Keeping on the path to hand cannons.

[Philip]

Fernando and Michael,
I agree with the assessment that these interesting things were intended as celebratory noisemakers and not weapons. Look at the larger one, there is a crescent shaped protrusion below the touchhole that looks like a protruding priming pan was broken off. On the smaller one, this is not visible but as has been remarked above, the touchhole has been "bushed" or lined so who knows what was there originally. (or, could what looks like a bushing or liner be the remains of a projecting priming pan which has also been broken off?).

Shooting these with blank charges would be fun! Fernando, just think how you could enliven your local festas with a few shots as the cortejo with all the flags, saints, and candlesticks marches past your house! You know that in the Azores, fireworks are a big thing; one of the biggest producer of fireworks shows for holidays here in California is an Azorean immigrant named de Souza. When I was still in university, in Hawaii, my friends and I had a small brass cannon (from Mexico) whose bore was just big enough to shoot a frankfurter sausage from. On New Years Eve we'd shoot sausages at neighbors houses and cars. Once we tried frozen sausages but decided it was too dangerous.

Now for the cold water -- old metal, especially cast iron, can be brittle and there is always the danger of bursting. I knew this Navy officer who collected lantakas, the Malay bronze swivel cannons. He liked to shoot a couple of his on New Years as well, until one exploded with a blank charge. It fragmented into three sections, one of which flew over his house. His wife laid down the law, no more shooting if he wanted to keep his collection...