Overview of the Pocket Cannon

I received this Pocket Cannon as a gift for valentines day from my girlfriend awhile back. She purchased it from pocketcannons.com, there are a few other companies that make these as well. This mini cannon shoots .30 caliber slingshot steel balls, which are easy enough to get from a local sports store. It also comes with 3 slingshot rounds already included when you order from pocketcannons, so you can try it right out of the box basically. They also included a steel ramrod for loading it along with the cannon and ammo, it's very solid and doesn't feel flimsy in the least. These cannons are blackpowder fired like any other cannons would usually be, they can take either Pyrodex, Triple 7 or powder from fireworks. They state that you can use matcheads to make your own powder, but that sounds like a pain in the ass, I am just using some spare blackpowder that my local LGS had laying around and was kind enough to let me have. For a fuse, you can simply use a firework fuse that is 1/16" in diameter or smaller, I am just using some old fuses from fireworks that I pulled out. 

The cannon has two adjustment knobs on the sides to help aim the cannon up and down, though I find these to be kind of lacking in quality in some aspects. They do work for the most part, but they sometimes will not stay adjusted and just fall limp if you move the cannon around too much. This can be annoying sometimes, but it isn't that big of a deal as long as you're not moving it around a surface too much. They say that they can fire up to 100 yards, but I haven't been able to test that out yet, the farthest I have fired this so far was about 5-7 yards. I was worried about how loud this would be when shooting it at a buddy of mine's backyard, but it's around the same decibel level as a firecracker so not too loud at all. 

I have only fired it 5 times so far, the first two times I only loaded it with powder and a paper wad, the last three times with a steel ball. I was shooting it into a giant pile of dirt/sand that we had made as a quick backstop, I'm hoping to go get some fruit and other makeshift targets to shoot them sometime soon. As a fair warning, this thing might not be loud when you shoot it, but damn does it shoot a giant fireball. I would say every time I shot it, a 3-4 foot flame came out of it with of course tons of smoke. It's a fun little novelty item, but obviously you should still treat it the same as you would any other firearm or weapon and follow the 4 rules. 

For the price of $40, I would recommend this to anyone that is interested in buying such an odd item. It's an interesting show piece, as well as just a cool novelty item, it's also something that most people won't believe is actually a real cannon sitting on your desk. Hell, it would make a great gift for just about anyone interested in firearms, especially for groomsmen it would seem (trust me, they would like this a lot better than a damn flask).