Making paper cartridges

[Viking78]

The last couple of years I have experimented a lot with paper cartridges for cap & ball revolvers. I just wrote an article on how to make these paper cartridges that some of you might have interest in: Making Paper Cartridges for Percussion Revolvers.

I've also written a piece on the original Remington New Army revolver I shoot these cartridges in:
Portrait of an Original Remington New Army Revolver

I'm interested in any other methods for making paper cartridges, so please share what information you have!

Some images:

And some videos:

[youtube]0zRlYAyuHu4[/youtube]

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[youtube]Xx9uKAbj0nw[/youtube]

 

[Billnpatti]

Excellent presentation. The best I have seen. Now to make those cartridges...... :haha: :haha:

 

[wicket]

Viking...

Very nice work. I make cartridges for my Colt navy revolvers with an applied base rather then folded, and from a heavier weight paper stock that's been nitrated like magician's flash paper rather than more simply being saturated with potassium nitrate.
Obviously conicals are a problem with some Colts, so i've recently switched over to a round ball seated on a Gatofeo type wad.

 

[awc]

check out my video
makin paper cartridges on you tube

 

[Viking78]

Flash paper burns amazingly clean and I have never had a misfire with it. I get my flash paper from H & C Collection and the quality is great.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

the "capandball" youtube channel has a series of videos which demonstrate making historically accurate paper cartridges.

 

[Cpl. Ashencheeks]

I have read a few of these articles and have seen a few Youtube videos from Norway, Poland, and also including some from the Cap & Ball guys in Hungary. All very informative and I have enjoyed reading and watching them.

My paper cartridges have greatly improved since doing so.

They now have that more appealing cone look to them rather than the basic cylinder shapes I used 25 years ago.

I have a little flash paper, but it is pretty hard to come by, so for many of my cartridges in the past I was using cigarette papers, sometimes nitrated, sometimes not.

I have never used hair curler paper, but I did find one excellent type of paper that burns quite well with very little residue.

It is the paper from tea bags. Look for the type that has some amount of transparency to it and check how well it burns.

The bottom ends have cheap travel facial tissue split apart into a single layer and cut into small squares.

The circular things in the picture are cap seals and keep my powder dry in pre-loaded un-capped cylinders while in the field. So I can reload a fresh cylinder cap it and then go to the paper cartridges.

After awhile of making these, speed in construction does improve and the tea bag paper is much easier to work with than cigarette paper.

I will have to make some cartridge boxes for these next with coned wooden receptacles drilled to shape with narrow elongated trade arrows.

The cartridges shown here are for the .44 Remington with Lee 200 grain conicals and 30 grains of Goex fffg.


My Cartridge Kit

 

[Patocazador]

What is your source for the tea bag paper? I don't want a bunch of lose tea left over; I'm not British. :wink:

 

[Calum]

Very cool! Thank you for posting! I've always thought about making live cartridges for pistols, but never sure where to start. Blanks are easy, using cigarette papers.

It's a bit off topic, but I make live paper cartridges for my Sharps and they work well.

Calum

 

[Cpl. Ashencheeks]

Well, I suppose you could always throw left over tea in the harbor. :thumbsup: :haha:

Better yet, if it is at least halfway decent tea you could save it in a tin and use a tea ball or sifting spoon to brew it.

I obtained my bag material from dietary cleansing tea.

Very scary stuff, no one should ever consider consuming.

If this tea is going to do something explosive, I would rather have it blast out of a muzzle end then a breech end.

 

[azmntman]

Well, I suppose you could always throw left over tea in the harbor. :thumbsup: :haha:

Better yet, if it is at least halfway decent tea you could save it in a tin and use a tea ball or sifting spoon to brew it.

I obtained my bag material from dietary cleansing tea.

Very scary stuff, no one should ever consider consuming.

If this tea is going to do something explosive, I would rather have it blast out of a muzzle end then a breech end.

