That was my mistake, meant to say Cannister. I havnt got shrapnel yet in my current campaign (between 1730 and 1740ish in a swedish campaign) Though i would bet the same holds true for Shrapnel.
This is a Grand Campaign, and is for all intents and purposes over (hold 25-30 regions, have broken the Russian, polish and Austrian armys that will allow me to take the rest of their territory's within the next 5 or so years (probably giving me 35-40 regions - N/N) and have done the same in india with the maratha (sp? - Mughal were already wiped out and Mysore are my protectorate - and causing plenty of problems for Maratha themselves).

I tend to put individual cannon advancements on a low priority, getting them as the last thing on the tech level. But Ive also put a high priority on the soldier side techs in general (fire by rank, square formation etc) so im not sure how much that balances things out. Anyway, its pretty certain I wont be getting shrapnel/quicklime or percussive before the game is so far finished that it would take a tactical genius to stop me (as opposed to the AI)