doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Oldest gun made in America

I don't think they are cannons, due to the projections on the bottom. I think they are in a class often referred to as "wall guns", the loaded gun was fired from the top of parapet walls (or handy log,boulder,etc) with the projection on the gun on the enemy's side to take the recoil. They were like primitive "punt guns" in use, but instead of ducks and geese, they were pointed at Aztecs.
Mike

If the ducks, geese and Aztecs compare notes in the hereafter, I question if significant differences will be noted.

Best,
Ted

What definition of a cannon are you using, Mike? The ones I see say that the device is mounted. It doesn't specify between mounting on a carriage, a ship, or a wall. Or an aircraft for that matter.

Of course, a lot of punt guns were mounted. Maybe we should call them punt cannons instead.

It is highly doubtful that this cannon/wall gun was made in America, considering the primitive state of either bronze smelting or casting in the America's 500 years ago.

This barrel was probably made in Spain, or elsewhere in the Old World, and brought here by the Spanish explorers who were apparently camped where it was found. I'd say that Seymour is engaging in the same sort of wildly uninformed speculation as the unproven assertion that E.M. Reilly actually employed over 300 gunmakers.

We might as well also speculate that the second cannon was blown up during overload testing by a Spanish ancestor of Sherman Bell. (that was sarcasm... for the twisters)

Early firearms and their design is always interesting. The hole in the barrel lug for the gun mount appears to be no larger than about 5 m/m diameter. I have to wonder how many shots such a small diameter pin might withstand before the whole barrel broke loose and went flying.

Until proven otherwise, it is a disservice to post a Thread titled "Oldest Gun Made in America". I'd hate to see this site become known as a source of internet misinformation. However, we can add it to the extensive list of non-Double Gun Threads posted here by people who are chronic complainers about non-Double Gun content.

I'm only vaguely knowledgeable about antique guns, and it seems the definitions aren't generally very definite. Size wise, this is smaller than some punt guns. So I went back and read the yahoo article, and the article said it was a wall or rampart gun. I would guess the big difference between a wall gun and a cannon, is, the wall gun was small enough to be picked up and moved by one person.

I think these would what later were called "swivel guns" on wooden warships and were specifically designed to fire anti-personnel canister. The weight is about the same as a large 19th century punt gun so I'd guess this is a sort of "shot gun."

This was the topic of episode 369 on the MeatEater Podcast. Worth a listen to on a road trip. Not so much about the gun but how the Natives and the Spanish interacted.

Wiki has quite a bit about mining and metal production in pre-colonial & colonial Mexico
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_metal_working_in_Mexico
The Aztecs made decorative/religious items with gold & silver
Mining was a major effort of the Spanish, enslaving the nativos, but the gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, platinum and tin was shipped to Spain and metal working was significantly restricted for fear the nativos would make weapons. It does seem unlikely that the bronze canon was made in Mexico.

Article about the first modern foundry, and lots of British mining engineers were part of the industry
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4b7914111d014832899362c53def7c97

Stan,
I didn't use any particular definition of "cannon", mostly just my opinion.

Keith,
I don't think the hole in the lug is for a pin, I think it is for a chord or rope to move it around with or maybe to pick it up ff of the ground after firing it.
Mike