:metoo: :rotf: :rotf: :rotf:

 

[Cruzatte]

What is your source for the tea bag paper? I don't want a bunch of lose tea left over; I'm not British. :wink:

Oh yeah....we used to do this back when I was ACW re-enacting. My tea came from the grocery store. First thing you do is brew up a pot of tea. Then drink it. The rest isn't hard.

 

[Obi-Wan Cannoli]

Here are 15 videos on the topic from the folks at Cap and Ball youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIGg3pcPWcaKtgUsT9kvXRcoZMHrhzYjV

 

[2veeps]

Great post! Thanks Obi-Wan.

-Veep

 

[crockett]

I fortunately live near one of the depositories for US patents so I looked at Sam Colt's original. If you take a gummed cigarette paper and position so the gum is on top. This will be the open end of the paper case. Trim the sides at an angle so when you wrap around the tapered dowel the overlap along the seam is even. I use a glue stick to glue the overlapped sides. For the back or bottom or base, Sam Colt had a round attached tab or trap door. I tried that but it sometimes didn't overlap and seal so I use a square trap door.
So, an isosceles trapezoid with the long base on top and the short base on the bottom and midpoint along the short base a square tab that will be folded over the bottom and "crunched" over the sides and held with a glue stick. This pattern is about the same as Colt's patent.
Dixie Gun Works (to the best of my knowledge) no longer sells PC bullets but many of the originals had a rebated rim around the base and this rebate fit into the open end of the paper case. On one original patent Colt had a thin cork wad between powder and bullet but then dropped the idea. I really liked those rebated rims. The open end of the paper case- the gummed edge needs to be on the INSIDE. Insert the bullet and lick the paper- the moisture goes through the paper and activates the glue. Hold a few seconds to dry and that's it. I use 15-17 grains fffg.
The originals were packed in heavy paper and were called "packets". The military was the major buyer and they wanted water proof ammunition. Colt first used thin tin foil but fouling was a problem. I tried the tin foil and after 3 rounds the chamber had so much fouling that I could not ram another round deep enough and the protruding nose of the bullet jammed rotation of the cylinder. Colt had better foil so his jamming would start in after 6 rounds in a chamber.
The percussion cap is powerful enough to blow apart the foil and ignite the powder.
In any event, the original papers, fish guts, etc. were treated with much better chemicals than cigarette paper. This was to completely burn up the case so no embers remained in the chamber. On today's cigarette paper- it burns "pretty good"
but THERE IS FOULING THAT CAN HOLD AN EMBER. Ram another combustible into such a chamber and the round will EXPLODE IN YOUR FACE so be sure to take a quick look in the chamber before reloading.
Back to the water proof aspect. Colt and others (D.C. Sage) switched to small wood boxes- that's why the boxes are called "packets'. These wood boxes had a paper wrapping that could be shellacked and made completely water proof. There was a wire (sometimes a string) under the wrapping. The drill was to grab and yank the wire to rip open the wrapping. The box fell apart in your hands and Voila- six rounds for fast reloading. You needed a capper with the Colt Boxes but Sage used a mono bloc and had a seventh hole with caps.
There is a fellow in Gettysburg PA- Terry White-who has written numerous books on this interesting area.
In any event LESS PAPER is good. Easier to ignite, less fouling. So I make my cases using as little paper as possible.
AND check the chambers before reloading.

 

[wicket]

Like Viking above, i have never had a misfire using flash paper, and never found any residue in the chamber from a properly constructed cartridge. H&C, as Viking mentions, sells a paper of proper weight, and ships it wet for safety.
It's important to remember that NC paper ignites at a lower temperature than powder, so the cartridges are best carried in a packet with individual cells.
NC paper is chemically unstable due to residual acid content, so flash paper and cartridges prepared from it are best kept under refrigeration for long-term storage.
Flash paper can be produced by the reaction of a solution of concentrated sulfuric acid and a nitrate salt upon cotton rag paper. Though detailed information on salt/acid nitration is posted at various locations online, it is far preferable to purchase the commercial product from an outlet like H&C, rather than attempting to make it at home.

