Shooting a Nepalese sharps slant breech

[Lance White]

Recently, I picked up a Sharps 1853 "clone" made in Nepal (supposedly from the "cache" in Khatmandu). I intend to shoot it, have thoroughly taken it apart and cleaned everything. Actually not much cleaning to do, the bore was clean and the barrel is spotless. It is a 3 groove barrel very similar to a Nepalese Snider I had, with gain twist. I slugged the bore with a .535 minie ball and it comes out .530. I bought some Goex FFg and some CCI caps at Dixie Gun Works yesterday. My neighbor/shooting buddy has more of the .535 soft minie balls. I am putting together a plan of different things to try so I need some loading advise.

Should the .535 minie balls be safe to shoot through this bore? I know a lot of minie balls rely on "bump up" from black powder but "Christmas Tree" bullets are as much a .56" so a .005" intereference doesn't sound bad. I am using real black powder, and I hear loads from 42 grains on the bottom end to "drop a ball in there and fill the chamber up until full" which can be 100 grains. My thought process is to use perm paper (wife is a beautician so I have abundant supply to borrow), roll over a 1/2" dowel and glue stick the seam, twist the end into a tail, put the minie ball in there and dump 50 grains of powder in, and twist the other end into a tail. Does this sound like a safe starting point?

Also, can I do the same thing with a round ball? I would need to order some RBs.

My next plan is to pick up a 1852 sporting in 60 bore if it's still available. That's still in the works.

[country gent]

Nitated paper will completely combust and leave nothing to remove from the chamber. May be better than the perm paper in this respect.
Rolling over a 1/2" dowel may not allow the bullet to seat into the tube. A 9 /16 dowel is around .562 and can be polished down with sand paper in a drill press, lathe, or by hand carefully with a file and sandpaper. A light chamfer on the end allows it to be used to seat wads also. Marks on the dowel / mandrel help with this.
The twisted tail is okay but cutting it with the breech block can leave loose powder and a small flash on top of it when fired. Some use a flat base paper cartridge that just allows the breech to close over it and poke a hole thru the base with a pencil or scribe. A disk cut from nitrated paper and pushed down and glued in place makes a nice square base.

Roll your tube and glue edge letting glue cure. You can do this while watching TV ahead of time and have them on hand.
If you go the flat base route punch out the discs for the bases. and assemble into the tubes. You can make them a little big and form a cup that gives a lip to glue in place.
When loading add powder charge to tube ( a loading block helps here)
Seat an over powder wad down tight on the powder charge
carefully seat the bullet down by hand on the wad. Lube will help hold the bullet in place and seal the cartridge.

When shooting the flat based cartridge load into chamber and with a scribe pencil or other sharp point poke a hole in the center of the base. close breech cap and fire.