Evil Dog organized a mortar shoot for the recent Desert Marksmen (Palmdale, CA)
Fur Trade Rendezvous (March 18 for the mortar shoot.) The weather conspired to limit the number of participants but he and I and my friend Steve showed up and shot our mortars for a couple of hours in front of an enthusiastic, if small and cold, crowd.
The mortars present were ED's 3/8 scale 8" M1861 siege mortar firing 2 1/4" zinc shot, Steve's 1/4 scale M1841 Coehorn mortar on a sled mount firing yellow Titleists, and my 1/2 scale bronze M1841 Coehorn firing 2 lb (lead) 2 1/8" spherical sinkers. I also had my large and heavy beercan mortar but couldn't find my supply of cement-filled cans, so I fired only one dirt filled can from it for a demonstration.
The target was a large orange rubber traffic cone, nominally set about 100 yards away (a later laser rangefinder measurement said the actual range was 135 yards.) One of the benefits of the relatively short range was that even the golf balls could be visually tracked all the way to the target.
The shoot was originally intended to be a string match (sum of distances from the target) but was changed to a demo/fun shoot at the last minute. Since there were no entry fees and no prizes, that worked out well. We ended up measuring closest shots, and I won with a shot six boot lengths from the cone to Steve's seven and a half lengths from the cone. ED had the best group but it was about 20 boot lengths from the cone. Steve's golf ball constellation was generally closest to the cone.
Following are a few pictures and some links to video. The video files will take a while to download even on a high speed connection.
Evil Dog's 3/8 scale 8" M1861 Siege Mortar
:-) An anachronism--an 1840's fur trader with a digital camera taking a picture of an 1861 siege mortar
Steve's sled mount golf ball Coehorn; this mortar is fired electrically using a model airplane glow plug as the ignitor (no misfires)
GGaskill's 2 pounder (lead) bronze Coehorn
GGaskill's Beercan Mortar with screw-on carrying handles
ED--if you have any pix you would like posted, email them to me.
