a wealth of knowledge there but also there’s just something about old black powder guys that just makes them fun to hang around with.. maybe its the sense of humor required to use a dirty, smoking, outdated method of propulsion, or maybe there’s just some chemicals in that smoke that cross your wires. Either way, if you ever get a chance to spend time with a group of old black powder shooters, do it, you’ll know exactly what I mean.

Well, last year one of the old guard of the group had off-hand mentioned that he wasn’t sure he was up to coming out this next year. Running a cannon alone is a lot of work, in fact doing it with two people still constitutes a good workout, if you ask me. At any rate, my parents did what any parent would do… they volunteered a child as free labour to a cannoneer. I just realized that statement probably hasn’t been relatable for over 100 years. Furthermore, I am always interested in things that go boom, and learning, so I was on board immediately. My original plan was to help Brad with his cannon too, as I had the year before. However, he ended up not coming due to work obligations.. can you imagine being such a workaholic that you miss a cannon shoot? Poor guy needs help.

This year the cannon shoot was in Athabasca, which is lucky because my dad lives near there so I was able to sleep at his house over the weekend. I arrived Saturday morning and was introduced to Dan, he was an older fellow and was dressed pretty much how you’d expect a seasoned cannon shooter to be dressed. Blue jeans, a button up western shirt, suspenders, cowboy boots, and a hat that has seen more miles than I have. We hit it off immediately, we headed to his cannon and he gave me a once over of it and walked me through the procedure. Ill give you a quick step by step with some side notes here.

1. MAKE SURE NO ONE IS DOWN RANGE ( he didn’t tell me this, but its just common sense that I feel is important to drill into everyone)
2. Grease and load a led slug into the barrel. The most common projectiles are lead cylinders between 1 and 2 inch diameter, ours were 1 3/4 across I believe, and typically about 3 inches long or so. Guys make them by melting and pouring lead into a mold, the most common way to get bulk lead is weights from tire shops. We would also usually grease or lube a few slugs at a time and just set them aside. The slugs where placed into the rear of the cannon and tapped all the way in with a metal bar and a hammer until flush.
3. Next we take the breech and fill it with black powder (about a prescription pill container full.. that was our unit of measure), place some wadding on top and then insert a fuse into the side.
4. Screw the breech onto the back of the cannon (where you had just put the lead slug) usually we had to use a bar as a snipe to get it on all the way.
5. Aim the cannon at your target, typically cannons use a peep sight on the rear and a post on the front. Left and right is adjusted by moving the rear of the cannon along the ground, often a tap with a hammer is enough to shift it. Elevation is adjusted with a screw gear between the barrel and the carriage, allowing the barrel to pivot up and down on its mounts.
6. Announce to the line that you are ready, we were station two so we would yell “Ready on two!”
7. Once all cannons on the line were ready we would fire in turn “Firing on two!” light the fuse with a propane torch, announce “fire in the hole!” and watch your target and hope you hit it.
8. Once everyone has fired, the breech is unscrewed and a wet rag is pushed down the barrel to clean it and make sure there’s no smoldering bits of black powder or wadding that could set off the next load of powder. A dry rag is then run through.
9. The breech threads are wiped with a wire brush.
10. The cannon is pushed forward back to the line, the shot pushed it back about a foot
11. Back to step 1.

Black powder is very dirty to work with. I was wearing rubber gloves but they would just rip from handling bits of metal and tightening the breech on and off. I tried leather work gloves but found I needed a bit more dexterity for loading the slugs in so they were constantly on and off. By the end of the day I admitted defeat and just let my hands turn black.

Back to the actual event. Dan was giving me a quick once over of his cannon and as I bent down to have a look at the bore, my nose started to bleed. It was off to rough start today, I quickly grabbed some paper towel and plugged my nose. Its rare for me to get a nose bleed but it inevitable happens at the worst times, of course.

