MPReed
Monroe
MI USA
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Posts: 48
Joined: 2005
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A Fun Toy: 75mm Field Gun M1897
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I've thought about posting this for a while, and have finally gotten around to it.
Some background. This video was shot by my nephew and his college roommate back in 2019 at the 2nd Annual John Pelham Historic Artillery Shoot in Pelham, Tennessee.
The speaker is Matt Switlik who is a retired museum director from Monroe, Michigan. He is also a good friend, former boss, and my mentor. He is considered within the community to be the foremost expert on 19th Century American light artillery (especially the vehicles), and has been collecting artillery and their vehicles for well over 50 years. For those interested in the War of 1812, it was he who rescued and began developing the River Raisin Battlefield (from when most of the property still had at least two of the three paper mills still standing. It became a National Park in 1810.
You will see me in some of the clips. I'm the one wearing the service cap. This was the second time shooting the gun. Unfortunately, the firing line base had just been laid the week before, and the ground was soggy and soft, so the gun did not dig in, and the recuperator was still quite stiff. Last April, it shot a lot better (i.e. the recoil), but I had little time with the gun myself as I was having soooo much fun trying to shoot a 1.65-inch Hotchkiss Mountain Gun (also Matt's) with bad primers, and also issues with the copper banding. Only able to shoot half my rounds. Damn. No fun. No fun.
The video is about 25 minutes, and was done without rehearsal. Just told Matt to start talking.
NB At one point he says the range was 1,200 yards. He meant 12,000.
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