The Zen of Paper Cartridge Making
The Guns of the West paper cartridge kit simplifies the cartridge making process
George Baylor is the alias of a well-known Cowboy Action Shooter. He’s been writing a column on guns and gear for the Cowboy Chronicle for as long as I can remember…and I have an excellent memory.
In the world of Cowboy Action Shooting, George shoots just about everything the rules allow you to shoot, including cap and ball revolvers. And, he’s written extensively about using cap & ball revolvers in competition.
George told me, “Mike, whenever someone asks me why I don’t shoot paper cartridges, I refer them to your videos, and I tell them, ‘That’s why.’”
OK, I get it.
Making paper cartridges is a lot of work. And, I have to be honest, it is fairly tedious work.
If the geniuses at Dillon Precision would invent the equivalent of an XL 750, high-speed, progressive reloading press that rolled paper cartridges, I’d mortgage the house to buy one. But, I’m pretty sure that is one dream that is not going to come true. So, I’ll just have to keep making them the old-fashioned way.
Of course, the real old-fashioned way was to use child labor, but that’s another attractive option that is closed off to me. My own kids haven’t been children for decades. So, I can’t use them. I’ve considered using local children, but, since, I can’t even find a neighborhood kid willing to mow my lawn, fielding a team of them to roll cartridges is completely out of the question.
So, if it is so much trouble, why do I bother to make paper cartridges for my cap & ball revolvers. The answer is, yes, it is a lot of trouble, but it isn’t more trouble than they’re worth.
I originally got interested in shooting paper cartridges because they are an historically correct way to shoot some cap & ball revolvers. During the Civil War, revolvers were almost always shot using paper cartridges. As an experimental archeologist, I was very interested in trying paper cartridges, but I had no idea how to go about it.
Then, about 11 years ago, I was contacted by John Gurnee who had been making a study of Civil War paper cartridges for years. He was making his own cartridges, and he was also making period correct packaging. He sent me some examples to test, and to write about for “Guns of the Old West” magazine.
I’ve never used crack or heroin, but I have a certain amount of fellow feeing for the addicts of those substances, because I know that feeling. The feeling you get when you try something for the first time, and you realize your life has just changed. You know that you will do that thing again, and you will do it all your life.
Shooting my first black powder revolver was like that. I was 17 years old, and I’d grown up shooting guns, but that first sooty, sulphurous shot of glorious black powder changed my life. I became addicted to gun smoke as surely, and as helplessly as any crackhead. When I shot John Gurnee’s paper cartridges, I experienced a similar epiphany.
Unfortunately, a decade ago my paper cartridge addiction was not easily satisfied. Modern conical bullet molds by Lee Precision turn out bullets that don’t work well for paper cartridges. John Gurnee was using bullets he cast with old brass molds that Colt used to sell with their revolvers, but antique molds are not easily obtained. I made my cartridges using round balls, but I never really liked that solution.
Eventually, Mark Hubbs, an archeologist who worked for the Army provided the solution. Using bullets recovered from Civil War battlefields, he designed a series of bullet molds for historically correct bullets from the cap & ball era. The company he started, Eras Gone Bullet Molds has become the go-to source of bullets for the paper cartridge shooting fraternity.
About the same time that Mark launched his bullet mold company, John Gurnee wrote a book called, “How to Make Cap and Ball Revolver Cartridges and Packets”. In the book John provides all the dimensional data needed to make formers for .36 and .44 caliber paper cartridges, and step by step instructions for the cartridge making process.
With those two pieces of the puzzle in place, making paper cap & ball revolver cartridges started to really catch on with a particularly crazy subset of cap & ball revolver shooters. And, as usually happens when something gets some interest behind it, some smart person will figure out how to do it better. In this case, that smart person was a grumpy old curmudgeon named Cliff Manly. He started turning out beautifully made hardwood cartridge formers, and a matching machined hardwood die that made rolling good, tightly packed paper cartridges much easier.
Cliff’s cartridge kit, with a former and a die, made better cartridges than just using a former alone. And more importantly, even people who weren’t handy enough to make their own formers could buy one from Cliff, and get into cartridge making.
Sadly, Cliff passed away a couple of years ago, but his contribution to cap & ball shooters will live on. Other innovators built on Cliff’s idea. Balázs Németh, who is better known to the YouTube shooting community as CapandBall, developed his own high quality former and die sets, which I used for a while with excellent results. Then Dustin Winegar, the host of the “Guns of the West” YouTube channel took the next step, and started 3-D printing complete paper cartridge making kits.
I’ve been using Dustin’s kits for a couple of years now, and they are pretty close to fool-proof. So, making cap & ball paper cartridges is a lot easier than it was 10 years ago. The next logical step in paper cartridge loading technology is the paper cartridge version of the Dillon XL 750…but I’m not holding my breath.
I’ve been shooting my replica Colt 1851 Navies and 1860 Armies, as well as my Remington New Model Armies, pretty routinely with paper cartridges for six or seven years now. It gives you a new appreciation for cap & ball sixguns as a fighting tool. Using paper cartridges, you can reload a cap & ball revolver as fast…in fact, maybe faster, than you can empty and load a Colt cartridge-firing Peacemaker. Which means combat reloads are actually possible.
The history nerd in me likes shooting paper cartridges because it allows me to experience shooting these guns in all the modes they were shot in the 19th century. So, I shoot with loose ammunition, and I shoot with cartridges. I find that very satisfying.
The shooting nerd in me likes shooting paper cartridges because it simplifies the logistics of a range trip. Instead of carrying 100 round balls, lubed felt wads and a pound of black powder to the range, all I need to do is grab the plastic cartridge box loaded with paper cartridges.
At the range, paper cartridges speed up the loading process considerably. It makes loading a cap & ball revolver go as quickly as loading a cartridge firing single action…in fact the cap & ball gun will be faster on the reload because you don’t need to eject fired brass cases.
Before paper cartridges, when I used a pair of cap & ball revolvers in a Cowboy Action Shooting match. I spent all my time at the unloading table, getting my guns loaded for the next stage. I missed out on all the banter and comradery of the match. Some shooters overcame that problem by buying 10 spare cylinders, and loading them all the night before the match. Then they would just swap an empty cylinder for a loaded one at the start of each stage.
Paper cartridges accomplish the same thing, but they don’t cost an extra $1,500 like 10 spare cylinders would.
Even though loading paper cartridges is easier than it was 10 years ago, it is still pretty labor intensive. In fact, if you added the time it takes to make the cartridges to the time it takes to load them, it probably equals the time it takes to load loose ammunition. The difference is that the time spent making cartridges is outside of the critical path of loading and shooting the gun.
You can make cartridges in time that you can’t use for shooting…rainy days, quiet evenings or raging snow storms. Then, when you’re at the range, you can spend your time actually shooting.
Which is why I keep making paper cartridges.