rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

1
as a civil war reenactor, now and again i have occasion to shoot black powder blanks, often as many as 20 or 30 in an hour or so. because it is more or less Period Correct (PC), except for no bullets and no munition factories, we usually roll our own. some people buy pre-rolled cartridges, some pre-rolled tubes, but this can get expensive. it is part of my job as 2nd sergeant and Drill Instructor to help new recruits learn to take care of themselves, and one of the things i teach is how to roll cartridges.

you need:
black powder: the normal combat load during the war was 60 (+/-5)grains of ff (or fff) black powder. a 1-lb tin costs anywhere from $10-$15, depending on where you get it. that makes about 7000/60=116.666 cartridges.
powder measure: i've seen guys use a rounded teaspoon, or a spent brass case of some sort or other. mine's a more or less PC model in brass by CVA with removable spout.
paper: newspaper is too fragile, brown wrapping paper too tough. office supply stores sell 4"X6" notepads, 100 sheets, in ten-packs for under $10. that makes 2,000 cartridges with some sweat equity.
a rolling stick: for the springfield or enfield muzzle loader, i use a 1/2" wood dowel, cut 4&1/2" long, sanded and oiled. 1/2" sink line works well too, but not PC.
pocket knife: to cut paper. any sharp knife, or a pair of scissors will do.

that's it for the muzzle loader. the sharps paper-cartridge breech-loader is very sensitive to ammo construction, and requires slightly larger rolling stick, a funnel, and sawdust or similar lightweight, combustible material. fortunately, i have some woodworking tools, hence a steady supply of sawdust. i'll explain in greater detail later, after i cover the simpler, muzzle-loading case.
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Last edited by lurker on Mon Nov 30, 2015 8:20 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

3
start with a sheet of paper. when i started this i'd measure it all very carefully, 3.5" on one side, 2.5" on the other, draw the diagonal line and cut along it. now i just fold it, crease it, and cut it with the pocket knife.
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this gives two trapezoidal bits of paper, hence two cartridge tubes.
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hold the paper with the point up, and to the right (left, right, actually doesn't really matter, but be consistent).
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

4
sorry, limit of 3 attachments per post. found out the hard way ;)
roll the paper onto the stick. snug, but not tight. you're going to have to be able to slide the stick out of the tube. oddly enough, a matte finish on the stick is better for this than a slick glossy finish. not too tight.
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back the stick out of the tube, just about as much as the thickness of the dowel, maybe a hair more. (don't you just love these exact measurements?) close enough is close enough, you'll see why in a minute.
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twist the paper together over the end of the stick to seal off the end of the tube. twist it such that the twisting tightens, rather than loosens the paper on the stick, in the direction the pointy end of the paper points. once you've got it snug, go around once more with your thumbnail to secure it.
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now slide out the stick and set it aside.
add your 60 grains of fff black powder. i usually use a block of wood with a hole drilled in it to hold the tube upright. in this picture, you can just make out the powder level in the tube, just above my finger tips, below the dirt smudges on the tube.
Last edited by lurker on Mon Apr 07, 2014 5:39 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

5
so far, so good. up to this point, except that the sharps requires a slightly bigger stick, the process is the same. fwiw, for the muzzle-loader, some people prefer an even thinner (less than 1/2") stick, because they load faster. i'll go ahead and finish the muzzle-loader cartridge first, then come back to this point to finish up the sharps cartridge.

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Last edited by lurker on Tue Apr 08, 2014 12:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

7
now, hold the tube upright, and turn it so that the cut edge is just spiraling around to the back of the tube. feel along the tube to find the top of the powder charge, and flatten the tube just above the powder. you want the spiral edge to form a little pocket. crease the edges.
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fold over and crease the empty end of the tube to make the end narrower. this makes a tail.
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now fold over the tail
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

8
tuck the tail into the pocket, crease the fold, and you're done!
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i developed this method with a lot of help from other reenactors, over a couple of years, a bit here, a bit there. this method is very secure, better than using tape or glue. they very, very rarely come apart, and include no metal staples (which are strictly forbidden) unless they get wet. after a couple of dozen you can roll one in about 30 seconds, while watching tv or holding a conversation. using this method i can get about 35 cartridges in the top level of my cartridge box(nominally holds 20). to load, grip the round end in your hand, bite down firmly on the flat end, twist off the end, pour down the muzzle. you will get powder in your mouth, don't be a weenie, you'll learn to like it. black powder, yum!
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

