BUTTE — You think you have some big fireworks for the New Year? Well, Harold Lear of Butte built his own cannon, and he plans to ring in the New Year very loudly.
“Here we go, I hit it right there. See the round hole?” said Lear after firing his homemade cannon on New Year’s Day.
What made you want to make a cannon?
“I’m kind of a gun person, anyway,” said Lear.
Back in 2001, Lear started making the three-inch cannon from spare parts, including the wheels of an old tractor.
“Every Fourth of July you’ve got to shoot a cannon, right? Then, New Year’s Day, you’ve got to make some noise,” he said.
At 85, he still has no problem moving the more than 600-pound artillery piece around and sometimes leaves it chained down in his front yard. His nurse was surprised when she first saw it.
“When he was giving me directions to his house the first time, he said, ‘There’s a big cannon in the front yard.’ I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ And, sure enough, there’s a cannon in the front yard,” said his nurse Jenifer Yohe.
He took it out to a firing range near Anaconda on New Year’s Day, and, yes, it fires.
“You put powder down the barrel, black powder, then I take a washrag and put it around a cannonball, then you just stuff it down in there, light er’ up. And, boy, it goes boom!” said Lear.
Alright, Harold’s given me a chance to actually shoot this cannon. A little nervous, I’ve never fired a really cannon, but I’m going to do it. Let’s stick it to those Red Coats! There were go. Fire in the hole!
Not as accurate as Harold—but what a thrill.
