Marc: the purpose of treating the paper is to make it burn up completely so there is no residue left in the chamber that could hold an ember and cause an explosion if you tried to reload that chamber with either a combustible cartridge or plain old powder. I state this because some folks think the paper is treated so the flash of the percussion cap will "burn through" the paper and explode the powder charge. On the revolver you have a straight line from nipple to chamber and the cap is powerful enough to rupture the case, it doesn't have to burn through. As an experiment I've used plain, untreated newspaper and even thin foil to make cartridges and loaded them and gotten about 50-70% ignition or better without breaking open the end of the paper/foil to expose the powder. Plain paper leaves A LOT of residue and you have to clean out the chambers so it is NOT practical but it gives you an idea of what is what. If I want to make combustible cartridges I use plain old zig-zag or Bugler type cigarette paper but as I said there is still a little residue on occasion. As I understand it there are better paper treatments that burn up more completely. The magician's flash paper- I've got to try that.
Here's another idea that is realy better. Make some little paper tubes, a long one that's about an inch long and a short one that is a cap that fits over the long one. Carry measured powder charges in these little tubes. They store nicely in an Altoids can. You re-use these these tubes sort of like a speed loader. In the same Altoids can keep some pre-lubed wads, caps, and balls. Hold everything tight with some crumbled up tissue paper. One altoid can/tin ought to let you carry around 20 rounds of so of ammunition AND you get a better quality load that messing around with the combustible cartridges. Why do I say that? First, you don't have to worry about the paper residue issue. Each little tube acts as a powder measure so there's no flask/powder measure issue. The lubed wad gives better protection against a chain firing than the combustible cartridges, and most combustible cartridges use conicals that twist out of line in loading and are not as accurate as round balls. To me at least the combustible cartridges are used at the range as a sort of "bonding experience" so I get an idea of how things were done back in the day. And, to truly "Bond" you need to have the combustible cartridges in a little wood box with label and ripcord so you can re-create exactly what was done at the time. For any other shooting the individual paper tubes are better.
