DIY Black Powder pistol cartridges

[Ninurta]

So. Cartridges.

You can use any sort of thin paper, like cigarette papers, hair rolling papers, or coffee filters. I've used both cigarette rolling papers and coffee filters, and have found that I prefer the coffee filters. They hold the nitration better, and are a little sturdier than the cigarette papers.

It also helps to have a rolling jig, of which I have a couple. Those go a long way in making each cartridge fairly uniform and squared away.

These are my cartridge rolling equipments:



   

In the plastic box, from left to right, are: a plastic mandrel and die cartridge former, A powder funnel and Xacto knife to fill and trim the cartridge papers, cigarette rolling papers and lube, a bunch of pre-cut paper circles to close the bottom of the cartridge with, and a tube of paste glue to glue it all together with. Outside the plastic box is another cartridge former mandrel made of plastic and die made of a wood block. The kit came from Dustin Winegar at "Guns of the Old West" and the other former came from Balázs Németh at "Cap and Ball" in Budapest.

Here's a video of Dustin showing how to use his paper cartridge kit to make cartridges:



Here's a video from Cap and Ball showing how his cartridge former is used, and shooting them in an original Colt 1851 revolver:



There are a few other videos showing how it's done at Youtube. A note about the cap circles for the bottom of the cartridge - I don't yet have a punch to cut them out of the coffee filters, so when I am using nitrated coffee filters, I just use a square of paper for the bottom cap instead of a circle. Still works fine, and that is how it was done at times at the Richmond Arsenal during the war, too.

Here are some of the cartridges I made:



   

The three on the left are made from the coffee filters, and the three on the right are made of the cigarette papers. I got lazy on the left-most two, and didn't bother to trim the paper. It worked out ok, though, since when you load them into the pistol, and ram them down, it shaves off a ring of lead from the oversized bullets to seal the chamber, and that ring brings the extra paper with it when it falls off.

Size comparison of one of these cartridges with a 9mm store-bought cartridge:



   

Once you get them made, it's a good idea to carry them in a protective case, since they are a might more fragile than the brass and steel cased cartridges we are used to. During the war, they were often carried in wooden blocks bored out to accept the cartridges and protect them, inside either a paper wrapping or a cardboard box.

This is what the wood  blocks look like, with the first cartridge placed in the tube bored to hold it:



   

I got those from Mr. Nemeth at Cap and Ball in Budapest, too. They are a bit pricey, but are hand made in the same way as they were made in the 1800's, they come with a reusable cardboard sleeve to slide over the block and hold the cartridges in, and the sleeve has authentic period labeling on it, so it's kind of value-added. You can see two of the cartridge packages in the first photo in the OP up top. The "Richmond Laboratory" package has 7 holes in the wooden block, the last hole is to hold a paper tube of percussion caps to fire the cartridges with, The other package has only six holes for six cartridges, with no provision for caps, but it has a hinged lid to cover the tops of the cartridges, too.

Both of those companies, Cap and ball and Guns of the Old West, were a pleasure to do business with. Brigitta at Cap and ball kept me informed via e-mail of order developments, and she combined two orders into one just to save me money on postage. I actually got a partial refund from them due to that. Dustin at Guns of the Old West sent the order out in record time, and it got here earlier than expected. I can't say enough good stuff about either company, they were that good.

Next installment will involve loading them into the revolver.

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