Hawg, couple of questions about your "paper cutter" Sharps.
(For any newbies out there who might not know, a "paper cutter" Sharps means the lever behind the trigger gets levered down and the breech block (which has a sharp edge) drops down to allow you to load a paper cartridge into the chamber from the rear, and then when you raise the lever it raises the breech block back up and the sharp edge of the breech block cuts off the rear of the paper to expose the powder to the percussion cap's flash channel. Kind of like a guillotine blade. That's a "paper cutter").
My questions are:
1. In a regular single shot rifle, we are taught to make sure our powder and ball are tightly all the way down the barrel so there is no air space. But since your Sharps is loaded from the breech (rear), and the paper cartridge will not be as tightly against the breech block (as it would be as pressed down by the ramrod in a regular single shot), it would seem to me that some small air space would be present behind the cut off paper/powder. Also what if you used nitrated paper cartridges and shoved them in so that they didn't stick out for the breech block to cut, (but the flash channel would still set off the nitrated paper), but you shoved the paper cartridge in so far that there was an air space between the paper cartridge's rear and the breech block. Could any of the above mentioned air spaces create any possible overpressure or problems of any kind in that area?
2. I know it is more cumbersome, but you can also load it without a paper cartridge and just point the barrel downward and load using a ball first with powder behind it from the breech, then raise your lever and breech block, cap the nipple and fire. So my question is similar to my first question only difference being you'd be loading with loose powder and ball. When you raised the breech block, wouldn't there be a small air space behind the powder since you didn't ram the powder down tightly against the breech with a ball like you would do when you rammed the ball against the powder in a regular single shot? So same air space question here.
Never owned a "paper cutter" and always wondered about those questions.
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