Neophyte needs wisdom re: 25 pounder gun refurb

[maple_leaf_eh]

Two things for you - it has been stored indoors, and the Chain of Command is supportive.

Two bad things for you - the Chain of Command can't support you, and some SOB who ought to have known better welded over the breech markings. (Some people!)

Gunner Mike in Kars, On has a ploughshares and swords museum. He is active with 30th Fd Arty's collection. There are more historic guns in his lines than active guns in the CO's.

[Marc van Aalderen]

Hi Dan,

You might want to have a look at this website for all your manual needs. Rob does very good reprints at a good price too. Look here: http://www.robvanmeel.nl/

Good luck on your project!

[James P]

Hi Dan
Nice looking project. I would check (as others have noted about restoring the shield back to its correct shape and size. Others can throw in about welding required of armour to mild steel. The goal should be to preserve as much "original" as possible. Also sad someone did not removed the brass tags prior to sand blasting, that really did a number on them. Lastly get that gun punched and de-crapified, it hurts the eyes just looking down that tubes pictures.
James

[Dan Johnston]

Thanks, gents, for the suggestions. Keep 'em coming!

Found the manual online as a .pdf, printed her off and so there's Job One done:



Much excellent reading to be done there.

I've made contact with the Limber Gunner fellows in Toronto as well as Gilles Aube of 3BAM in Quebec who are all doing now what we want to do with our gun in time. They've been very helpful indeed.

Re: welding an addition onto the top of the shield - yeah, I'd like to keep the gun as original as possible. If that weld could be done in such a way as to be invisible, that'd do nicely. My only concern is that there's a hinged piece up there that might be hard to reproduce. Bears more research. Does anyone know of a set of blueprints, or very accurate dimensional drawings we could work from?

Question to the current owner/operators of a 25 pr. Mark II - any trick to getting the striker block out of the breech block? Near as I can tell from the manual, one pulls out the catch and rotates the striker block 1/6th of a turn clockwise, then slides it out back. I can't help but think that if it was that easy, some chimp would have taken it years ago when she was parked outside accumulating that lovely patina in the bore...

I'd like to get the striker block and breech block out of the gun and scrubbed free of paint, then relubed correctly and reinstalled. That'd be easy enough, and allows us to bring loose part home where they won't fall prey to sticky fingers.

Re: brass tags - I imagine these can be reproduced if we have a set to work from. Any ideas?

And yeah, that bore. As a lifelong shooter, looking down that cruddy old pipe makes me slightly tearful. Gotta get that shiny.

[rob love]

Originally Posted by Dan Johnston

looking down that cruddy old pipe makes me slightly tearful. Gotta get that shiny.

The bore of a cannon is not supposed to be shiny....if it was it meant the troops were buffing it internally with an unapproved cleaner/polish. Dull metallic is what you are aiming for.

While I may get a little flak from the herbies in the crowd, they are well known for making life harder for themselves than it had to be.

[Phillip]

Dan,

You cannot remove the firing mechanism if it has been cocked. This one sort of looks like it has been as the slide is all the way to the left and the safety catch is on fire. But the bit sticking out the back of the firing mechanism is around the wrong way and it looks to have a nut in place of the T piece, so it is hard to tell.

Your manual has a good drawing in it and from that you should be able to work it out.

Good luck.

[Dan Johnston]

Thanks, Philip. Might have a bit of a problem there...

The gun won't dry fire. There's a rock-solid resistance to operating the firing mechanism. I had worried that the safety was stuck on (zero rotation of the safety lever - I'm hoping that's just paint adhesion) but as you note, it's off.

So to get the block out of the gun, the striker must be in the fired position. Problem is our gun won't fire. I'm loathe to force anything, having seen the end results of "kitchen table gunsmithing" too many times in my life. I really don't want to just grab the firing handle and reef on 'er until something goes click.

Next time I see her, I'll make a close inspection for welds that shouldn't be there. Some enterprising soul has tack welded some of the bolts on the shield, I assume to prevent theft. I hope to hell he didn't get all enthusiastic and throw a couple into the firing block as well, or we'll have to do some very, VERY tentative grinding to get past that...

Ideas?