Thread: legaly speaking....... mini canons?

whats the go?
in aussie they are treated as an a cat firearm, but i cant see where they fit in over here.
mind you, they treat slug guns the same as a .308 bolt action..........................
i am talking about the little bench top muzzle loading black powder type.
do you need a licence? are they treated as a pistol as they are shorter than 30 inches?
cheers
greg

A-cat firearm that needs a licence and proper storage.

If it is under 762mm it is B-Cat, I haven't seen an exception made for cannons written anywhere but I could be wrong.

rite oh, 1 for a, 1 for b, i had a chat to a fella today who said that it would probabaly be on c and would not be able to be fired, so sounds like i will need to get an interpratatation from the fuzz and see what they think.
no one has any canons?
greg

Not that they are owning up to on a public forum

One of the guys in our Service rifle club has a cannon but it ain't the sort you would have on your desk. A "standard" cannon is A cat

What about a "mantelpiece" cannon Ie 250mm?

I've built a couple of working cannon now.
This is how it was explained to me
If it's a signal cannon..... ie does not fire a projectile then it's not a firearm.
If it fires a projectile then it's a firearm and can be owned an operated on a standerd firearms licence without any endorsements.



We have a cannon shoot every year at our local gun club.

I think that its another one of those wonderful grey areas we have in the act. No one kicks up a fuss and all is left well alone.

I've been to Antique Arms canon shoots where they had replica canons of all sizes present including mortars and the small desk top ones, all working and all got used. One of the shooters present was even an arms officer. Not a legal definition but how the law is being applied presently.

Originally Posted by P38

I've built a couple of working cannon now.
This is how it was explained to me
If it's a signal cannon..... ie does not fire a projectile then it's not a firearm.
If it fires a projectile then it's a firearm and can be owned an operated on a standerd firearms licence without any endorsements.



We have a cannon shoot every year at our local gun club.

What's the calibre and how much BP do you load?

Golf Ball calibre 1.680" or 42.67mm

The load varies depending on how far and fast you want the golf ball to go.

In this cannon anywhere from 100gr FFG Black Powder to 350grs FFG Black Powder.

350grs will shoot the golf ball out of sight very quickly.

100grs is good for hitting targets at about 100m.

There are Canon Shoots a couple or 3 times a year at the Auckland Branch of the DA. They're well attended and there are home-made motars and tiny little canons etc. A member of the local constabulary is a regular participant and has quite a collection himself.

Ray.

So what differentiates a cannon from a rifle?
What If you had a rifled barrel on your cannon

Originally Posted by Spanners

So what differentiates a cannon from a rifle?
What If you had a rifled barrel on your cannon

It's still a cannon. Typically a cannon is not hand-held by the user, the scale of it's bore, projectiles and power being more than someone could physically handle. Though these days we're packing hand-helds that would once have been classed as cannons.

Ray.

Originally Posted by Spanners

So what differentiates a cannon from a rifle?
What If you had a rifled barrel on your cannon

Thats a hard one, to be honest I don't think there is a set definition. If we look at the military conventions as a starting point you have Gun fire and small arms fire. Small arms fire being individual weapons and guns being artillery from machineguns upwards. If you want to get more specific you can look at calibre, in modern terms it seems that anything from 20mm and upwards are called canons, while .50cal, 12.5mm and 14.5mm are still considered machineguns.

Not much help but the technology has changed so much over the centuries that its hard to be specific. In NZ law I don't think the word canon is defined.