Cartridges for Cap and Ball Revolver!

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Hey Folks,
After doing a bit of thinking and researching (including your help on another thread with lube suggestions) I made up some cartridges for my Pietta Colt 44cal and took them out to the range today.
My primary objective was to test a couple of shapes and sizes of cartridges, along with testing how much lube I would need to prevent fouling and to see what wad worked best.
I made up around 20 cartridges using Curling Papers for the case. These burn much faster than the coffee filters I have used in the past, and I only got small bits of paper left about 33% of the time- not an issue since I swab my cylinder before reloading anyway just to be safe.
I used 27 grains of Pyrodex P, and .454 Hornady balls.

In six of the cartridges, I used pre-lubed 1/8" thick wads. 2 of these were Cabelas wonderwad type that come soaked in Bore Butter, and the other 4 were veggie wads lubed with something pretty oily... I don't know what. The rest had wads that I cut from 20 gauge felt spacers using a belled .45ACP case. These measure more or less at .435" in diameter and are kind of soft. I put a dab of Bore Butter between felt and ball when making the cartridge, but otherwise the felt was dry.
I made all these in the past 2 days and wrapped them up in tinfoil. I stored them in an old Barnes projectile box.

When I got to the range, the veggie wad cartridges had some oily looking leakage around the wad, and one had leaked to the powder. The "wonderwad" style cartridges were also a little wet looking. The dry felt wad-with-bore-butter-dab were dandy looking with no leakage- the bore butter stayed between wad and ball (but it was cold today, barely 50 degrees, so no danger of the bore butter getting soft.)
-The veggie wads I shot with no additional lube over the ball, and they shot a bit wild with a lot of fouling.
-One of the wonderwad cartridges was too wide and inflexible at the wad to actually load since it wouldn't allow the ball to fit under the ramrod, and the other produced a F2F, and then a serious hang fire from a second cap (but at least I didn't have to dig it out!). I decided I don't like these wads for cartridge loading because they are too hard and wide (.459") and make the cartridge diameter to big to load easily. Plus the leakage long term seems like it would be bad, and I got spooked with that hangfire... it was almost a second delayed! I'll keep them for loading the traditional way.
-The dry felt wads were a bit "heavy" and "gritty" feeling without over-chamber lube, and I felt it right away so I lubed the chambers with Bore Butter over the ball for the remaining shots. My groups tightened up (offhand at 20 yards, so not great anyway but still...) and fouling was much less of a problem. The gun also just felt better, like everything was working right. That's one thing I love about black powder- it FEELS good when it's set up well... not sure how to describe it, but if you know, you know. I was almost out of bore butter, so I used the base of a .223 casing to push the lube down into the chamber on top of the ball... this worked really well, and kept the overspray to a minimum... I think I'll start keeping that casing in my loading bag!
It was a fun day with my sons keeping me company... they even helped me clean it afterwards! Can't ask for more than that!
Anyway, that was long... Thanks for reading, if you did.
Crow

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Minute Of Average
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Re: Cartridges for Cap and Ball Revolver!

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How fun!!! My only C&B revolver presently is an original Colt 1849 pocket, and I really don't shoot it. I need to pick up something I can shoot, and shoot often. When I do, I plan on making paper cartridge's with conical bullets. I have always wanted to play around with that.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: Cartridges for Cap and Ball Revolver!

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This is the only photo I have currently. At some point I’ll take better photos.
Top left, is a 5” Colt 1849 pocket .31 that was made in 1862. This later style is relieved for loading of conical paper cartridges. It has all matching numbers and I even have the original military flap style holster. I suspect it may have been carried by someone in the Civil War since it does have a full flap holster, but there’s no way to prove that. I haven’t shot it yet, not sure if I will.
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“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

Re: Cartridges for Cap and Ball Revolver!

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FrontSight wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 12:44 pm Top left, is a 5” Colt 1849 pocket .31 that was made in 1862.
DAmn that's cool. Great collection all around! Civil war era stuff is just awesome. I have a Union Army bayonet that was made in 1859, so far as I can tell from the stamp... but I can't even imagine how amazing it would be to have a pistol from that era. Any idea if it's been shot at all since back then by a former owner?
Crow
Minute Of Average

Re: Cartridges for Cap and Ball Revolver!

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So its well worn, but I have no doubt if I loaded it up, it would fire just fine. The barrel is a bit rough, but you can still see rifling all the way through. If I were to shoot it, II would want to remove the existing nipples, so I could replace them with modern nipples that will fit modern caps better. So far I don't have a nipple wrench that small, and I'm just not sure if I want to go there...because I know I'll have a fight on my hands getting all 6 out.

So if I never get up the nerve to do that, I may just shoot a cylinder through as is just to say I did.
“I think there’s a right-wing conspiracy to promote the idea of a left-wing conspiracy”

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