Old Vermonter, but new to the sport

First, you will find that your mortar is not big enough to scatter cremains in a single shot.

If you were shooting a cannon I would guide you to our sticky at the top of the of our board for making a blank round. In that case simply substitute the cremains for the flour in the cartridge.

Mortars are loaded different-powder is loaded loose.

You will need to learn the volume of the powder chamber.

You will also need to compute the maximum charge for your chamber and learn the volume of that charge. Weight the charge out and measure it with a volume measure. I use a plastic graduated cylinder I got from Amazon.


Base guidelines for maximum charge is two ounces of cannon grade powder per inch of diameter of powder chamber.

Subtract the volume of the maximum charge from the volume of the powder chamber. This is the volume of cremains you can load on top of the powder. Use the same graduated cylinder as you use for the powder. Measuring the volume of the ashes will also give you some idea how many shots it will take to scatter t all the ashes

Using a funnel, pour the powder in chamber. Slowly pull the funnel out, being careful to not pull the powder out of the chamber. Now pour the cremains down the funnel to full the chamber. Don't over fill.

I make funnels out copper tube and copper reducers. This is a 1 inch tube with 2 inch to 1 inch reducer.

Well you can make a cartridge for a mortar if you wish. Not a bad idea to test. Try making a blank cartridge with flour first to see if it works. I would be careful making cartridge longer than the chamber, the front portion may tear off and act like projectile.

It's just that because the mortar sits at an angle it is easier to get the powder in the bottom of the bore, than in a horizontal cannon. Cartridge in a cannon makes it easier to get the charge in the bottom of the horizontal bore.

There is a bit of safety element also in a cartridge as the bore must be scrupulously cleaned and dried between firings, particularly in a cannon to eliminate burning embers and such.. The bore of a cannon must be cleaned with long tools to reach the bottom of the bore that is difficult to see. The bottom of a mortar bore can be seen and hand wiped and cleaned. The foil cartridge helps protect the charge from any errant sparks.

Never heard that the charge formula was less critical in a mortar. I would agree, just on the principle of safety. A mortar powder chamber in some cases might not hold a maximum charge however. Jack Hern's 3 inch Coehorn has an 1-3/4" Powder chamber. You aren't going to get very much cremains in that.

I once tried a max blank load in my bowling ball mortar. 1 lb of cannon grade-filled the chamber. I placed a card wad over the powder. Then I poured in two boxes of cream of wheat which was very close to the volume of one bag of cremains. I then place a card wad over the cream of wheat and fired.

It was loud. The wad over the cream of wheat flew like a frisbee. The card wad over the powder flew out burning and started a grass fire. Not very dignified.

I have tried making blanks for the bowling ball mortar by adding the flour directly on top of the powder as in a cannon cartridge. Watch this video and you see the flour blow out the barrel onto the ground.


And this video use hog feed as filler in the bowling ball mortar.


That hog feed actually burned for the charge.

My friend Ernie, know as South Paw here pours the cremains into the finger holes of bowling balls and fires them off. You can spot the ball in the air. In flight the ball slowly rolls and the cremains spill out making "contrails" figuratively speaking. Very moving actually.

Sure miss my friend Ernie, he lives up in Montana, I now live in OK.

Try and test using flour and cream of wheat. Share your results.