From the article:
Seymour said the cannons appear to have been forged in the same foundry in either Mexico or the Caribbean, due to their relatively poor quality and lack of maker’s mark. If true, it would make the cannons the oldest surviving firearms manufactured in the Americas.
The evidence is strong, Seymour said, but analysis to confirm it would require cutting into the cannons.
Best,
Ted
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.