9
eelj wrote:Whats the procedure for rolling them with the minnie ball?
never done it myself. reenacting wouldn't be near as popular if we used live ammo. :)
what i've seen and read is they attach the bullet to a .58 caliber dowel with a bit of gum and roll the tube on that. tie the bullet in with thread, pour in the powder from the bottom, then tie off that end with thread. practically all ammunition was made in factories, though soldiers would occasionally roll their own. sometimes the wrong ammo would arrive on the supply wagon and had to be modified, and i've seen an account of pickets having to pull loaded bullets and powder, and re-roll into cartridges after coming in off the line.

when we think of industrialized war and women in the workplace, we usually think of ww2 and rosie the riveter, but in the ACW ammunition was made in factories, often by women. the factory in atlanta had 3,000 employees, of which 27 were men. there was an accident at a munitions plant in richmond, which killed 160+ women workers.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

10
lurker wrote:
eelj wrote:Whats the procedure for rolling them with the minnie ball?
never done it myself. reenacting wouldn't be near as popular if we used live ammo. :)
what i've seen and read is they attach the bullet to a .58 caliber dowel with a bit of gum and roll the tube on that. tie the bullet in with thread, pour in the powder from the bottom, then tie off that end with thread. practically all ammunition was made in factories, though soldiers would occasionally roll their own. sometimes the wrong ammo would arrive on the supply wagon and had to be modified, and i've seen an account of pickets having to pull loaded bullets and powder, and re-roll into cartridges after coming in off the line.

when we think of industrialized war and women in the workplace, we usually think of ww2 and rosie the riveter, but in the ACW ammunition was made in factories, often by women. the factory in atlanta had 3,000 employees, of which 27 were men. there was an accident at a munitions plant in richmond, which killed 160+ women workers.
Good bit of history thank you.
"Hillary Clinton is the finest, bravest, kindest, the most wonderful person I've ever known in my whole life" Raymond Shaw

Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

11
early in my reenacting career, i came into possession of an Armi Sport replica 1859 Infantry Model Sharps, with the "Berdan" double set trigger. for reasons of safety, i did not use it on the field until promoted to 2nd sgt about 2 years ago, which put me in the front rank, down at the left end of the line, and even then i don't shoot much. my job is not to shoot, but to keep the shooters shooting.

the sharps has a couple of quirks, some of which i'm still working through. i'll address the mechanical issues in another thread. suffice to say, ignition has been less than reliable. this is unacceptable in a combat weapon, and is especially odd since the soldiers who carried sharps' rifles loved them. it's a common complaint among modern sharps guys, and there are lots of "solutions" mooted about. after resolving a couple of issues with the action, i realized that the big difference was ammunition. the Sharps rifle company produced both rifles and ammo, which meant it was produced to standards of consistency not aspired to by your average muzzle-loader-toter. as a result, i've put a lot of time and thought into making the sharps reliable, and that brings us to cartridges.

since it's a paper-cartridge breech-loader, and especially since we're loading blanks, we have a couple of issues. the sharps is sometimes called a "paper-cutter" because there's a blade on the breech face which should cut off the back end of the paper cartridge, exposing the powder to the flash-hole. if the cartridge lacks the necessary firmness or does not seat properly in the chamber, it will either crush (instead of cut) the paper tube, or there will be insufficient powder to present charge to the flash-hole. both of these will result in misfire. therefore it is critical that cartridges seat correctly in the chamber, and be firm enough to present powder to the spark, all while being long enough to offer the cartridge base correctly to the blade.

my solution has been to simulate the bullet in the cartridge with a material which is both light and flammable. sawdust, tobacco, probably even grass clippings would work. since i have a sawdust factory, that's what i use. i have reason to believe the sawdust is completely consumed by the time it reaches the muzzle. i build my tube, load my powder, top up with sawdust, close up the tube, and off we go. last time i had the sharps out it was flawless, 15/15.

i need to take a break. i'll be back to finish in a little while.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

