The Pepsi Challenge

[bebloomster]

Was out to a cannon match today in Lucerne Valley, Ca.  Wasn't much by most standards, only 2 cannon participating.  Both were 3/4 scale smoothbores... a Parrot of about 1 5/8" bore and a Napoleon of around 1 1/4" bore.  Both were firing what looked to be balls cast from either zinc or wheelweight with a single 1/2" thick white plastic (polyethylene?) disk sheetmetal screwed on to them.  Charges were in the 2 ounce range of GOEX... probably CANNON grade but not sure.

The first target was a cardboard sheet at 100 yards.  It had a 13" circle with a 6" circle inside of that.... 2 sets of circles for each cannon.  6 shots at each of the 2 targets for a total of 12 shots.  Any shot within the 13" circle counted for 5 points, shots within the 6" circle counted as 5 points and an "X".  Only the best 5 shots counted on each target.  The Parrot scored a total of 40-3X while the Napoleon scored 50-5X.

The second set of targets were 2 liter Pepsi bottles filled with dark blue water and hung alternating high and low from the same target frames.... 10 bottles for each cannon.  Each bottle was worth 5 points, one shot per bottle.  The Parrot hit all 10 while the Napoleon hit 9.  None of these were glancing hits either... those bottles just exploded !!!

Final score was the Parrot a total of 90 and the Napoleon a total of 95.

Sorry about not having any pictures to post.... I was too busy running powder for the Napoleon.

I was truely amazed at the accuracy of these 3/4 scale smoothbores.  Guess I am going to have to make up some rounds for my half scale Napoleon and head to the range in the near future.

[Watauga]

Sounds like you had a Wonderful time!
Thanks for telling the story!

[Red Badger]

What No pictures!  Video of that would have been great!