Jim Taylor
The Thunder Mug
Monday, July 05, 2021, 06:21

It is an 8" long piece of hydraulic cylinder welded to a base plate with a handle and touch hole added.

The bore is full length and is 1 1/4".

The charge I used in the video was a barrel full of really old Pyrodex P. I put a piece of duct tape over the bare to keep stray sparks out when transporting it and when lighting it. You really don't want that going off too close to your face.

I have experimented with wadding the charge tightly. I did this in stages using different kinds of wadding and found tin foil to work quite well. Makes the charge BOOM louder.

I did that experiment one 4th of July when we had a bunch of church folks over and it actually caused one of the ladies to lose control enough that she said, "I wish you would quit shooting that g_ddamn thing!"

Once I cast up a lead slug about 2" long and full bore diameter and fired it with a nearly full barrel of 2Fg. It went up out of sight, but we caught sight of it coming down and recovered it. It landed in the pasture about 300 yards away.

It's been a fun toy for many years.