13
Inquisitor wrote:Do a video :)

Our YouTube channel needs stuff :)
no video camera so far as i know. i'm taking these pictures on a pentax k-20d i just bought used from these folks - http://www.keh.com/ , but haven't worked through the manual yet. it's got a lot of knobs and buttons, a far cry from the k-1000 35mm it replaces!
Last edited by lurker on Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:19 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

14
ok, a little more on the intricacies of the armi-sport sharps, and then on to finishing the cartridges.
the sharps paper cartridge breech loading rife had two mechanisms to seal the breech. the first (lawrence, iirc) was a sliding sleeve in the chamber, which is pushed back against the breech face by the expanding charge. Mr. Sharps found this not entirely satisfactory, so mr. Conant (again, iirc) devised a floating breech face which was integral with the blade. expanding gases would go behind the breech face and push it forward, against the sleeve. . Armi Sport, in its' infinite wisdom, implemented the sleeve, and disabled the breech face. :wtf:. fortunately, the breeech face can be made to float freely with a little light filing.
now, the sliding sleeve (which presents another problem i may discuss at a later time) is larger than the actual bore of the barrel, so that a bullet or bullet substitute can feed easily into the chamber and seat against the rear of the barrel, if everything is made just right. the sharps rifle was originally made in .52 caliber, but every repro i've seen or heard of comes in .54. why? i don't know, but it is possible to find conical bullets for it.
so, after extensive experiments, i found that a proper rolling stick can be made by sanding a 5/8ths inch dowel to just slide freely into the muzzle. any bigger and the paper tube will not readily feed into the chamber. any smaller and the cartridge will go in too far, and not present the rear of the cartridge properly to the cutting blade. you will also need a small funnel, a loading block, and a supply of sawdust.
Last edited by lurker on Wed Apr 09, 2014 12:00 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

15
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having rolled a tube on the larger rolling stick discussed above as in the initial 5 posts and adding 60 grains of fff powder, set the tube open end up in a loading block. using the funnel, add loose sawdust to just below the top.
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use a stick to firmly tamp down the sawdust to the required height, approx 2" overall. the 1/2" dowel you use to roll muzzleloader cartridges works nicely. i'm working on inventing a sawdust measure (i like making tools) but no success so far.
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top up and tamp as needed. this may take a couple of tries to get right.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

16
now we must close and shape the "bullet". i try to reproduce the shape of an actual bullet, as a rounded nose is easier to load into the chamber, and seats well in the barrel.
hold the bottom of the tube in one hand, and crimp the open top with two fingers and thumb.
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again using two fingers and thumb, twist the top shut, shaping the end into a proper ogive, and again twisting such that it tightens the rolled paper rather than unwinding it. be sure to smooth out any pointy folds.
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using scissors or nail clippers, nip off the excess paper from the tip. leave about 1/4 inch. this is what they should look like. notice that a certain amount of variability creeps in. this is ok, as you're going to push it in the chamber until the rear of the cartridge sticks out about 1/8th to 1/4 inch, so the blade can tut off the end and expose the powder. i'm thinking of dipping the twisted ends in nail polish or glue to secure them, but so far haven't had a problem with them coming undone.
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as you can imagine, it takes much longer to roll sharps cartridges. if i figure out a quicker way, i'll let you all know. it's still very much a learning process.
so that's it, thanks for reading through all of that! :)
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

19
Carbonizer wrote:There's an extensive thread on paper cartridges for percussion revolvers running over in the handgun area of the Muzzleloading Forum, very informative and a cut above the usual tea bags and nitrated rolling papers stuff. http://www.muzzleloadingforum.com/fusio ... id/286709/.
"Your permission set does not allow you to be here." :(
i've tried cigarette paper cartridges, but even so, loading cap and ball revolvers is so tedious, i've never seen any benefit.
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Re: rolling your own (black powder blank cartridges.

20
Loading a percussion revolver with a properly made combustible cartridge like the old Johnston & Dow is far from tedious, it's probably not much worse than loading a Colt SAA if you factor in ejecting the empties. The difficulty lies in how modern shooters attempt to fabricate combustible envelope cartridges from materials that are poor substitutes for what was used originally. Making cartridges 150 years ago was a complex industrial process, so it's not surprising that modern shooters aren't usually very successful at replicating the process in their kitchens.

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