Ready, aim, fire!
By News-Argus Staff
Published in News on January 30, 2011 1:50 AM
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News-Argus/BOBBY WILLIAMS
Greg Oliver, Don Smith, Mark Greiner and Gill Stewart, members of the Fort Macon Guards and the First North Carolina, fire the 7,000-pound, 20-foot Civil War-era cannon replica Saturday at Fort Macon.
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News-Argus/BOBBY WILLIAMS
Andrew Duppstadt, a historian with the Fort Macon Guards, prepares to fire the cannon, which was built at Wayne Community College over the course of 18 months.
More than 100 students, instructors and staff from the mechanical engineering, machining and welding technology programs combined efforts to create a full-scale replica for Fort Macon State Park after reviewing 1840s-era drawings of the original cannon. Because of the threats from the coastal winds and salt water, the new replica was built using all aluminum construction so it will last, hopefully, 20-plus years. Fired at the fort for the first time Saturday, the cannon was loaded with five pounds of powder -- and had it held a cannonball, it could have had a range of more than a mile.