Years back in the 80's when I was living in Illinois, I bought a couple of those black powder .44 caliber cannons from Gander Mountain. They were working, firing guns. They took 3/32 waterproof cannon fuse, (the kind M-80's had). One 4th of July my neighbor and I were just sitting around getting hammered in the back yard. And since I had black powder, fuse, and .44 caliber balls, we decided it would be a good time to light it up. Being as there was a lot of noise in the neighborhood, we figured no one would pay attention to what we were doing.
I used an .38 Special case for a "dipper". The thing was as powerful as my .44 cap & ball revolver. We put an old pillow behind it to catch it from the recoil. We kept setting up pieces of that heavy black plastic lawn edging in a sand pile to test penetration. It went through a 2 X4 and 5 pieces of edging. And we still had to dig the ball out of the sand.
Traditions now makes a larger .50 caliber model that is Nickel plated. It's identical to both of mine but larger. I think I paid like $40.00 each for them at the time on a closeout. Now, like everything else, they're way more.
https://traditionsfirearms.com/product/Mini-old-ironsides