What Type Steel And Size To Use.

I know the little cannon is fun, but sounds just louder than a good cap gun does not even make the starter pistol amount of noise.
uses Pyrodex black powder substitute so I figured that is what I would use in the new one. Have seen several at gun shows and they use this same powder, but in bigger quantity. and they are using steel bearings as ammo,
 
Graybeard outdoors from has a section on black powder cannons with a lot of info. It is a good read.
 
I have made several cannons and have been told by others with many years of experience to never use smokeless powder and only use black powder or one of the black powder substitutes like pyrodex. Smokeless powders can create tremendous pressures in the cannon breach and cause a catastrophic failure that could cause serious injury or death. Black powder generates much less pressure and therefore is much safer and you get the added effect of a cloud of smoke with each shot. Helps keep the mosquitoes away on the fourth of july.
 
Black powder usually burns slower at least to start. The higher the pressure goes the fastest it burns. Smokes burns faster as the pressure increases also but starts at a much faster rate. Of course this is all generally speaking & there is a large range of powders with different burn rates & acting different.

Black powder is more like pushing a car to get it started where smokes is more like that same car getting hit in the back by a truck. Both will move it tho. I don't see any reason smokeless couldn't be used. Something for 50BMG could be good. It's a slow powder & is about the cheapest powder out there. It may be a faster powder to prime it & get it burning tho.
 
I forgot to add that even with black powder you need to make sure that the projectile is as far down the bore as it can go. If you leave an air space between the breech and the projectile you risk an accident. I know of one instance personally where this caused a guys barrel to rupture and he was using black powder. I would think that smokeless powder would be worse in this situation but I guess it would also depend on it's burn rate.
 
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