What in the name of sweet baby Jesus…AKA, seriously dude, what the heck?

[smokinbuck]

Ken Netting built a couple some years back and believe me they hurt on both ends. The one I fired did not have a yoke and was rested on a block. Recoil was fierce.

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

You can cast the oversized balls for these wall guns using a mold made using plaster of paris.  Get a sphere of the proper size, even a ping-pong ball will do.  Make a two part plaster mold around the sphere.  You can get about 20 or so good cast balls before the plaster starts to chip too badly. 

When shooting the Thunder Bay gun I fired four ball shots at 25 yards, then walked behind the backstop and dug out the fired balls, rounded them back up using a small hammer, and fired them again!  Again, 1/4 pound of 00 buckshot is truly impressive.

Jim

[Elnathan]

I never heard of a wall gun until now,  nor a grasshopper gun Dave.  I quickly looked up the ammo.  What size ammo would be used in this gun?  I read in the Far East they used a Jingal with a 1.25 inch steel ball.  I imagine it was used to damage material and not troops.  What would their targets be?

Probably armor with humans and horses inside. Possibly elephants....These small bore artillery pieces were pretty much strictly antipersonnel weapons, I believe.

[godutch]

 I built a Dutch one a few years back for a friend. TRS parts, Ben Coogle bbl.   If anyone's thinking of tackling a build there's a surefire way to save money on the project.  Cancel your gym membership...., you won't be needing it for a while !  :-)

[godutch]

  Custom Bullet Molds: The guy I built the wall gun for got his mold from here: JT-bullet-moulds.co.uk  email= Jeff@ballmoulds.co.uk   ph.= 0044 0 1277-653456  address= Jeff Tanner  23 Passenger Ave. Billericay  Essex CM11 2TD   UK.   Just in case anyone might want to go that route.

[James Wilson Everett]

Guys,

From a PM about the plaster bullet mold, some more details.

1.  Get a ball of the proper size, it may be of any material; plastic, wood, metal.
2.  Make a "hamburger patty" shaped disk of putty, clay, play dough, about 2 inch thick.
3.  Press the ball into the disk until exactly 1/2 is in the disk.
4.  Tape a paper band, or collar around the disk twice as high as the disk thickness.
5.  Mix plaster of paris and fill the collar to the top.
6.  When the plaster is set, flip the mold over and remove the putty disk.
7.  Add some cooking spray oil or petroleum jelly to the plaster in the collar to prevent additional plaster adhering
8.  Fill the other side with plaster of paris.
9.  When the plaster is set, remove the paper band and scratch a match mark to aid alignment of the mold halves.
10. Separate the mold halves, remove the ball, scrape a sprue channel for the molten lead.
11. Bake the mold halves in the oven, really do this thoroughly, don't short cut this step
12. Get some thick gloves, hold the two halves of the mold aligned and tight together, pour in the melted lead.
13. If you were not diligent on step 11, the lead will shoot out of the mold with authority and velocity!
14. Carefully remove the hot bullet from the mold, be careful not to chip the mold inner edges.

Does this make sense?

P.S.  Using this method a variety of lead or tin shapes can be molded, just don't expect a long life of the mold and don't drop it on the floor

Jim

[Hungry Horse]

 I’ve seen two originals. One in a museum, and one in a private collection. Actually the collector thought the his gun was a market hunters punt gun, until I showed him the rifling below the coned muzzle. I think most of these guns were rifled. Accurate long range bombardment was infinitely more terrifying during colonial times than an oversized scattergun in my opinion.

  Hungry Horse

[Reegee/Flint]

There are many interesting accounts of the attack on Donnallys` Fort Greenbriar County VA, in 1780 where Dick Pointer a negro fired a wall gun loaded with swan shot into a group of attacking indians,
which cut a swath through them killing and wounding between 9 and 17. The recoil knocked him off his feet and he was a big man. The blast gave the other inhabitants of the fort time to get to their rifles and beat off the remaining attackers. Dick was given his freedom for his action that day and when he passed in later life was buried with full military honors. Two places claim to have this exact gun which was owned by Col. Donnally, at that time one of the richest men in the county.
These were intimidating weapons with either swan shot or ball and may have tipped the out come of several battles.

[yulzari]

A search on old public domain free ebook sites like archive.org, Gutenberg.org or google books on wildfowling, and variations on the term, will turn up several books which go into much detail on punt guns, large shoulder guns and stanchion guns.

[Daryl]

Taylor built one many years ago for a fellow. 1" bore (4-bore) with a very long  smooth bored barrel. IIRC, it had a 54" Octagonal bl. that was about 2 1/2"
across the flats.
We didn't have a mould that size, so cast balls in a "cherry" bored "maple" set of blocks.  We used 300gr. of powder, only 11 drams. The Full load for a 4 bore
elephant gun was 16 drams with 12 drams being a light load. Those, seems to me, were about 18 to 20 pound guns in SxS configuration.
With patched round ball, we shot it off sand bags at the 300meter berm and it seemed to move about a 1/2 yard of dirt, every shot. It appeared to shoot into
a 3" group at that range.
The gun really didn't kick, but backed up about 12" each shot- slowly sliding on the bags. It didn't matter is a shoulder was against the butt or not, it just moved
that 12" regardless.
I don't know if he has any pictures, but since it was an underhammer, I guess pictures are a moot point.