Welcome to Beals Science I'm Craig Beals. It's that time of year when we take the Jeep cannon
out for a little run and by run I mean we take it out and we blow stuff up! Well we're gonna go big,
I mean we've gone big before but we're gonna go big time this time! We're gonna make sure
that we find the bowling balls that we launch out of here we're going to bring a surveyor out into
the field so that we can find them and we're going see just how far we can shoot these bowling balls!
For the launches, we're using 16-pound bowling balls. If you've seen some of my other shoots
we're using 8 and 10-pound bowling balls. Now, why would we all of a sudden switch to 16 pounds?
Great question! I contacted the world record book company to see if we could set a category
for the longest bowling ball launch out of a cannon it doesn't exist! So they came back and
said okay but only if you use a 16-pound bowling ball so these are our test shots with a 16-pound
bowling ball which, by the way, is a little too heavy for this jeep cannon as you're about to see,
but that's okay you know that's why we built it was to experiment [Music]
There we go we are out here in Big Sky country we got a whole bunch of land here - three and a half
miles worth of clear shooting ground to shoot the old bowling ball cannon. Bad boy's at a 45.
That's right where we want it, send that ball down range, huh? For this shoot,
it was really important for me to know how far we were shooting the ball last time we shot we never
did find the balls for lots of reasons one reason we were in an area with really big sagebrush
you couldn't see the balls so we had to make some guesses and do some mathematical calculations
to figure out how far they went. For this one we wanted to know so we found a different landscape
and we brought in Donovan with surveying equipment so we could do our tests with
a 16-pound bowling ball. To get this 16-pound bowling ball moving out of the cannon without
blowing up the entire cannon you've got to use the special powder so this is a cannon powder it's
slow-burning and yeah there are a lot of flames that come out which makes it really cool to see!
[Music] It hit right on this side of that bald knob right there!
It's got paint on it.
Nice! Found the ball! Look at this crew! That's
the finding crew there and if you look way over there
somewhere over there you see them. That's where we were shooting from
somewhere back there. That's pretty awesome that the ball has been found now we got to
do some measuring. The first shot went 2203 feet and uh that was with one pound of powder
a 16-pound two-ounce ish bowling ball. So now we got to step it up to a pound and a half of powder
and then maybe go up more than that to see where we end up. So should we shoot again? Yeah, yeah,
yeah, of course! There it is, first shot two thousand two hundred feet
so we're gonna go to a pound and a half powder should go a little further.
There they go, the search crew!
Shot number two went three thousand and two feet. That's a long way! I mean,
five thousand two hundred and eighty feet in a mile so that's a pretty good shot! How much
farther than our first shot? eight hundred feet; eight hundred foot. And what did you add to this
powder what was this one half a pound more. There we go! They're calling for it again!
If one pound is good, then a pound and a half is better,
and if a pound and a half is good then two pounds is even better! We've never shot two pounds before
so why not?! Just for a quick summary, the angle is 40 degrees the pounds is two pounds of powder
and we have 16 pounds 2-ounce bowling ball going out that way.
Here goes nothing!
so [Music]
Okay, you gotta check this out. That last one we don't know how far it went yet but
look at the crew. Here's the crew way off there, let me zoom in and show you [Music]
that's the scout okay. I'm gonna zoom back out to me...
...here I am. Now let's go all the way to where the cannon is over here.
There's the cannon zoom back out.
Spin around right here and go back out to the crew.
[Music]
Yeah, feel how hard that is! Feel how hard that ground is!
Oh my gosh! We think we got past 4,000. You think this one's 4,000 feet? We do! Then let's see! Okay
and we're gonna hit okay and we are going to see. Tell everybody what is! It's 4099.
That's as far! As far as I'm concerned, that's a world record! This is shot number three two pounds
of powder 16-pound bowling ball 40 degrees and it went 4,100 feet! One of the most common comments
I've gotten on the last video shooting the cannon was that we need wadding, there's too much blowby.
In other words, there's a lot of flame going around a lot of energy going around the ball
and escaping out the barrel first. Now I will tell you that was by design in the first place because
this barrel came from a scrap yard, like it's not a barrel made to do this, it's just a piece
of pipe! Shaun, who helped build this cannon, he said while we're out here we got to try it
with the wadding. The people have spoken! So let's try it with the wadding Shaun. 26.2 pounds that's
our way to the one mark one mile Craig! May I have half of that sheet of wadding please
so Shaun's going big here he's pulling out all the stops on this cannon. Hello Craig, wadding
seals the tube better we get more push behind the bowling ball and we get our mile
so this cloth right here could be the difference between a non-mile and a one-mile shot.
We've never used the wadding.
[Music]
Oh!
Oh, she rocked and rolled, man!
Holy Moly! There it is! The fourth shot! Okay, a summary from shot number four which was two pounds
of powder 26 degrees with wadding - three thousand seven hundred and six feet! So shot number three
went the furthest. So there you go! Those are the test shots with a 16-pound bowling ball the next
time we go out we're going to take some of the lighter bowling balls and just really see how far
we can go! And, we're going to take some stuff out and we're going to shoot at it! Maybe a car, maybe
some other things, and just see what we can do with the bowling ball cannon! Now if you have any
ideas leave them down there in the comments, hit the subscribe, you know, all the things! But the
whole reason I make all these videos is to remind you to keep on learning! Thanks for watching.
[Music]