Help with First Muzzle Loader?

The Enfield has a cleaning jag on the ramrod but I don't use patches to clean with. I use a 20 gauge bore mop and hot soapy water. You can put water in a five gallon bucket and put a piece of aquarium tubing on the nipple and the other end in the bucket and the mop will pull water up through the bore. My lube is about 60/40 beeswax and Crisco or olive oil. I have used wax from canola oil candles. I usually dip lube mine. These are Sharp's ringtails but you get the idea. :D

 
Interesting lube job. I've been considering what else I could try to lube my cap n ball bullets as I don't care to have lube on the base or rebate so as not to potentially contaminate my powder charge.

I've been pouring my Gatofeo lube into a soap mold and cutting it into 6 chunks to color in the grooves. It becomes a bit too tedious if there's over 100 bullets to do.

I might have to give that a try!
 
On the Sharps I simply glue (Elmer's) the paper cartridge onto the first driving band of the bare
ringtail bullet, and dip whole bullet portion into hot lube/dry/harden. (3:1 Crisco/Beeswax)
 
If it's too hot it wont fill the grooves. When the temp is right it will harden almost as soon as you take it out. Or if you can find or make something that will just slip over the bullet you can pan lube them and cut them out when it's cool. Sometimes you can just break a chunk off with bullets in it and push the bullets through but I end up with a lot that the lube doesn't stay on doing it that way.
 
On the Sharps I simply glue (Elmer's) the paper cartridge onto the first driving band of the bare
ringtail bullet, and dip whole bullet portion into hot lube/dry/harden. (3:1 Crisco/Beeswax)
Click to expand...

I have done that too but making paper cartridges is too tedious to me so I just use loose powder now.
 
I make them for my revolver; managed to source actual nitrated paper and nitrocellulose glue for making proper ones which combust entirely. Keep them in wooden boxes which store six a piece and reproduce the look of paper catridge boxes in which they were sold back in the day.

Once you get the hang of it, and have the proper materials, making them is easy enough, really, and it really cuts down on the reload time a whole lot!
 
You don't need nitrated paper to get a clean burn. Yes it cuts down on reload time and if you shoot at a range I can see where you would want that but I shoot in the back yard or the front yard, just wherever I want to and I'm in no hurry.
 
Just use onion skin wrapped on a waxed dowel (or a polished brass rod).
A 1" square of cigarette paper then gets molded around the dowel end
and pushed through to the bottom of the tube to square it off. (The musket
cap punches through that end paper like it wasn't even there.)

Fill w/ powder/cornmeal as req'd and use Elmer's to Glue the bullet driving
band inside the open end. Dip bullet in lube and let dry/harden

Very fast to make as a compact/rugged cartridge that loads whole/no loose
powder, and is completely consumed
 
I just used tea bags for the whole thing. Tougher than onion skin or cig paper and porous enough for a #10 cap to blow through and burns clean.
 
I think I remember teabagging [NII;)] from awhile back.
Where's the supplier for these things....?
(since real men don't drink tea) :p
 
Dollar store tea.
Dump the tea and just use the bag.
And you won't have to drink the tea out of a dainty cup with pinkey finger extended.
 
Where's the dadgum thumbs up button?!?!

Southerners love their sweet tea, and I suppose I do too, and actually have had tea and crumpets with a British woman long ago and found tea time ok. Yep, hot tea with sugar and a lump or three... However my pinky was never extended!
 
Hawg, sadly, I can only shoot at the range or during hunting in my country.

Anyway, while it's not really necessary, making paper catridges for me is a fun part of the hobby. I guess I could use empty tea bags (seems like a good idea, actually, they're thin enough yet sturdy enough). Cigarette paper, on the other hand, doesn't work so well with revolver #10 Sellier&Bellot caps which I use. I would imagine it would work with hotter caps like musket caps or the hotter "plus" caps.

However, given nitrated paper is like 6$ for 100 pre-cut ones for making .44 catridges, or 6 cents per shot, I am just not fussing about the price, and it is the authentic material revolver catridges were made from back in the day.
 
Poor man's tea or Sparkling Spartan Cider aka: hot water. As for drinking tea with the extended pinky, our most senior gunsmithing instructor told us that was done because the cups were very fragile. Dunno how he knew that but being of pleasant peasant descent, I always used a sturdy mug.

Cigarette paper is easy and if you use a dowel as suggested, they can be rolled into tubes for powder charges (not cartridges). Twist both ends and voila! Cartuchos.
 
I was using flo thru bags, 24 bags per box and IIRC I was getting 4 .44 cartridges at 35 grains of powder per bag and probably could have gotten more if I had measured more carefully. So a minimum of 96 cartridges for around a buck but I never finished a whole box before I got tired of the whole thing.
 
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