That's a fine old girl, maybe a bit top heavy, a lot more finesse to the "new fangled drive" then the ones I was exposed to. Hey, wheres the truck transmission? Only a slight movement on the head stock, well it might not be broke in yet. LOL. I looked at one old timer a friend had, there was at least 3/8 inch up,down movement, he was an old machinist, and joked that he controlled tool bit height by depth of feed. I wonder if t-slots were for follower rests etc. and fastening down things for line boring and milling.
Well, hypothetically, nearly any metal can be used for a cannon barrel, some of the first ones were wood, bronze, cast iron were very popular for some time. . I have turned a couple small ones for "desk tops" from bronze shafting, about 20 inches long, one of them. Ones I have seen, one guy brought small carrots, another golf balls, ball bearings, some tomatoe sauce cans filled with concrete, one was "hurling" 3inch lead balls. Very pricey, cost of lead has gone up! Barrel length over 4 bore diameters, otherwise, basically a mortar, more wall thickness there is, better it "looks".
"Some infernation" has been removed from pervious above as I am now forgetting some things!