I have two questions: Is there a danger of the bowling ball squashing the powder and igniting it when you drop the ball into the tube? I ask because I know when I was a kid, the old cap guns worked by striking them. Remember the red rolls of caps?
Well, if you took the whole roll and smashed it with the end of a 2x4, the whole roll would explode from being struck.
Any chance of that with the bowling ball rolling down the tube and hitting the powder?
Second thing: I looked at several other videos with bowling ball cannons, and they all are lit with a fuse.
The cannons of yore used a touch-hole. The powder charges were pre-made and loaded into silk bags. The bag was put in the bore, the ram rod ran the charge down the tube, the "wad" was put in next and rand down to seal the charge, then the ball was ran down.
At the other end, a spike was jammed into the touch-hole to pierce the bag of powder, then the match was touched to the touch-hole to ignite the powder and away she went.
After that a wet ramrod with a sponge or wad of rags was rammed down the bore to smother any burning wad and powder remnants, and the process was started over.
So, given that: Why not bore a hole at the base of the cannon tube and do it the old-fashioned way? Light the charge with slow-match on a stick.
I'd rather do that than rely on a chinese fuse that burns at inconsistent rates, or goes out. Who wants to worm a cannon ball out of a cannon with a full charge and a fuse that MIGHT be a dud???
-Brad