 

[crockett]

I've always used cigarette paper but I am going to try the flash paper.
As far as ignition, I tested plain old newspaper which is three times thicker than cigarette paper. It isn't combustible so you have to clean out the chambers before reloading- it was used only for a test. If I recall all of the rounds fired however I made the cases so only a single layer of paper was against the flash hole on the nipple.
I also tested "foil" of a sort. Aluminum foil is far too thick but candy wrappers use a paper backed foil and if you are very careful you can separate paper and foil. I did this years ago. Today I think the "foil" is mylar and metal foil backed with paper is no longer used. In any event I got 70% or better ignition on the foil but it didn't burn up. As I said after three rounds there was so much foil in the chamber that I could not ram down another round far enough into the chamber and the end of the conical was sticking out and preventing cylinder rotation. Again I did this as an experiment since Colt used the tin foil. The tin was used (I think) because it was waterproof. The foil cartridges were put 6 in a group inside a heavy paper packet. I don't think the packet was waterproof. In any event Colt decided the foil would not work due to excess fouling so he switched to paper and then dropped the packet and made the wood box waterproof.
There was one manufacture- I think the name was Johnston & Dow who (I think) used a solid type powder with no case however the tests with the military were an on and off type of affair.
If you make any wood boxes use the on line combustible cartridge images ( Colt, D.C. Sage, Johnston & Dow) and print them full size on tan paper and glue them over the box with a wire pull string. That's the way I did it.
Finally, I usually load from a flask, I went through all the trouble with the combustibles and the boxes because in many instances that was how percussion revolvers were used. The experience totally changed my conception on these pistols. Almost as fast to reload as the later cartridge Peacemakers. The peacemakers required the spent cases removed and new put in while the combustibles required only the new but had to be rammed. The combustibles took a little longer but only about another 20 seconds and if you had two pistols you could pretty much reload one while the other still had six rounds.

 

[crockett]

One more thing, some folks feel you have to tear open the back of the cartridge to get ignition. That isn't how these cartridges were designed- you rammed the whole thing in and relied on the percussion cap rupturing the case. Some shooters said they couldn't get reliable ignition and I always thought they were bunching up too much paper at the bottom of the case- the part next to the nipple flash hole.
It finally occurred to me that I replaced my original gun's nipples with "Hot" or spitfire after market nipples that deliver more force. I checked the old military situation and apparently the pistol nipples used by the military, who used the combustibles exclusively, those nipples had a little larger flash hole which I am wondering whether that was to insure ignition. In any event I use after market nipples designed to provide more flash and have never had a problem provided the paper case is properly made.

 

[Billnpatti]

For those skilled and experienced enough in chemistry, or just plain foolish enough, to make their own nitrated paper using Nitric acid and sulfuric acid, the correct ratio of nitric acid to sulfuric acid is three parts nitric acid to 1 part sulfuric acid. Use plenty of personal protection such as acid proof gloves and apron and a full face shield and do it out of doors. Make sure that no other family members or pets are near enough to get any possible spill or splash on them. That acid mixture is a very hungry one and would just love to eat away your, or anyone else's, flesh.

 

[wicket]

I seal the ends of my cartridges with a single disk of flash paper and have never had one fail to fire on any of my Pietta revolvers with factory nipples. Due to the cap shortage and rising prices, i now use home-made caps of 10 mil annealed copper with a .5 grain charge of FH42 primer; a little less powerful than CCI caps, and still haven't encountered any ignition problems.
I tested combustible paper cartridges by crushing them inside glass tubes with a plunger mounted on my drill press, and none of them ruptured through the bottom or left any loose powder where it could come into direct contact with the cap. As a paper cartridge is compressed in the chamber, its first point of contact is with the flash hole, which it covers. The cartridge then expands as it fills the chamber and sometimes rips, but there's never any direct contact of the powder with the flash from the cap.