Making Paper Cartridges work with wads

[hunter64]

I am a newbie to the fine art of the Holy Black and revolvers so please excuse the ignorance. I have been making paper cartridges out of cigarette paper with good results. When I get to the range I break the cartridge off in the cylinder just below the ball and insert a lubed wad and then ram the ball. At first I was putting the whole cartridge into the cylinder and then topping it off with Crisco and it gets messy quickly, hence the use of felt wad. The problem with the wad is the lube on it, it bleeds thru the cigarette paper and in short order it makes the cartridge fall apart. Has anyone tried something to keep the lubed wad from doing this? I was thinking about a small strip of wax paper around the wad to keep the lube away from the roll paper but I am unsure if the wax paper would gum up the cylinder when fired. Any thoughts?

 

[Wes/Tex]

Would think the waxpaper goes out the muzzle with the ball. I've only dabbled with paper cartridges but prefer to load from flasks. The original cartridges were usually always done with conical slugs rather than a round ball. The military issued the boxes of 5 each. You might check into the wads with dry lube. Good luck.

 

[Zonie]

hunter64: Welcome to the forum. :hatsoff:

If we were talking about that new fangled smokeless powder modern folks use where a few grains or even tenths of a grain makes a lot of difference I would say you have a good point about the powder contamination.
Fortunately for us, we are shooting good old black powder (or a substitute) and it isn't very powerful grain for grain.
Assuming a little bit of the powder gets oil soaked. It probably wouldn't amount to over 1 or 2 grains (volume) and a change of 2 grains usually doesn't have a great effect on the total power in the chamber.

Put another way, if you were loading Bullseye where the total powder charge is 3 grains, if 1 1/2 grains was contaminated that would be about 50 percent of the charge and smokeless is very powerful stuff so a 50% reduction would have a huge effect.
With black powder loads of 25 grains, if 2 1/2 grains was contaminated that would only affect 10 percent of the total powder load and with the relative weakness of black powder it probably wouldn't even be noticed.

Have fun with your cartridges and don't worry about it.
zonie

 

[rebel727]

Black powder is WEAK???? Say it ain't so. :rotf:
I make paper cartridges out of tea bags. It's sturdier but a cap will still burn thru it and is entirely consumed by ignition. I don't use a wad with paper cartridges, I just dab a smidge of lube on a couple of chamber mouths to keep fouling down.

 

[hunter64]

So you don't have to put grease on every chamber?

 

[Blizzard of '93]

no, but it will minimize any chance of flash-over.every other chamber would do to keep fouling soft. maybe you should put pre-lubed felts in a seperate container, this is what I do going afield. when camped out or bumming in the woods and not rushed I take dry felts and place a dab of lube atop after I place them atop powder. beleive it or not I use Go-Jo white hand cleaner for this. I take it in a squeeze tube. doesn't take much to do the job. but others have their favorites. I like mine since a squeeze on a rag will do good as field cleaner to wipe the pistol down.

 

[rebel727]

So you don't have to put grease on every chamber?

Not with paper cartridges. If I load loose powder and ball I either use wads or lube the front of every chamber.