Paper cartridges

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Does anyone shoot paper cartridges?

My son doesn't care to hunt carrying a powder horn around. So last year we just made up a bunch of premeasured "speedloaders" basically a paper cartridge without the projectile. We tried shooting a paper patched ball in it but it wasn't accurate.

This year he has a different gun. I would like to work up a load that works with the paper-wrapped ball. However, I noticed that if I construct the paper cartridge such that my son could bite off the end, dump the powder down, then ram the whole kit-n-caboodle down on top of the powder it doesn't make for a sturdy cartridge.

I use a parallelogram template. When I get finished making the cartridge I usually would tuck the folded end under the edge of the paper. This holds things really snug. However when I include the bullet, I have to wrap in the direction according to the rifling. This leaves the edge of the paper at and angle facing away from the folded tab so the tab cannot be easily tucked in.

I was just wondering if anyone shoots paper cartriges and how you make them. Can they be made as simple as: bite off the end, dump down powder, ram the rest down, cap, and fire?

 

[necchi]

Hi Black Jaque try this;
http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/...49282/hl/paper+cartridge/fromsearch/1/#749282

found it useing the "search" up top :v

 

[gjkershul]

My load in my Pedersoli Brown Bess for trailwalks, military shoots, and whitetail is 80 gr of 3f. with a .735 Lyman ball ball in a computer print out paper cartridge-yellow pages out of the phone book work well also.
The computer paper mikes at .0035 and two wraps around the mandrel-cartridge stick- bring the paper patched ball to close to the .749 muzzle diameter. I use just a simple rectangle rather than a trapazoid. Before puting the powder in the cartridge I dip the cartridge with the ball in place in hot paraffin (sp) wax to just cover the portion of the cartridge were the ball is.

To load, the cartridge is torn, the powder is poured and the cartridge is reversed and thumb loaded waxed portion first into the barrel. The portion of the cartidge now above thge crown of the barrel is then torn off leaving a waxed-for lubrication- paper patched ball which is then rammed home on top of the powder charge. If permitted by the event, it is advisable to reload with this type cartridge immediately after firing when the barrel is warm from the previous discharge.
This protcol is something like the British drill for Enfield cartridges.

It also worker for 50 grain 3f .58 -a .570 ball- loads my son shot out of JP
Murray 3 groove Artillery carbine when he did not want to deal with powder, patch,ball on winter woodswalks when he was 10-twenty years ago.

 

[Billnpatti]

I have never heard of this working on anything but a smoothbore. Rifled barrels need to get a good grip on the ball in order to give the needed spin to it to stabilize it and make it accurate. Paper patching will not do this. Heck, you will be lucky to get good accuracy from a cloth patch of .010 or less. Most good patches are at least .015 thick. You can play with it a lot but I think in the end, you will end up using cloth patches of .015 or thicker. Another thing is that paper will not hold enough lube to keep your barrel from getting pretty heavily fouled after a few shots. At that point, you will be having a very hard time getting the ball to seat on the powder. If the ball is not seated properly on the powder, you can seriously damage your barrel.

These are just my thoughts on the subject. They're free and worth every penny of it. :grin: :hatsoff:

 

[poordevil]

I have used paper ctg with powder only, then ball wraped in cloth and tied with string at top of spru. Leave enough string to hold while you dip in lub....50-50 +- bees wax and mutton tallow in my case.

Pour in powder then load pre-wraped ball. Works real fast.

P

 

[trent/OH]

Maybe (I've never even thought of this concept before) you could make cloth cartridges instead of paper. If you dry-lube the end that will encase the ball it might work. I'll leave it to you to discover how to most easily open the cloth cartridge and determine if it's necessary to cut off the rest of the fabric before ramming it home.

 

[roundball]

If it doesn't "have" to be PC...there are several ways to skin that cat...PVC pocket reloaders are one way:

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Hamkiller,

Thanks. Your description sounds pretty close to the way we tried. Aside from not having much success in the accuracy department, we didn't like having to use a knife to cut off the excess paper after inverting the cartridge. That's why I was hoping there would be a way to avoid inverting it.

Now that you mention the computer paper, I may try different paper. I was using the vellum that we usually use for paper patching metallic cartridge bullets. That stuff is only 0.0025" thick and so tough that it was not easy to tear by hand without boogering up the whole patched ball. Maybe with different paper we can get it to tear by hand better.

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Billnpatti,

Mettallic cartridge shooters have been using paper jacketed bullets for a long time and with great success. So paper jacketing will engage rifling.

One trick to it is to wrap the ball more than once. So a .530 ball wrapped twice with 0.0035" thick paper will have a final diameter of 0.544". And a .535 ball would be 0.549".

Also paper won't compress as much as cloth. So we should be able to get the necessary snug fit.

The lube? Now there's a problem. I'm sure the paper will hold some lube, but you can't soak the paper cartridge in watery lube without ruining the powder charge. Waxy lubes work, but don't allow for the endless shooting without swabbing.

And I can't figure out how to employ a grease cookie in the process.

 

[Black Jaque Janaviac]

Roundball,

Great idea. I suppose the PVC isn't so expensive that you would feel upset if you lost one. That's what I like about the paper cartridges as they are "disposable".

 

[roundball]

Roundball,

Great idea. I suppose the PVC isn't so expensive that you would feel upset if you lost one. That's what I like about the paper cartridges as they are "disposable".

An alternative to the configuration shown is to seal off the end with a double layer of wax paper with a rubber band and after pouring the powder, just ram/burst the whole load down through the wax paper.

 

[Lostrifle]

Paper cartridge with powder only, and bullet board.

 

[BS]

Link to Paper Cartridges

I am in the process of doing a write-up on how too: Make a tapered mandrel and the paper. [update to the above]

The key to accuracy is the fit.........not loose, but tight enough to thumb start.

Trial and error [precise calculations]of thickness of paper used and number of wraps to get a snug fit.

Hope some of this helps.

No-BS

EDIT.........forgot to say: 8 seconds to reload a shoot :grin:

 

[ohio ramrod]

Yep thats what I have used for years, I also use empty horse wormer tubes to keep premeasured powder in, I plug them with a tapered doll rod.

 

[J.D.]

Like BS, I have had fairly good success with paper cartridges in my old 54 cal flint, rifle gun.

I, apparently, just happened to have the correct thickness of paper and the right ball diameter to make it work, but it did work.

The ball end of the cartridge was lubed, but I don't remember what the lube was. The entire cartridge was loaded, ball and all, after the tail was torn off. Accuracy was decent, but not spectacular.

God bless

 

[tg]

Let's see we are trying to invent a way around the loose ball.powder and patch....sounds like the type of outfit I used before I started using ML's...can't recall what we called that type of gear :hmm: