• This community needs YOUR help today. We rely 100% on Supporting Memberships to fund our efforts. With the ever increasing fees of everything, we need help. We need more Supporting Members, today. Please invest back into this community. I will ship a few decals too in addition to all the account perks you get.



    Sign up here: https://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/account/upgrades

The Jefferson Arsenal, For Pre-Constructed Cartridges?

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Dispatch

40 Cal.
Joined
Feb 17, 2010
Messages
218
Reaction score
72
From actual experience, can anyone say if The Jefferson Arsenal's pre-constructed cartridge kits are any good?
icon_confused.gif


In particular, their .58 caliber Minié cartridges spark my interest...
 
I only used them to get the Dowels and the paper sizes.

It's easy to make your own 1863 Pattern Minie cartridges. If I can do it anyone can do it

I use masking paper but you can use any paper. The sizes for the 2 triangular paper are available with a quick Google, I can't remember them off hand.

Get some glue sticks and your good.

The key factor is properly sizing the Mines so they don't get stuck in the bore , you want to be able to shoot the whole 50 rounds in the cartridge box without cleaning. Most Minies you buy online aren't sized. I use a cheap Harbor Freight Arbor Press and a .575 push thru sizer, total cost maybe 100 bucks. If you're just going to try them once then get the Jefferson Arsenal pre made cartridges.

I shoot a lot of paper cartridges so it's cost prohibitive to pay someone to roll them for me.
 
From actual experience, can anyone say if The Jefferson Arsenal's pre-constructed cartridge kits are any good?
icon_confused.gif


In particular, their .58 caliber Minié cartridges spark my interest...
I think they are awesome! I use them in my brown bess and charlesville. The only bad thing is I’m getting a lot more lead down range; no patch and ball and a barrel that gets hard to load that needs to be swabbed out. I was using my normal load of 80 FF. I think I’ve read 110 to 120 is the military load of which 10 to 15 is used to prime pan. I actually used them for first time yesterday and went through 20 rounds like it was nothing and just ordered more today! Fun stuff. For my application they are great.
 
I think they are awesome! I use them in my brown bess and charlesville. The only bad thing is I’m getting a lot more lead down range; no patch and ball and a barrel that gets hard to load that needs to be swabbed out. I was using my normal load of 80 FF. I think I’ve read 110 to 120 is the military load of which 10 to 15 is used to prime pan. I actually used them for first time yesterday and went through 20 rounds like it was nothing and just ordered more today! Fun stuff. For my application they are great.
They made some fine powder as early as the sixteenth century, and lots of not so good. Military often used poorer powders.
A modern gun should well be able to handle god awful charges, but G-O or Swiss or Schutzen will be better powder then a lobster back or even Johnny Reb was likely to have.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top