DIY Black Powder pistol cartridges

[Ninurta]

The boolits. 

I cast some bullets a few weeks ago when it was still too cold outside, and forgot to make a post about it. Since I'm going all the way from tail to teeth, them boolits would be the teeth.

First, I'll re-post the pics of the molds I have, because they're a pretty fair distance upthread:

The Richmond Labs Type III bullet mold - 



This was a Confederate bullet, designed and produced in Richmond, VA. It weights 147 grains, and has a largest diameter of 0.390 inches, which gets crammed into a chamber that is .360 inches in diameter, and that process shaves a really big lead ring off the outside of the bullet to insure that it is sealed well on the chamber. The outside of the chamber mouth just shaves off what doesn't fit into the chamber tightly. There is no lubrication groove in the bullet to hold lubricant to soften powder fouling, so these bullets were just dipped in molten lubricant up to the paper wrapper when they were made in Richmond.

Next up is the Colt bullet mold - 



These bullets were produced by Colt in Connecticut, for use by Union forces. It weighs 126 grains, and has a .380 diameter, slightly larger than the the round balls I use, but considerably heavier - a little bit over half again as heavy as the round balls - the round balls are just 80 grains in weight, 0.375 diameter. The chamber mouth also shaves a ring of lead off of this bullet to insure a tight fit, but a smaller ring, given the smaller diameter of the bullet than the Richmond Labs bullet. There is a lubricant groove just forward of the drive band on these bullets, to hold lubricant in to soften powder fouling.

Now me, I just dab a gob of Crisco cooking grease into the chamber mouth when I load the cartridges, and wipe the excess off the cylinder face instead of worrying over lubing the cartridges themselves. I have been experimenting with home made lubricant. I bought 100 "tea light" candles for about 4 dollars at Walmart. They are are made of paraffin in China I think, but seem to be softer than the Gulf Wax version of paraffin. They probably don't have the stearic acid added to make the wax harder. I'm experimenting with adding tallow, or potentially Crisco, to soften it even further. The formula was, I believe, during the Civil War, 8 parts paraffin to 1 part tallow. I'll start there, and work with it to see what happens. may use Crisco as a substitute for the tallow. Seems reasonable to me.

After melting the lead in a Hot Pot II, and heating the aluminum mold by letting it sit in the molten lead for a minute or so, I molded several bullets of both designs:



The Richmond Labs bullets are on the left, the Colt bullets are on the right.

After the bullets cooled, I wrapped 6 of each up into cartridges using the bullets I cast and the cartridge wrapper paper I had nitrated way back when, towards the beginning of the thread. I used that paper, the cast bullets, and a 17 grain charge of FFFg "Triple Seven" black powder substitute for each cartridge:



The Colt cartridges are on the left, the Richmond Labs cartridges on the right this time.

Now, after the cartridges were rolled, I started running into problems, particularly with the Richmond Labs bullets. Due to their larger diameter, they would not fit into the cartridge packaging I had available. The Colt cartridges fit like champions:




Now in this picture, the colt cartridges are SUPPOSED to stick up above the wooden block. You will notice in the hinged - on a strip of cloth glued to the block - lid of the block there are corresponding holes bored to admit the bullet part of the cartridges that stick up above the block, so when it is closed and wrapped, it's all good to go, and the cartridges are securely held.

However, the Richmond labs cartridges encountered difficult with their packaging:




You will notice immediately that in this case, the cartridges also stick up above the wooden block. In this case, that is a problem, because the cardboard sleeve below the wooden block in the photo is supposed to slide tightly over the wooden block, but it will not, because the bullets are in the way. The .390 diameter of the bullets is too large to slide fully into the holes bored in the wooden protective block. The Colt cartridges will fit just fine, but the Richmond Labs cartridges will not, and that is a problem, because the block is made for the Richmond bullets, and the sleeve is printed up to label them.

I did try to fit a naked bullet into the holes, but even without the cartridge or even just the paper wrapper, it was too big to fit. The .375 round balls also fit  fine after being made into cartridges. So .375 and .380 fit ok, but the .390 is just a bit too much.

The holes are plenty deep enough for the cartridges, but the cartridges won't seat into them because of the bullet diameter, too big for the block. 

You will also notice a space at the end of the block. A seventh hole is bored there, to contain a paper tube of percussion caps to fire the cartridges with, which is a handy feature. In the original issue, 7 or 8 percussion caps were rolled into a paper tube and dropped into the seventh hole, so that when you opened a cartridge pack, you had 6 cartridges to fill the chambers of your revolver, and enough caps to cap the chambers, even if you fumble fingered and dropped one.

The holes in the block to contain the cartridges appear to have been bored with a 3/8 drill bit, or it's metric equivalent, at about .375 inches. The problem arises because of the .390 inch diameter to the Richmond Labs bullets. It's just too big to cram into a .375 hole.

Further, the Richmond Labs cartridges are difficult to load into the revolver. Part of that is no doubt due to their .390 diameter versus the .360 diameter of the chambers they have to be crammed into, but part of it may also be a function of the lead I used to cast the bullets. I used lead sinkers I bought at Walmart, and they may not have been pure lead, and so were probably more difficult to shave down to size due to the potentially harder alloy. I thought I was going to have to stand on the loading lever to get them crammed into the chambers.

I did not envy my great great grand dads after that experience. I can only imagine trying to cram those bullets into those chambers under fire.

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