Anyone rolling their own?

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Oohrah!

Oohrah!

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Watched a couple youtube videos, then tried rolling my own paper cartridges using cigarette rolling papers and a bell point pen case as a guide.

The results at the range were less than satisfactory, and the rolls turned out to be too fat, and I had difficulty getting them into the cylinders. On the plus side, every one of them worked perfectly.

I think next time I may try a conical roller and see if that improves the situation. Any suggestions?
 
Oohrah! said:
Watched a couple youtube videos, then tried rolling my own paper cartridges using cigarette rolling papers and a bell point pen case as a guide.

The results at the range were less than satisfactory, and the rolls turned out to be too fat, and I had difficulty getting them into the cylinders. On the plus side, every one of them worked perfectly.

I think next time I may try a conical roller and see if that improves the situation. Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
The originals were conical.
 
I used a dowel only slightly smaller than the chamber and used various conicals using cigarette papers. These worked great but did often leave small shards of paper in the chambers. Eventually I left them to see if they caused issues, which didn't but then I only tried three cylinders worth.

Later I tried nitrating the papers but it was a bit messy and tedious and I lost interest.

I've also made just powder bags which also work well.
 
I used to make quite a few of them, but not with cigarette papers. I would get a jar of potassium nitrate from our local drugstore and make a saturated solution that I soaked the paper in. I don't recall what paper I was using but I was buing it from a stationary store and it was very thin.

I used a tapered wood dowel for my form and they all seemed to work very well. The original foil/paper cartridges that I have seen from the factory for revolvers all seemed to carry pretty light charges of powder.
 
When I used paper cartridges I always had some tweezers handy. Eventually I just took the paper cartridges and broke them open to dump the powder into the chambers and ram the rest of the cartridges home. That blew out the paper consistently. I now just use a cylinder flask where I charge 6, wad 6, ram balls into 6, cap 6 and move on. I can do that a whole lot faster than prepping cartridges. I'll say, if you are sitting round watching westerns & CW movies anyway then that's a good time to watch TV and make up paper cartridges.
 
For paper cartridges in pistol I only use small pieces remaining when I do my Sharps cartridge that is fine in a pistol but better with ogival bullets than round: better pressure and in this way this a better burning of the paper...

My paper is wrap paper nitrated in a very hot bath till the paper become translucent and fall in the bottom of the pan, after this the drying is made on a plastic plan because the nitrate must stay in the paper...

After me too I'm rolling my cartridges front the TV sometime on my desk and you know what, my wife is very happy like "Dear did you hear what I say ?"
- Yep, I hear .
- What did I say?
- Hush I'm rolling my cartridges. :mad:

What a beautiful life that the life of a paper cartidges maker...

Have a nice and good day, folks. :)

Sorry for my bad english.
 
Too bad there isn't a thumbs up Erwan.

I used the little grates from my offset smoker as its a bit too shallow to cook with when using logs. Is a flat surface better for some reason?
 
Hi, Rodwha,

Yes here is an reason, only one: on a plastic plan the water can't fall and drag the nitrate (saltpeter or KNO³) in the same time, on a plastic the water is evaporated and the nitrate stays in the paper when it dry...
On a rack the water is falling and the oxidizer goes with it and the paper is poorly saturated, so your paper doesn't burns in a pretty good way: not enough oxidizer = not enough oxygen for a combustion. You know that the KNO³ is the oxidizer of the black powder and in this case it is also the same for your paper.

I hope that you can understand what I mean about this, it become sometimes difficult to explain in other language than mine. :(
 
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Hello Erwan.

Indeed I do understand. I also understand the difficulty translating. Many other languages have multiple words to better convey the meaning which can be lost or muddled in English.

I didn't have any issues using just cigarette paper and likely wouldn't bother nitrating them. But then again curiousity often gets me, and since I bought all that's needed I may well try it again.
 
Nice looking. What kind of paper is that?

I'm assuming those are some form of rifle cartridge, right?
 
Hi, rodwha,

I do the pistol cartridges with the paper for my Sharps cartridges, with the little pieces of paper too small for the Sharps rifle, the paper is the same.
The cartridge you see is for a 1859 cal.54 Sharps rifle by Pedersoli.

Well. I try again:

- Cut the wrap paper.
- Boiling water with Salpeter (KNO³ 150g for a liter).
- Put in the pan the wrapping paper and wait that it saturated enough to be translucent and at bottom of the pan. If the paper is floating on the water you have to wait more.
- Remove paper from the water (water hot at ~120°F or 60°C).
- Put the paper to dry on the plastic plan.
- Wait for that is very dry.
- Do what you have to do with the treated pieces of paper.
- To make it better paint the cartridges with a bit of collodion, that will améliorate burning and make moisture sealed cartridges.

- http://www.cjoint.com/doc/16_07/FGuq32lJWby_Nécessaire-cartouches.png
- http://www.cjoint.com/doc/16_07/FGuoqSTkcby_PistolCartridgesRodwha.png
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_nitrate
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collodion

I hope you understand this time because I can't do better . Sorry.

:banghead:​
 
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