Paper cartridges for a rifled gun?

[archeryrob]

I’ve taken such a liking to paper cartridges with the ball and wad in the 1858 revolver making my life easy. So I tried to do it two ways today for rifled muzzle loaders and it didn’t work.

First was a PRB in a hair curler paper rolled on a 5/8 dowel tapered. When the tube is as large as the PRB the paper is too big and rips. Second was a lee real over a 9/16 wad and 777 and like wise too big to slide in the barrel and rips before the wad gets to the muzzle.

I tried rolling a PRB around the measure tube, glue it and twist both ends and too large. Had to rip the bottom open, squeeze powder out. Drop patch and RB into hand and reseat and drive them both.

No success yet. YouTube didn’t seem to turn anything up either. Anyone make easily stuff able paper cartridges where it can be stuff in the rifled muzzle?

[Wayne Smith]

Check the end of your rifling to see if they are too sharp of have anything on the end of the rifling.

[Tar Heel]

Try making them like we do for the 1861 Springfield. Civil War style.
-or-
You will need to make them like the British 1853 Enfield cartridges which used a hollow base bullet to swage up to take the rifling or a plain based bullet to bump up to swell the paper patch. These are not impossible to make however the paper thickness needs to be SPOT ON as well as the bullet diameter. Number of wraps is critical and powder charge needs to be consistent. There are lots of good videos and other good info out there on rolling your own Enfield style cartridges. You may find the process too difficult for anything but a serious history buff or a reenactor.

290806

https://www.papercartridges.com/
https://www.papercartridges.com/rules-for-enfield-cartridges.html

[charlie b]

Rifle cartridges were a bit different than the pistol versions.

Pistol cartridges were simply inserted into the chamber in one piece. No tearing or pouring powder. Keep in mind a cap and ball pistol is closet to an inline muzzleloader than sidelock rifles so ignition was not as much of an issue.

Rifle cartridges were designed to be torn apart. Tear off the 'tail' and pour the powder in the barrel. Invert and put the 'patched' bullet in the bore. Tear off the remainder of the paper and ram the bullet.

A 'one piece' design per the pistol cartridge will probably not work well with patent chamber rifles. Flame just has too far to go to reliably ignite paper and powder. Then there is the problem of getting it all in the barrel without tearing, as experienced by the OP. If you want to pursue this then I would undersize the powder portion of the thing and use undersized wad or maybe a Minnie bullet without a wad.

When paper patching bullets for my Lyman I sized the patched bullet to just at bore dia so it is a slip fit in the bore. Maybe consider that kind of thing for your use as well.

[archeryrob]

I think the paper is not tough enough to handle the rifling and the PRB and on the inline 9/16 wad and lee REAL makes the cartridge too wide and the powder fills the vacuum they make (width). I might need to make a 44 colt tube and try slitting the side to add PRB and other stuff and see if the twist on top will hold it together, or if it will just fall out. I could easily make premade powder charges and I did and the cap burnt right through that hair curling paper still. Too many other things to do right now, but I will try later on. I was just surprised how much of a spectacular failure it was. :drinks: