I get the whole thing with paper cartridges, but is there a patch material you'd recommend for filling that large gap (.69 to .75). Cotton flannel maybe? I've got everything for making cartridges, but I'd also like to try patchin.
So the problem with patching a smooth bore, is that unlike a rifle with symmetric lands and grooves for the patching material to use when folding..., the lack of the grooves = different folds each time that you load = inconsistent ball position each shot.
This might account for the reason why there are no known 18th century references to folks patching smooth bores (so far), even when it was quite obvious that they had seen patched ball being used in rifles.
YET..., I have read where certain light infantry, and "select marksmen" were allowed to make up several cartridges for accurate shooting, while the rest of the army was issued pre-made cartridges, both in the F&I and AWI, in the British army.
So from my experimentation, it appears that for accuracy from a Bess or a British Carbine, you need a custom fitted cartridge former. A wooden dowel around which you roll your cartridges.
You get a dowel the size of your musket ball. I took an oversized piece of dowel, and compared it to the musket ball I was going to use. Then I sanded it down until it was close. but had room for improvement. Next I wrapped the cartridge paper around the dowel, and tried to insert the wrapped dowel into my musket muzzle. It was too big. So I sanded the dowel some, and tried again. I repeated the process, until the dowel wrapped in the cartridge paper would slide into the muzzle without trouble, but was a very close fit. THEN I finished a cartridge tube, and dropped in my musket ball. Then I checked the fit of the cartridge tube with the musket ball, and it was a nice, snug, custom fit.
What I then have is a "paper patched" round ball, which does not create any folds in the patching when loading. It can be used as it, or you can put a wad in between, and I'm told by one shooter than you can do the same thing with aluminum foil and fit a dowel using the foil instead of paper. This does help accuracy, and the chap who told me about the foil said you don't need to worry about smoldering paper down range or the main charge burning up the paper around the ball before it exits the bore..., only you make very short "cartridge tubes" from foil, and trim up the foil show it's very near to the ball, and that way the foil acts like a "cup" and not a cartridge. You carry the foil encased ball apart from the powder and not as one-piece cartridges.
The only drawback is that this snug fit is, like a rifle, only good for very few shots before the bore needs swabbing...and if you don't have a consistent source of paper for patching you may need to repeat the process if you start using thicker paper...
LD
