The Sand Cannon is the Legendary Monsters weapon you walk away from the Ruined Pyramid with, a hand cannon that lobs an exploding Sandstone Bomb instead of firing an 
Arrow. Everything it needs comes out of a Desert, so it’s one of the first mod weapons most players can put together.
It’s built on the 
Bow, so you hold right-click to charge it and let go to fire. The bomb deals 8 damage if it hits something directly, then it detonates wherever it lands, and that second part is what makes the weapon worth carrying.
Obtaining
The Sand Cannon is craft only, it never turns up in a 
Chest, not even in the pyramid it belongs to. Two of the three ingredients are mob drops and the third is vanilla, so the whole job is a trip into a Desert and back.
Find a Ruined Pyramid
An Eye Of Sandstorm points at it
An 
Eye Of Sandstorm is four 
Sandstone around an 
Ender Pearl, and throwing one sends it off toward the nearest Ruined Pyramid, just like an 
Eye of Ender. It searches up to 100 chunks from wherever you throw it, so you don’t need to be standing in a Desert already.
The Bombers you need spawn across the whole biome at night, but the pyramid has spawners for them too. Heading there gets you the Shards and the Crystal in the same trip.
Kill Bombers for the Shards
Deserts after dark
Bombers spawn in the dark in Desert biomes, in ones and twos and occasionally up to four, and the pyramid spawns them as well. Every Bomber that dies drops an 
Ancient Sandstone Shard along with a little 
Gunpowder, which between them covers everything in the recipe except the middle slot. Some of the 
Suspicious Sand inside the pyramid hides a Shard too.
Bomber Drops
Gunpowder They work like 
Creepers and they’re quicker than one, so they’ll close the distance and start swelling. A Bomber that finishes its fuse drops nothing at all, so kill them at range before they get there. The full list of what they do is on the Bomber page.
Beat the Dune Sentinel
One Crystal Of Sandstorm per kill
The Dune Sentinel is the miniboss inside the pyramid and it drops a 
Crystal Of Sandstorm every single time, which is the center of the recipe. It’s immune to Arrows by default and to explosions too, so this one is a melee fight whatever you bring. The full fight is on the Dune Sentinel page.
Everything on the recipe comes from the same pyramid trip, so go in with the list below and you won’t need a second visit. The Gunpowder and Shards pile up while you clear Bombers on the way to the Sentinel.
The Crystal Of Sandstorm is the only part with a single source. It drops from the Dune Sentinel and nowhere else, and each pyramid only has the one Sentinel, so that fight is the real cost of the cannon.
Usage
Hold right-click and the cannon draws back like a Bow. The tooltip asks for a second and a half of holding, though the shot will actually go off once you’re past about three quarters of a second, so a firm hold is enough. Charging slows you to a walk like drawing a Bow, so start early when something is running at you.
Letting go too early costs nothing, as no durability is lost and no cooldown starts, you just don’t get a bomb. Once a shot fires the cannon locks out for 6.5 seconds, so keep a melee weapon in the next slot to cover the gap. Each shot takes 1 off a durability of 300, so it lasts a long time.
The Sandstone Bomb
The bomb leaves at your eye level and arcs as it travels, since it’s slower and floatier than an Arrow, so lead anything that’s moving and aim high at range. A direct hit deals 8 damage, then the bomb detonates wherever it stops, mob or block. Missing costs far less than it does with a Bow, which is the point of it.
The explosion itself is the same size as a Creeper‘s, and it will hit everything standing in it rather than the one target you aimed at. It won’t break a single block or set fires, though, so you can use it inside a base or over your own builds. That makes it a reasonable answer to a group of mobs in a corridor.
Anything within about 3 blocks of where the bomb lands takes the explosion, and that includes you, your pets and any 
Villagers behind you. Don’t fire it at something that’s already on top of you, as you’ll be standing inside the blast yourself.
A 
Blastproof Helmet takes 35% off explosion damage, your own bomb included, and it’s made from the same Ancient Sandstone Shards plus a 
Gold Nugget and a second Crystal Of Sandstorm. That second Crystal means a second Dune Sentinel, so it’s a choice between the cannon and the helmet on your first pyramid.
Don’t plan on farming the Dune Sentinel with the cannon, as it ignores the Sandstone Bomb completely. The direct hit is skipped and it’s immune to explosions as well. It throws the same bomb at you during the fight, though the blast is smaller when a player isn’t the one firing it.
Enchantments
As far as the game is concerned the Sand Cannon is a Bow, so Bow Books will go onto it at an 
Anvil without complaint. Most of them are wasted levels, as the firing code never reads them and the bomb isn’t an Arrow, which leaves Power, Punch, Flame and Infinity doing nothing. The two worth putting on both work on durability instead.
So Unbreaking and Mending are the only two worth the levels, and even those are optional. At 1 durability per shot out of 300, with a 6.5 second cooldown between shots, you might never wear one out.
Upgrades & Uses
The Sand Cannon isn’t the end of the line, it’s the middle of a 
Chorus Cannon. It takes a 
Chorus Crystal from the Chorusent and a couple of 
Infected Chorus Fruit from Chorusling, both from the Ancient Tower Remains out in the End, plus a 
Gold Ingot. The Sand Cannon itself goes into the recipe too.
The upgrade keeps the cannon’s numbers and changes what the bomb does when it lands. The table below puts the two side by side, and the only row that really moves is the effect on landing.
Sand Cannon
Chorus Cannon
The numbers barely move, the difference is that the Chorus Bomb also puts Chorus Infection on everything caught in a wider area around the landing point. If you’re not going to the End yet then the Sand Cannon is doing the same job in the meantime, and nothing is lost by using it hard first.
Tips
Chiseled Sandstone repairs the cannon on an Anvil, and it’s about as cheap as repair materials get. Two 
Sandstone Slabs make one in vanilla, and this mod adds a recipe that turns four spare Ancient Sandstone Shards into one as well, so your leftovers from Bomber farming go straight back into the weapon.
Aim at the ground under a group rather than at one mob in it. The direct hit only ever lands on one target while the explosion catches everything nearby. That’s also why a bomb that misses entirely will often still do the job.
Treat the cannon as an opener rather than a main weapon. You’ll get one bomb out, then 6.5 seconds of nothing, so the usual pattern is to soften a group at range and switch to a sword before they reach you. Charging while backing away works too, though the slow makes it a risk against anything fast.
FAQ
The Dune Sentinel is written to ignore the Sandstone Bomb, so the direct hit is skipped over and explosion damage doesn’t touch it either. Arrows are switched off against it by default as well, which leaves melee as the only real option for a rematch. The cannon is still fine against everything else in the pyramid, like the Bombers and the 
Husks.
The blast is set to leave terrain alone entirely, so no blocks are destroyed and no fires are started by it. That makes it safe to fire indoors, in a mineshaft or across your own base, which you can’t say for a Creeper going off in the same spot. Living things are still fair game, though, so pets and Villagers nearby will take the damage.
Two things stop a shot, and the first is tapping instead of holding, as the cannon needs a real charge before it will throw anything. The other is the 6.5 second cooldown after a shot, which grays the item out in the hotbar the way an Ender Pearl does. Neither one costs you durability, so a wasted click is only a wasted moment.
An Anvil will accept Bow Books on it because the item is built on the Bow, but the shot doesn’t go through any of the Arrow code, so Power, Punch and Flame change nothing about the bomb. Save the levels for Unbreaking and Mending, which do work, as both of those only care that the item has durability. Fire Aspect and sword Books won’t go on it at all.
