Damn, those are exactly the students they were aiming to harm.

You’d have to mount it on a wire a bit past the end of the barrel, or custom create a barrel that expands toward the end. Depends on whether dispelling the magic is an instant transformation, or if it “grows” at some rate.

This is a good take, but it partly depends on the setting. Specifically, if these magic artifacts are fairly rare and valuable (even something meager like this ring), it’s entirely possible that people haven’t explored that kind of application of magic. It could also be viable if there are very few inventors/scholars in the setting.

In any case, the conservation of mass thing another commenter mentioned would make this less viable, so you’re right on the money. That being said, laws of physics can be bent for rule-of-cool if that’s your table. Personally, if I were DMing it, I’d probably try to find a way to balance between realism and making their research process hilarious and/or dangerous, with the end result being them producing something useful but not gamebreaking (e.g., you can carry and deploy the cannonballs, but the gun doesn’t really fire them, but in combination with a method of flight, could still be awesome–or they apply this method with a large boulder and have that to work with instead).

As another poster mentioned, this is likely the reason this isn’t already done in the fantasy setting. Either the mass is the same (in which case your flintlock isn’t going to launch it terribly far) or the mass changes and it would reduce momentum.

That being said, it’s still a useful way to transport cannonballs, and could still be quite useful. Just not quite a “free” Catapult spell on demand.

Neates!

Ooh, I’ll be Always-Remembers-What-He-Was-Going-To-Buy-At-The-Store Man.

Having both of those would probably put your superpower level in the A or S tier, so you’ll have to consult OP on that.

You should consider “Understands Unspoken Details Perfectly Man.”