Our first shoot of the day was at metal pipe at about 100 yards. We loaded up and aimed the cannon. Dan said that his gun usually shoots a bit to the right so lets go a touch left of center. I sighted us in and he bent down for a final inspection, said “looks good” and we were ready to rock. Station one, a very funny man named Henry, fired and missed by millimeters. Dan handed me the torch and told me to light it. I fired up the fuse and hoped for the best. The cannon let out a crack and a whole mess of smoke and the pipe did a back-flip. We hit it a little low of dead center. It was going to be a fantastic day. We had two more shots at the piece of pipe “where it lays” we hit it once more. The next event was stumps, same distance, hit the stump and then try and hit the largest piece that’s left, 3 shots. Our first shot split the stump and the second one cracked what was left, we missed the third. The points were, I believe 1 point per hit, the rules were kinda made up immediately before we shot. This part of the event was referred to as “the junk shoot” so it was pretty free and easy. The next junk shoot was an old fire alarm bell on a 2 inch stake, about 4 feet tall. It was decided, 3 points for hitting the bell, 1 for hitting the post and 2 for cutting the post. Our first shot rang the bell and sent it sailing 40 yards down range, our following two scared the post but never connected.

My favorite event, which was something new they decided to try this year, was “The Post”. Each cannon would take a turn shooting at the same post, it was a point for a hit and 2 points for cutting the post down. Cutting it down would also signal the end of the round. With 7 cannons we did three rounds. Several of the teams hit it and gave it a good wobble, and you could see a lot of kindling fly off of it, but it just didn’t want to go down.. that was until, Dan and I managed to bull it over with a shot that may have been more luck than skill, but keep that under your hat for me. We decided to break for lunch, some sandwiches, chili, and a variety of other snacks. My mom is the raining champion of cannon shoot food, every year its the highlight of the event… she does the same thing at the annual DMay fun shoot too. Im sure half of those guys arent into cannons or guns, just good meals. While having lunch a few people, including Dan had mentioned that his gun was shooting very well this year. There was some joking debate about if it was fresh eyes or beginners luck that made the difference. Either way I was happy with how the day was going.

After lunch we went back for the official shoots. There were two, one shooting at individual targets at 100 yards, and we were given points for however close were were to the bullseye. This shoot was called the “Roger Cadeaux Memorial” in reference to an older member who had passed away. Dan and I did ok, but Darrell and Germain tied with another team which lead to a shoot off, one shot, closest to center wins. That last event of the day was everyone shooting, in turn, at a large bulls-eye at 200 yards. This was again a memorial shoot named after Mr. Andy Wood, who had also passed. We did manage to connect but we did not shine at this event. I was still pretty pleased with the results of the day. After that we had supper, another staple of the event. We had some meatballs in mushroom sauce, amazing homemade chicken wings, a variety salads and some very noteworthy desserts. By the end of the meal I was worried I would split open like those stumps we shot. We then sat and joked and told stories and just generally enjoyed ourselves. Dan wandered over and handed me a beer and we toasted the days success. When the daylight was far enough away, I headed to my dads and spent some time with him. Discussed the day and pet the pug.

The next morning we were back out with the cannons. The first event was tires. Truck tires were set perpendicular to the shooting line (so they could roll toward or away from us) and we had three shots to see who could get the most distance. After each shot we could go stand our tires back up. Our tire only rolled a few feet but, to our right, at station three, they managed to push theirs nearly 100 yards. Darrell and Germain had theirs roll back and fall over right behind someone else’s tire, effectively blocking them. It wasn’t intentional but we all considered it a personal favour anyway. Next, and my second favourite shoot, was water filled washer jugs and propane tanks. They were placed at random between 80 and 120 yards. There were seven cannons, so the jugs and tanks were spray painted with numbers so there were 3 with each number on them, then were drew straws to see what number you were shooting at. Dan and I got number 5. What made this fun for me was that because they were randomly set out, some targets were blocked by other peoples so you had to strategise a bit. Shooting a far target first would reduce your chances of someone else’s target landing in your way after it got shot, but it also, in our case, meant that a slight miss would mean hitting a competitors target and giving them a free point. We opted to work front to back in the hopes that people would knock their targets out of way. As luck would have it, we went three for three on our washer jugs. It is a great feeling to see those jugs explode when that much lead slams into them.

