My objection to the firing in the video is that the Canister ammo the crew is using seems to be improperly constructed. The can's walls are too heavy-gauge/thick/strong. In some of the shots, you can clearly see from the "impact dust-clouds" that the can doesn't disintegrate like thin-gauge civil war ones did (thereby releasing all the balls), but instead flies downrange nearly intact. In those shots a tight cluster of balls strikes the ground, dispersing much more slowly (and narrowly) than they would if a proper weak thin-walled can was used. View the video in highest resolution at FULLSCREEN and you'll see what I mean. In particular, watch the shot starting at 3:53 in the video. (There are several other shots like that one.) The result almost looks like a torpedo's trail along the water's surface (meaning, narrow).
Starting at 8 minutes 09 seconds:
I don't know why they bothered to build a 4'x8'plywood wall, a good distance downrange, which appears to be 90'-100" long -- only a 7-panel section (28') got hit by one or more balls. Apparently they were expecting much wider ball-dispersal than they got.
Starting at 8 minutes 50 seconds:
Judging by the dust-cloud, nearly all the balls hit at a VERY narrow section of the wall.
The evidence indicates these artillerymen were using canister cans made of something similar to ductwork sheetmetal, instead of a properly thin "tin can." I suspect the person who made those Reproduction canisters was using sheet-steel instead of thin sheet-iron. Civil war "tinned-iron" cans were NOT made of steel, as today's "tin cans" are.
The poor dispersal of the balls caused me to be deeply disappointed in this video. I do not believe it to be an accurate representation of the dispersal of a 12-Pounder canister's balls during the civil war.
Regards,
Pete
