Primer just after pulling the lanyard

drezac

First Sergeant
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May 4, 2014
Location
Baltimore,Ohio
This is a photo of one of the Ohio Statehouse guns being fired by our battery. Look at the smoke from the vent, you can see a thin smoke trail and the primer taking off like a bottle rocket
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Wow! Nice! :smile:

I got a similar shot with flames this past weekend, but I didn't catch the primer.
 
That's a nice one. I always love seeing when they are taken at just the right moment. The first one below is a 3 inch field gun from Croft's Battery and the second is my "Lost Cause" Howitzer.
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Update: just found out who took this photo. Photograph was by Mike Elicson, and was posted on his Facebook page. Photo was forwarded to me by a fellow battery member
 
I liked that, seeing a original gun speak again. I just prefer them not firing overhead. Which I have experienced a time or two. That will make a believer of you. Great photo. Thank you for posting this.
 
I liked that, seeing a original gun speak again. I just prefer them not firing overhead. Which I have experienced a time or two. That will make a believer of you. Great photo. Thank you for posting this.

You should try being #1 or #2 on a 12-pdr with a full 2-pd service charge - that get's your attention...

There is a sister to this gun at Ft. Macon, NC. that is fired for demonstrations. I would love to be able to set up a living history - we would take our 6-pdr there then they would bring their 6-pdr up to Columbus have a reunion of veterans living history event. The StateHouse has 4 original guns, 2 6-pdrs and 2 12-pdrs. We are going to try to get permission to take the 2 12-pdrs to Chickamauga next year. We have been invited by another battery to join together there. They have 4 original guns, and would like us to join them with the 12-pdrs to create a full battery of original guns that would also be an original mix of guns.
 
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I just prefer them not firing overhead. Which I have experienced a time or two. That will make a believer of you.

Under what circumstances did you find cannons firing that close over your head? If it happened once tell me it was an accident, and therefore excuseable. That it happened more than once and seeing you just brushing it off makes me think it wasn't accident per se.

Artillerists, in quality units anyway, get mad at cowboy behavior. Too much of it and someone at some point will get hurt, forcing yet another venue to have to consider liability coverage next time, which leads to fewer events every year.

Double-charged cannon firing that close over your head means that someone in command of the Artillery (line, battery, section or single gun) was either clueless or cowboy. Or, to absolve the Artillery, it could instead be that someone in front of a primed gun, the Infantry or Cavalry, was clueless or cowboy.

Edited by Chellers, moderator
 
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The Whitworth gun's primer hole was in the back of the breechblock and they had to place a guard over it to keep from injuring the crew with the flying friction primer when the gun was fired.
 
Double charges are a major safety violation. One problem is that if the 2nd charge does not go off, they you have just sent a foil bag of power down range that effectively is a real round that can cause major injury or death. We were at an event last year where a battery was doing a demonstration for the spectators. They double charged the gun. They were not back the next day, and our battery did the demonstration.

As an artilleryman, there are a few things that will get us yelling and screaming at other reenactors (and being rather short and quite upset with command staff after the battle)

1. approaching a misfired gun. if you see implements crossed on the gun or held upright on the wheels ** DON'T APPROACH IT **. nothing is more of a pucker factor for us than having a round in the gun and smoke coming out of the vent from a misfire. and that's mainly because we are concerned about anyone that's in front of the gun - it could go off at any time. We have a misfire procedure that lets us safely take care of the misfire - it's our friends in blue and grey in front of the gun that is our concern.

2. Unscripted taking of the guns. there are 2 reasons for this:

a. you might approach while the guns are loaded. One important fact on artillery - once we fire the first round, there is no way to guarantee a round won't go off even if no primer is in - there could be an ember in the bore that could fire the round. ** YOU MUST TREAT THE GUN AS IF IT WILL FIRE AT ANY TIME**.

b. If you cause us to shut down by entering our safety zone, then you have just prevented us from participating in that battle (and unfortunately, this happens way too many times). This will typically cause us after the battle to immediately (and usually with rather loud and 'colorful' language) go to command staff.

Many times we travel long way at quite an expense (gas/diesel to haul the heavy guns is not cheap, and the powder/primer costs, plus the time we have) to then be excluded from an event because some 'cowboys' enter our safety zone and we have to shut down. Nothing ruins a reenactment more for us than moving the guns, setting up, getting off a couple of shots, then shutting down because infantry or cavalry has entered our safety zone and won't leave. Infantry and cavalry can easily move if something causes a problem, we can't.

For a typical battle, we start moving the guns about an hour before the battle. Then after the battle it takes us another 1/2 hour (sometimes more) to get them moved back to camp. Our safety zones will be marked by small flags. Unless it's part of the scripted action, don't cross into our safety zone. if as part of the battle you march through our guns and then form your lines, make sure you are clear of the safety zone first. and please try not to take hits in our safety zone - if so, at least be walking wounded and clear our safety zone before you 'die'

for all but 2b, we get quite upset because it's a safety issue. We don't want anyone hurt. All of you in blue and grey are our friends, but unfortunately, it appears that many in front of our guns don't seem to have a clue as to how dangerous they are or have not been trained how to approach artillery safely.

On the other hand, we will thank you if it's done right. At Perryville last year, our guns were to be taken as part of the battle. The signal for the infantry that our guns were safe to approach was that we would place our sponge in the barrel and walk away from the guns . We did that, and the infantry did not approach. My son was in command of a section, and he realized why they did not approach. A static display gun of the park was to our right, and they thought it was one of ours and since it did not have a sponge in the barrel, they waited. The gun was plugged, so we could not place a sponge in it. He moved in front of the gun and waved for them to approach. As they walked through our lines, we shook hands with them, thanked them for the way they approached the guns, and asked them to relay that to their command. sadly, it's rare that it's not done that way more often - typically, they don't follow their pre-battle instructions (or were never given them by command) to wait for our signal to approach.


enough ranting for now...
 
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One clarification after looking at some of the posts. I'm not sure if they were discussing a double charge or a heavy charge. With Artillery, a double charge is placing 2 foil bags of powder in the gun, which is different from a heavy charge.

In our battery, we have 3 classes of rounds:

1. normal ( not named, this is 98% of our rounds)

2. Hot and Juicy - heavier charge. we only have a few of these in the box. They are only used when nobody is within 3x the safety zone distance, and typically only our first round (if at all) . any of these are very plainly marked so we don't get one out by accident.

3. (I can't give the name for this one, it might get me banned from the site ) - only used occasionally, and only if nobody and nothing is in front of the guns. We only make these when we know we will need one.

All are withing the accepted safe loads.
 
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