Up next were the mortars. This event was the Doc memorial. I had actually met Doc a few times over the years, to describe him as a character probably wouldn’t quite do him justice. Lets just say he was well liked and not the kind of fellow you forget meeting. In fact he was so dedicated to the cannon community that last year we had spread his ashes, via a mortar, at the cannon shoot. We also hung a picture of him at the firing line so he could watch.

The mortars are loaded and operated in a similar fashion to the cannons, though most people fill them from the top instead of having a removable breech like the cannons. For shot, some people use lead with a bit of a tail on it to help stabilize it and some people, like Dan, use cement filled beer cans. Darrell and my friend Brad (who got most of his designs from Darrell) use hockey pucks held together with an eye bolt which has a rope attached to it, this stabilizes and helps us find them when you miss and hit the trees. They all have their pros and cons, the pucks tend to bounce more which can sometimes help you get closer to target… or throw you away from it. Where as the lead and cement cans are more authoritative in their landing. Lead seems to get the least push from wind, and beer cans full of cement are typically the cheapest to make. Pick your poison, as they say. I like the pucks, personally, as they are the easiest to make and not too expensive. The goal when shooting a mortar is to get as close as possible to an object, typically a tire laid down at about 75 yards, and bounces count. Mortars are always a good time because its mostly guess work and something funny always happens, someone puts a half load and throws their shot 4 feet or doubles the load and loses their shot passed the end of the 200 yard berm. This year was no exception and Dan and I lost a can into the trees. I couldn’t find it, but I did find a different brand of beer can full of cement that someone had lost the previous year, so we came with six cans and left with six cans, who cares if they weren’t the same. We didnt do particularly well in this event but it was still fun.

After the mortars, it was all over. We packed up our gear onto trailers and into trucks. Everyone pitched in and helped everyone get packed up. We then had some lunch, leftover chili and some more sandwiches and what ever desserts were left. That chili was just as good second time around, no question. After we were all squared away we met up in the club house for the final numbers and trophies. The screw ball award went to Darrell who I believe had had and incident and dumped a breech full of black powder onto the ground. I dont recall the mortar trophy’s new owner or the proud recipients of the Andy Wood and Roger Cadeaux. Then to my surprise I was awarded “Best Effort” more as a thanks for all my running around up and down range and helping everyone load up. Its usually the award given to new comers so I kinda got it by default, but I was still more than happy to accept it. Then when they started doing the top 3 overall, I got excited thinking Dan and I may have squeaked into 3rd place. We were shooting well all weekend and I was half keeping an eye on the competition and I knew we were in the top half or so. Third place was announced and it wasn’t us, so I figured we placed 4th or so, not too shabby if you ask me. 2nd place went to Darrell and Germain, which isn’t surprising as they are pretty good with that gun of theirs. When they announced 1st place my hat nearly flew off. Dan and I had somehow accumulated enough points in the junk shoots and kept up well enough in the other events we pulled off 1st place! This gave us two trophies as there is one for overall 1st place and one for bore diameter over 1.5 inch which we also qualified for. Dan and I shook hands and celebrated our success. We each got a 1st place trophy to take home and put on the shelf to brag about to guests. Those 2 trophies (best effort and 1st place) are real conversation starters, I must say.

As we packed up and headed out I shook Dan’s hand again and thanked him for the cannon education. He thanked me for the help. Just before I left I said “do it again next year?” “yep” was his reply. I’m already looking forward to it.

It also occurred to me and made me chuckle… I have a trophy for winning a cannon shoot, and I dont even own a cannon. But never fear, I plan on building one someday, and dont worry, you’ll hear all about it.

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