An Awesomely Insane Black Powder Mosin Nagant Cannon at 2016 SHOT Show Range Day
Rob Reed 01.20.16
While there are always lots of interesting products at the SHOT Show, and there’s always at least one thing that makes you stop and say, “WTF?”
This year it was an insanely amazing or amazingly insane black powder Mosin Nagant cannon made by the guys at Witt Machine. Witt Machine normally specializes in suppressors, suppressed uppers, and custom muzzle brakes, but company owner Ken told me they got to talking in the shop one day and “This monster was the result.” When asked, he admitted that “alcohol may have been involved.”
The cannon is a steel tube mated to a cut-down surplus Mosin Nagant rifle. The black powder is loaded from the muzzle end, and a blank cartridge is loaded into the chamber. When the blank is fired it ignites the black power, nearly simultaneously, to great effect.
“We only fired it one time,” Ken said. “We put about a pound of black powder down the barrel, thought about it a bit, and then weighed it down and tied a long string to the trigger.” He said when fired the recoil “kicked it back almost two feet,” which considering the weight of the gun, is pretty impressive.
EDIT: Thanks Matt, misspelling corrected.
