Me and a friend playing with our miniature coehorn mortars.

[WarlockFirearms]

Here's some videos from the tests.

It was a lot of fun. Made the mortar barrels on my lathe from cold-rolled steel. They are .35 caliber and here we are firing them with pyrodex. Had a little trouble working up a blank load with a good report using the pyrodex, but wrapping a little flour in aluminum foil and using it as a projectile seemed to do the trick.

Here are some pics of the one I made. It is the shorter of the two.

As an aside, does anyone know where to get some real black powder in the Portland, OR area?

 

[armoredman]

That's neat, thanks!

Edit to add, all of those were blanks firing, yes? Is there a place you can actually try firing a real ball safely?

 

[WarlockFirearms]

Yep, all blanks. As for firing real balls, I can always go out to the boonies, I just have no idea how far it might go on an indirect trajectory so I am a little leery about it. In the meantime, it's a fun little noisemaker and will be a good way to ring in the new year.