Keeping on the cannon path

[Matchlock]

Originally Posted by Philip

To check to see if the bore is more or less a true cylinder: do you have access to balsa wood? If so you can shape a cylindrical piece the diameter of the bore at the muzzle. When you carefully tap it in, all the way to the breech, the end will be compressed into a taper or cone if the bore narrows towards the breech and the difference can easily be measured once the stick is removed.

Hi Philip,

Thank you for asking so many demanding questions in one single post that I have to work my way thru them step by step, so please forgive my being slow!!!

As to this quotation: according to my experience, it would be quite unusual to expect a tapering bore with a narrowed powder breech after ca. 1430. As I stated, though, your idea of testing the bore using balsa wood is just brilliant! Furthermore we should keep in mind that many medieval bores involuntarily deviate quite a bit from exactitude up to ca. 1500. Actually, quite a lot of early barrels seem to have been re-bored on the occation of their re-use during the Thirty Years War (by the latest).

Best, and please do keep driving me to my limits,
Michael