Making a Bolt Cannon
Oh what fun! He basically made priming compound
I think he also demonstrated how careful you must be with it. The velocity to do that damage is well above supersonic.
Remember, steel can bounce back with about 60% of it's forward velocity! Lead is better. Also note his care lightly tamping the charge and projectile, wads, using a wood tool. At any moment it could go off with friction! BP is much safer. We used to unroll firecrackers for the powder. Great care needs to be exercised, and nothing must sweep the muzzle that you wouldn't mind losing! Gasses are shot from the fuse hole with great force too, consider that direction.
Denning and I have real cannons and have learned (well, ME anyway - we'll save that discussion) to respect the power. Things to consider if you are doing a group project for the grand-kids or boy scouts. lol
When we were kids, we would pry the tip off a CO2
cartridge and then cut match heads off the stick and pack the CO2 tube. Then get pipe with elbow, push CO2 cartridge with ramrod down pipe to elbow. Fill the elbow with more match heads and lite.... Some of the CO2 containers may still be flying