Special Report with National Cannon Association

I was recently invited down to Worcester Norton Shooting Club (WNSC) by the National Cannon Association of Great Britain (NCAGB) to meet some of the members and get a flavour of their activities. Now I’m not normally a black-powder shooter, but “cannon” is such an evocative word, that I didn’t need asking twice.

Setting the Ball Rolling

In fact, I was already curious, as I’d seen a couple of cannons listed on Guntrader, and though one was presented as an ornamental curio, with no vent (touch-hole), the other was drilled and proofed as a shootable gun. As the seller was my local gun shop, Shooting Supplies of Bromsgrove, I went down to take a look and was shown a gleaming gunmetal replica of a Napoleonic-era naval gun, with a 16” barrel and a 0.71” (18mm) bore, mounted on a smart oak truck carriage. Cast in Bristol, with a bore drilled on machinery normally used to produce the landing gear for Boeing jets, and priced at £595, it was clear that this was no mere toy.

Shooting Supplies’ proprietor, Roger Bill, a stalwart of the WNSC, explained that the club had recently started a cannon section as a home for the activities of the NCAGB, setting the ball rolling, as it were, for my subsequent visit.

The NCAGB

Roger also gave me the address of the NCAGB’s web site, which sets out the objectives for the association as: promoting the safe shooting of cannon in Great Britain; fostering links between like-minded shooters; and providing a means of exchanging information. Having successfully obtained HO clearance to shoot miniature cannon at WNSC; conducted both training courses and competitions there; and counting among their members, a gentleman (John Hancock) who has designed, and overseen the casting and boring of the very cannon I had seen at Shooting Supplies, I would say the NCAGB is very well placed to advise and inform would-be cannoneers on all matters pertaining to the conduct and background to their sport.

As with more conventional forms of black-powder shooting, you can approach it for what it is: relishing the solid simplicity of the hardware; the rhythmic litany of preparation (charging, loading, ramming, priming); and the sensory delights of the firing cycle (the sparks, the flash, the boom, the push of the recoil amid the billowing smoke), with its aftermath of softly unctuous soot and the aroma of fireworks.

Or you can go further and take an interest in the historical background to the guns, the development of their technology and the role they played in the decisive engagements of past conflicts.

Cannon Shooting is Fun!

What might surprise you about these miniature cannons is that they can also be quite accurate: most are adjusted for elevation by turning an elevating screw that bears on the breech end or cascabel, and all are aligned by nudging the carriage one way or the other, although there does seem to be something of a good-natured schism between those who regard sighting along the barrel as the only proper way to shoot, and those who employ sighting loops and pins, and goad their more purist companions by wondering what kind of groups they might obtain if they mounted a laser! What they’re all agreed on, however, is that cannon shooting is fun!

This is also due to the fact that, as with any newly-emerging sport, there are few hard-and-fast rules to abide by. Thus, whilst safety is governed by established muzzle-loading range rules, competition procedures are simple and cater for a variety of personal ‘interpretation’ as to what type of cannon might be successful.

What’s Available?

The “newness” of sport cannon shooting also means that there are few commercially-manufactured guns available (the principal maker being Ardesa of Spain, whose 0.5” and 0.69” guns are distributed in the UK by Henry Krank, and affordably priced from £184), so most are hand-made “one-offs” or limited production examples (such as the Hancock guns), which means there’s a healthy dose of traditional British “improvised engineering” involved. Indeed, it seems that at first, even the Birmingham Proof House didn’t know what to do with them – cannon have to be proofed before being fired - and so simply asked owners what charge of black powder they wanted them proofed for, and tested and stamped them accordingly.

Consequently, the cannons in use WNSC are an eclectic mixture, in calibres from about 0.3” up to about 43mm, with the primary limitation being the muzzle-energy restriction of the range (5,160 FPE!). Barrels are mostly smooth-bored, though some are rifled, and whilst a few shooters favour Pyrodex or 777 as they don’t require special storage or additional paperwork (an Explosives Licence for shooters’ black powder and a Recipient Competent Authority (RCA) for transport purposes), BP still dominates as a propellant. After all, the paperwork is free, a storage box is easy to make (or £60 from Peter Starley’s), and BP is the real deal.

As for ignition, with vents typically being drilled at 12 o’clock, there’s no provision for miniature flint or percussion locks, so charges are ignited by means of loose powder or fuse cord, lit with a domestic gas lighter or cigarette lighter.

Carriages and Recoil

On my visit, all the guns were mounted on naval-style, four-wheeled truck carriages, though several shooters told me they also had two-wheeled field carriages. Carriage type, it seems, makes little difference as regards accuracy, but the naval carriages, with their lower centre of gravity, are easier to control under recoil.

Even with the truck carriages, however, a recoil control system is required, with most users opting for a length of sash cord linking the front of the carriage to a counter-weight resting on the ground beneath the shooting bench. Enough slack is left in the cord to permit the gun to fire with free recoil, the counter-weight acting as a brake only to prevent the gun running backwards off the bench. Cannoneers also use boards clamped to the bench-top, to protect their guns if they topple over, often with rollers at the front to guide the sash cord, and a fail-safe buffer at the rear, and some crouch like wicket-keepers behind their guns, ready to catch them should they take to the air!

Loading Procedure

I was also impressed by the loading arrangements used by NCAGB members. Powder charges are measured out in advance into individual phials, and stored in fitted boxes prior to shooting, whilst their corresponding balls and patches are laid out neatly on the bench: an arrangement that insures at a glance against incomplete or double loading. Similarly, ramrods with fluorescent ends double as chamber flags, and are cut to match the length of the bore so as to protrude to indicate the presence of a loaded ball and charge. Fuses, meanwhile, are stored in aluminium survival kit tins, or in John Hancock’s case, an elegant container made by sliding a brass 16 bore case inside a 12 bore one.

England Expects…

During my visit a “Galleon” competition was shot, the target being a diagram of a French man o’ war –identified as such by its tricolour - drawn on the back of a standard 25/50m UIT pistol target and placed 25m from the firing point. Ten shots were allowed, with the best 6 to count, and points being awarded according to the disabling effect of a hit on a given part of the ship. If you felt lucky, you might aim high, chancing a zero for a shot through the sails in the hope of scoring a 10 for a hit on a mast. Or you might play a more cautious game, shooting for the hull, where a regular strike would count 6 points, and knocking out a gun port, the rudder or the quarterdeck would earn you 8. Hit below the waterline, however, and you would score just 2 points: after all, what captain in his right mind would sink a ship when he might take it as a prize?

So, if you like this blend of skill, luck, wit and fun, whether you already shoot BP and want to try something new, fancy a break from the technological rat-race of precision shooting, or are new to shooting entirely, drop the NCAGB or WNSC a line and join the cannoneers. From a legal point of view, all you need is club membership and an FAC to acquire your own fire-breathing mini monster!