Interesting to see this thread at the top again, i recently watched a show called ancient discoveries, history channel I think. They try and prove various bits of history, by making modern replicas. The show the other week was about guns in general, and started with a chinese device using bamboo, wrapped with binding that made a quite effective flame thrower / come shot gun. Anyway the fun part was someone had cast a replica of Roaring Meg, complete with imperfections to try and see whter it could lob shot over a castle wall, which it did with a bit of fine tuning. They also touched on the fact that the Ottomans developed an early tracer shell for their cannon, so they could continue firing all night, and see what they were hitting. Firing at night, being beneficial because it was cooler and they could get more rounds off.
Carrry on