Paper Cartridge for Trade Guns??

Smokey Plainsman said:

I’m curious if we have any historical account of musket style paper cartridges ever being used in trade guns for warfare?

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Smokey Plainsman said:

I’ve got two trade guns, one a Carolina type and the other a Northwest gun.

I’m curious if we have any historical account of musket style paper cartridges ever being used in trade guns for warfare? It would seem since they were used by the armies of the period that they would have proven very useful to volunteers etc. who were using trade guns such as the Natives during rhe French & Indian war.

But did they ever? Any historical record of this happening?

Thanks!

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Brokennock said:

Hmmmm....
Directly? Something flat out stating, "I pulled a paper cartridge and loaded my trade gun," or something to that effect? Not that I can recall ever reading.

However. I have read accounts of men volunteering for local militias or joining various local campaigns and bringing the gun they had, whatever it was, which would include trade guns. And, I have read of volunteers reporting that among the things they did upon first arriving with a unit was to make cartridges. Put the two together.......
I don't recall exactly where I read the latter. I have been reading a thick book of individual accounts of the revolutionary War. A book of depositions given by veterans to obtain pensions. It may have been in there, and to find it again, nearly impossible.

(Side note on research/reading. I love and prefer real paper books, this is not a practical preference but an intangible maybe even emotional one, this brings up another of the advantages of digital books, the screenshot. If I had been reading the book mentioned as an e-book on my tablet I would have screenshot that passage as I would have found it noteworthy. I would then have a hope of finding it again, and it would be easy to share here.)

Edit: I should also note that from memory (which isn't always the best) I don't recall any first person accounts of anyone calling their own gun a "trade gun." As in, "I grabbed/took off the wall/picked up, my trade gun and....."
Generally (from memory) I can only recall 1st person references to the guns they possessed and used being more generalized. As in, just "my gun," "my musket," "my rifle/rifle gun," "my smoothbore/smoothie(?)", "my fusil/fusie."

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FlinterNick said:

I would probably say that some did and some chose not to.

If they were using their guns in a militia unit then they woudl have had to, for example I believe the minute men were required to have boxes with 24 rounds. Whether or not you had a fowler or trade gun or military arm, was probably not relevant for them as they used what they had.

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Tumbledown said:

In Massachusetts, the towns usually supplied the militia with them whenever possible. Early war boxes were 17 or 19 round capacity, while 29 round boxes came along later. Each man was expected to have a cartridge box, or pouch and horn, and generally a pound of powder and 4 pounds of ball sized for his gun, be it a musket, trade gun, or fowler.

Paper cartridges for trade guns would be perfectly acceptable, especially in wartime.

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FlinterNick said:

I would probably say that some did and some chose not to.

If they were using their guns in a militia unit then they woudl have had to, for example I believe the minute men were required to have boxes with 24 rounds. Whether or not you had a fowler or trade gun or military arm, was probably not relevant for them as they used what they had.

In times of peace, for hunting and gathering, i probably would say that they used a horn, patch and ball. They were not wasteful back then, they didn’t just go shooting on the weekends like we do, they wanted to keep things fresh and ready for necessity use. Flints were expensive, powder was not always available when needed, paper was reused for for Everything from food preservation to toilet paper.

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