Cannon from the War Between the States to be restored

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Originally Posted by Dave

Where is Lenawee, MI. Cannot find it on MI state map index?? Too small?

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Lenawee COUNTY, just north of Toledo! I think the guns he's talking about are in Adrian or Tecumseh.

there one 6 pounder with step breach in the triangle of Dundee. Go east from 23's exit.

John, what's the ID's of the pieces @ Camp Perry opposite from the covered Petraca range? (In front of the Admin buildings.)

"Replicas" made 15 years ago of sheet metal...supposed to be similar to the 24-Pdr cannon on Perry's Flagship, the USS Lawrence. Go up to them and give'um a rap....sounds like you're hitting a 55 gal drum!

Apparently one of the first breach loading cannons from approximately the same time. It was rifled also.

KTK

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...a2009048-1.jpg

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...a2009047-1.jpg

that dont look like a breechloader, just someone needlessly cut the end to perm demil a perfectly good muzzle loader..

There was a plaque there which said it was a breechloader although I don't know how it might of worked. Unless a charge and projectile were loaded in from the rear and then a block of steel was pushed into that opening?

KTK

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Originally Posted by Tom in N.J.

There are two 20" Rodman guns, one at Ft. Hamilton, NYC and the other across the entrance to the harbor at Fort Hancock, Sandy Hook, NJ. Here it the one at Ft. Hancock.

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...Made1863-1.jpg

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That looks like something you'd expect to see in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon.
Daffy Duck should be sticking his head out of the muzzle about now sniffing the air at the wisp of smoke from the burning fuze Bugs just lit.

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Originally Posted by Matt Wolff

that dont look like a breechloader, just someone needlessly cut the end to perm demil a perfectly good muzzle loader..

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No sir, as the other poster indicated, it's a relatively common post-war conversion of a M1861 3" Rifle to breach-loading. In the conversion, the original 3" rifled bore was reamed out, a 3.2" rifled steel sleeve pressed-in hydraulically, and a sliding steel breech block fitted into the milled slot you see in the breech.

The 3" "Ordnance Rifle" was a "natural" for this type of conversion since the breech in the original muzzle-loading configuration was a threaded plug....the M1861 3" Rifle wasn't cast, but was rather a forged/milled wrought-iron/steel composite tube.

FWIW, the conversions were apparently NOT very successful...the guns weren't well thought of by the Ordnance Bureau, and all of the conversions were removed from service by 1881.

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Originally Posted by John Kepler

No sir, as the other poster indicated, it's a relatively common post-war conversion of a M1861 3" Rifle to breach-loading. In the conversion, the original 3" rifled bore was reamed out, a 3.2" rifled steel sleeve pressed-in hydraulically, and a sliding steel breech block fitted into the milled slot you see in the breech.

The 3" "Ordnance Rifle" was a "natural" for this type of conversion since the breech in the original muzzle-loading configuration was a threaded plug....the M1861 3" Rifle wasn't cast, but was rather a forged/milled wrought-iron/steel composite tube.

FWIW, the conversions were apparently NOT very successful...the guns weren't well thought of by the Ordnance Bureau, and all of the conversions were removed from service by 1881.

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learn something new every day :beerchug: knew was an ordnance rifle, but never heard of such a conversion of them after the war. Only civilwar breechloaders I knew of, are those whitworth cannons like the ones on Oak hill in Gettysburg today.