Would this be suitable for making a mnt. howitzer?

[Bill W]

I have alot of steel from mining and a large peice is 5" diameter round shaft X 9 1/2 feet long. It was a drive axle for heavy operations.
If it is tool steel what could it be bored out to?
Would it be worth the work involved?
If so is it long enough to make two full scale mnt howitzer barrels?

In my opinion you will need to find out what type of steel this is, I am assuming you will be welding the trunions on to the tube. If you want please give me a call
757-868-0570 home
757 688-5464 work

Rob West
N-SSA National Artillery Officer

[cannonmn]

NAH, LOUSY METAL, JUNK, BRING IT TO ME, I'LL GIVE YA $100. FER IT JEST TO KEEP YA FROM HURTIN' YERSEF. .

Seriously, James is exactly right, find out precisely what kind of steel it is. There are spark tests machinists use where you hit it with a typical bench-grinding wheel and see what color the sparks are and whether they fork or not. Another way is to pay a scrap dealer to use his hand-held analyzer on it. This hits a clean spot on it with a spark and then it instantly analyzes the light output of the spark to tell the composition of the metal. Shaft steel as you describe can be very good cannon steel but you have to know more about the metal. Since James has offered his help, you should definitely call him.

[GGaskill]

One problem is that it is too small diameter to make a full size mountain howitzer. A full scale mountain howitzer is 7.6" in diameter over the base ring and 37.2" in length. So it is long enough for two but not enough diameter by 2.6".

By the way, a piece of steel 8" in diameter and 37.2" long weighs about 500 pounds.

[rampa_room_artillery]

whats the od of a pack parrot with out the band?? could you make two of them??