Some folks never get the message - past or present ...

http://artillerymanmagazine.com/accidents.html

Here are the details of a ceremonial cannon burst at a youth camp in 2003. The story is one of error on top of error leading to the death of a 16 year old camp counselor.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/face/stateface/or/03or020.html

I'm my experience with explosives, black powder is one of the most dangerous. It's dangerous for a variety of reasons, chief among them being the fact that people don't respect it. They think of it as "just fireworks" or what they use in their muzzle loaders.

Real black powder can generate enough static just by swishing around to initiate itself. There are different grades with different pressure levels as well, and most don't know the difference.

We had a guy come into the gun store one day. He wanted to buy a hundred pounds of black powder. We didn't have any, much less a hi Fred pounds, but we asked him why. He wanted to make a cannon, and was planning on using (i swear I'm not making this up) ten pounds per shot.

He was interesting to talk to. I'll leave it at that.

I'm my experience with explosives, black powder is one of the most dangerous. It's dangerous for a variety of reasons, chief among them being the fact that people don't respect it. They think of it as "just fireworks" or what they use in their muzzle loaders.

Real black powder can generate enough static just by swishing around to initiate itself. There are different grades with different pressure levels as well, and most don't know the difference.

We had a guy come into the gun store one day. He wanted to buy a hundred pounds of black powder. We didn't have any, much less a hi Fred pounds, but we asked him why. He wanted to make a cannon, and was planning on using (i swear I'm not making this up) ten pounds per shot.

He was interesting to talk to. I'll leave it at that.

Ten pounds per shot?         Seems to me that would put him somewhere in the range of a four inch deck gun, no?   

Well, let's see, charge 5 white bag was about 40 lbs.  The highest being charge 8, at about 60 lbs.  But you've gotta figure, that was in an M110 Howitzer, weighing in at a robust 36k lbs.  Most of which was in the tube.  The breach block alone was about 400, the thickness of the walls @ the chamber was 6 in.  And all that to put a 200+ lb. round 26 mi. down range.

So yeah, 10 lbs. sounds about right...  To blow yourself into the next county, at least.