Create Wiki · Create Big Cannons

Autocannons

The Create Big Cannons autocannon is a rapid-fire weapon: you feed it rounds as items, and it fires them one after another as long as its firing face is powered. It is built like a small cannon: an Autocannon Breech, an optional Recoil Spring and barrels, on a Cannon Mount.

Create 6.0.10 · Create Big Cannons 5.11.7 · Minecraft 1.21.1 · updated on October 28, 2026

A 5-barrel steel autocannon fires 6 tracer AP rounds at 120 rounds per minute at a wall 40 blocks away, sweeping slowly; the spring and barrels recoil on every shot (2× slow motion).

Quick facts

Fire rate: Set by the signal strength on the firing face: from 10 to 300 rounds per minute
Speed: Cast iron 9 blocks/tick, bronze 7.5, steel 9 (with enough barrels)
Maximum barrels: Cast iron 3, bronze 5, steel 7
Rounds: AP round (14 damage), flak (15 fragments), machine gun round (8 damage)
Ammo container: 64 autocannon rounds or 128 machine gun rounds
Elevation: From -45° to +90° on a mount
Version: Create Big Cannons 5.11.7 · Create 6.0.10 · Minecraft 1.21.1

AP autocannon round (×4)

Cast Iron Ingot

Iron Ingot

→ 4 Armor Piercing (AP) Autocannon Rounds

Building an autocannon

A cast iron autocannon on its mount: it is assembled, then an Analog Lever on the firing face sets the rate, from a few shots to a burst.

On a Cannon Mount, place the Autocannon Breech, then the Recoil Spring if you want one, then the barrels. More barrels give more speed, up to a limit, and less spread. Beyond the material's maximum the rounds get stuck. The last barrel can get a flared muzzle with a Wrench click.

Fire rate

The autocannon firing a burst, smoke at the muzzle

The mount's firing face reads the redstone signal strength: 1 gives 10 rounds per minute, 11 gives 120, 15 gives 300. An Analog Lever is ideal to set it. On every shot, the breech throws out the spent case, and the spring pushes the barrels back by half a block.

A real burst

A 5-barrel steel autocannon fires 6 tracer AP rounds at 120 rounds per minute at a wall 40 blocks away, sweeping slowly; the spring and barrels recoil on every shot (2× slow motion).

In the video, the steel autocannon fires at 120 rounds per minute. Each round leaves at 9 blocks per tick, 180 per second, and takes 0.26 s to reach the wall 40 blocks away. Since the spread of a 5-barrel steel gun drops to zero, the gunner sweeps slowly to hit several spots. The AP rounds pierce the wall and the mound behind it.

Materials

Autocannon rounds

Material	Max barrels	Speed (blocks/tick)	Round lifetime
Cast iron	3	9 (180 blocks/s)	11 ticks, about 95 blocks
Bronze	5	7.5 (150 blocks/s)	25 ticks, about 165 blocks
Steel	7	9 (180 blocks/s)	60 ticks, about 410 blocks

At the end of its lifetime the round vanishes: that is the real range of a cast iron autocannon.

Rounds and the container

An ammo container on the breech

Rounds are fed one by one into the breech, through a Funnel or a Chute. The Autocannon Ammo Container holds 64 of them, or 128 machine gun rounds, with a separate slot for tracers and an adjustable spacing. It sits on the breech; a Mechanical Arm can swap it when it is empty.

Example: an anti-air post

A 7-barrel steel autocannon on a mount, an ammo container of Flak rounds, an Analog Lever set to 11 for 120 rounds per minute. Fitted with a timed or proximity fuze, the Flak round bursts into 15 fragments: set it to go off near the target. A Hand Crank on each shaft lets you follow an airship at 24° per second. Keep a spare container nearby, since a long burst empties one in about thirty seconds.

Common mistakes

Too many barrels for the material: rounds get stuck. A weak signal: the gun only fires now and then. In cast iron the round vanishes after 11 ticks, so do not expect hits beyond about 95 blocks. And remember to empty the breech before taking the gun apart, so that no round is lost on the way.

The manual autocannon

A wrench click changes the barrel end, the Recoil Spring makes the barrel kick back, and handles turn the gun into a manual autocannon.

A wrench click on the breech adds handles: the autocannon is then aimed by hand, sitting behind it, with no rotation. A seat placed on the breech is purely cosmetic. A second wrench click removes the handles.

← All Create wiki guides

Sources for the numbers (Create 6.0.10 · Create Big Cannons 5.11.7 code)

Materials: index/CBCAutocannonMaterials.java (maxBarrelLength, baseSpeed, speedIncreasePerBarrel, maxSpeedIncreases, projectileLifetime, baseSpread, spreadReductionPerBarrel)
Fire rate: AbstractAutocannonBreechBlockEntity.FIRE_RATES (120 down to 4 ticks between shots)
Rounds: munition_properties/projectiles/ap_autocannon.json, flak_autocannon.json, machine_gun_bullet.json
Container: config CBCCfgMunitions (64 / 128, 5.11.4)
Recoil: AutocannonRecoilSpringBlockEntity / AbstractAutocannonBreechBlockEntity.getAnimateOffset
Angles: cannon_mounts/autocannon.json
Code and data: Create Big Cannons 5.11.7 (github.com/Cannoneers-of-Create/CreateBigCannons, tag v5.11.7+mc.1.21.1, MIT licence), identical to the Create France modpack jar
Videos: Create Big Cannons Ponder scenes (CannonMountScenes, CannonLoadingScenes, CannonKineticsScenes, CannonCraftingScenes) replayed by our engine; CBC models and textures (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, Cannoneers of Create)
Shots: scenes written for this wiki; trajectory computed tick by tick with the mod's formulas (AbstractCannonProjectile.tick: drag 0.01, gravity -0.05 block/tick², speed = charges used, MountedBigCannonContraption.fireShot), explosions from Explosion.explode plus CBC's block transforms
Stills only: ammo container (its menu and filling cannot be seen in a scene)

Original texts and animations by Create France, rendered from the mod's Ponder scenes. Create is a mod by the Create Team, not affiliated with Create France.