corn meal and paper cartridges?

[Megabutter]

As my research into the ins and outs of cap and ball revolvers continues I read about people using corn meal to help fill up the cylinders.

Anyone doing this?  And are you mixing the powder together w/ the meal or pouring the meal over the powder?

And anyone doing something like this:



cigarette paper paper cartridges?  And would you want to lube the cigarette papers to act as the wads that help multiple rounds going off?

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

This is a great thread;

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=144094&highlight=making+paper+cartridges

[Pettifogger]

You definitely do not mix the two together.  Put in the powder and any filler on top.  The filler's purpose is to take up space for reduced charges and thereby reduce recoil.  Filler is absolutely unnecessary in a .36 as you can't get enough powder under that 80 grain ball to produce any significant amount of recoil.  On most .44s the rammer will push the ball down far enough that you don't need any filler in them either.  Almost everyone that starts shooting C&B's tries a few paper cartridges.  After a while everyone pretty much gives up on them as they are labor and time intensive and save little, if any, time while reloading at a match.

[Megabutter]

Great info!  Thanks so much guys. I appreciate how friendly and helpful people have been on this forum. I'm sure it gets old schilling all the noobs.