This really nice field cannon gimlet was given to me as a gift from a good friend of mine that I go metal detecting with. He picked this one up at a CW show in Mississippi. Unlike the Naval gimlet I have posted, this one is a lot shorter, and would have been used on field cannons, such as the 6, 12, or 18 lb smooth bores, and the 10 and 20 lb Parrots. After the powder bag and projectile were loaded into the cannon, the gimlet was used to punch a hole in the powder bag through the fuse hole. Then the fuse was inserted into the fuse hole with a lanyard string attached to it. When the order was given, the lanyard was pulled, the the fuse would ignite the powder.
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