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"Ricky, I believe you are right about the cartridge boxes (palaskas) being used for the pistols. Though I have not examined any in person. And I have had a difficult time finding examples of original paper cartridges from the region."
I've never even seen a photo, much less an original example of a paper cartridge that was documented from the Ottoman region. Curious. But there is enough written evidence that paper cartridges were in common use (as they were World wide for that matter).
Maybe I mentioned this before, but can't remember. Years ago, I once tried an experiment. I took one of my Ottoman pistols to the shooting range. I strapped a belt with a palaska with 5 pre-made paper cartridges around my waist. And a suma loading rod around my neck with a leather strap. All of these palaskas hold about 5 pre-made cartridges. Which later on made sense to me why they are all shaped as they are. So, to proceed in loading the pistol.
At half-cock I extracted a cartridge from the brass container, tore off one end, primed the pan, (which we don't prime first today for safety reasons) closed the frizzen, then inserted the rest of the powder (about 30 grains of FFG), ball, and paper (for wadding) into the barrel and rammed it home with the suma rod. And was ready to fire. Only a small amount of practice was required to be able to load/reload in about 30 seconds. So I could visualize a warrior on horseback (at a stand still LOL) being able to reload a pair of kubur (horse) pistols in about one minute using this method. It's really quite fast. I found the palaska a pretty clever device. With a flick of the thumb you open the lid and grab a cartridge, And another flick of the thumb closes the lid. Much faster than dealing with the outer flap of a leather pouch. And the ramrod suspended from the neck was much faster than retrieving the rod from under the pistol stock and replacing it after reloading (or dropping it/loosing it). It was an interesting experiment.
Rick
I've never even seen a photo, much less an original example of a paper cartridge that was documented from the Ottoman region. Curious. But there is enough written evidence that paper cartridges were in common use (as they were World wide for that matter).
Maybe I mentioned this before, but can't remember. Years ago, I once tried an experiment. I took one of my Ottoman pistols to the shooting range. I strapped a belt with a palaska with 5 pre-made paper cartridges around my waist. And a suma loading rod around my neck with a leather strap. All of these palaskas hold about 5 pre-made cartridges. Which later on made sense to me why they are all shaped as they are. So, to proceed in loading the pistol.
At half-cock I extracted a cartridge from the brass container, tore off one end, primed the pan, (which we don't prime first today for safety reasons) closed the frizzen, then inserted the rest of the powder (about 30 grains of FFG), ball, and paper (for wadding) into the barrel and rammed it home with the suma rod. And was ready to fire. Only a small amount of practice was required to be able to load/reload in about 30 seconds. So I could visualize a warrior on horseback (at a stand still LOL) being able to reload a pair of kubur (horse) pistols in about one minute using this method. It's really quite fast. I found the palaska a pretty clever device. With a flick of the thumb you open the lid and grab a cartridge, And another flick of the thumb closes the lid. Much faster than dealing with the outer flap of a leather pouch. And the ramrod suspended from the neck was much faster than retrieving the rod from under the pistol stock and replacing it after reloading (or dropping it/loosing it). It was an interesting experiment.
Rick
