nitrated paper for cartridges?

Status
Not open for further replies.

Brutuskend

Member
Joined
Sep 7, 2020
Messages
371
Location
Oregon
Anyone done thier own?
I just got some nitrate and sulfer to make my own powder and paper for cartridges. Anyone with experiance with making thier own cartridge paper? I hear coffee filter paper works well. As far as using the nitrate, any tips are welcome!
 
I make mine from ordinary copy paper and stump remover. Mix the stump remover with warm water until it doesn't easily dissolve and pour it into a baking pan larger than the pieces of paper you want to treat. Dip the paper into the solution for just a few seconds and then hold it up and allow the excess to drip into the pan. Hang the pieces up to dry. When dry cut into whatever sizes you need. I used some half inch copper tubing as a mandrel and wrapped electrical tape around it to create the diameter needed for my Podewils-Linder cartridges. A dab of craft glue (donated by my wife when she wasn't looking) on the seam to hold it together, then fold the bottom in to close it and add another dab of glue. I squared it by pressing a half inch dowel against the bottom of the tube standing upright on a scrap piece of plywood. Hint: don't do this on your fine dining room table. I measured the volume of black powder needed for the load and set my powder measure to dispense what I needed and cranked out about 50 of them in no time. I lubed the cast bullets with mink oil and pushed the bullet down into the paper and smeared a little mink oil around the end of the paper to hold the whole thing together. I line a sucrets tin with a piece of paper towel and store 5 cartridges in it until I am ready to shoot. It sometimes leaves a small bit of paper from the closed end of the cartridge in the chamber but it drops right out when you roll the gun over.
 
If a person were to nitrate their own paper, very hot water will dissolve much more KNO3 than cold water.
So it could be an advantage to dip the paper while the water is still hot.
Rifle shooters generally use thicker paper for their nitrated cartridges that can benefit from any extra KNO3 absorption.

At room temperature (20C) it takes about 3 grams of water to dissolve one gram of KNO3.

At the boiling point (100C), water will dissolve more than twice its own weight of KNO3.

https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/nitrating-my-own-paper.727882/#post-9102472
 
Last edited:
Utterly unnecessary. Cigarette paper works just fine.

If you are retired and need to find ways to fill your day, hit the honey-do list and reap the rewards from the Missus. If no Missus, go for it; knock yourself out with the chemistry set.
 
Utterly unnecessary. Cigarette paper works just fine.

If you are retired and need to find ways to fill your day, hit the honey-do list and reap the rewards from the Missus. If no Missus, go for it; knock yourself out with the chemistry set.
Exactly what I experienced, without any help from the lady, who doesn't use hair-curling papers. Ciggy paper is among the thinnest on the planet.
 
I thought about using flash paper. I figured cigy paper would rip too easly. I suppose I could try to find onion paper someplace. As a last resort, I guess I could find a old partially wrecked bible...

Back in the day, they used to collect urine from priests in England to make gun powder. They figured holy pee just HAD to work better. So maybe I could get more umph out of onion paper from a bible. ;)
 
Last edited:
I tried the cigarette papers, and while they do work they are so thin I found them hard to work with. I used the same video Mike56 referenced, and made mine. The coffee filter paper is much easier for me to work with. I'm putting together samples with both papers.
 
the RAW rolling papers, Curling papers, and nitrated coffee filters all work great. I like the nitrated coffee filters and I can't tell why because they don't work any better than the others.
 
I settled on curling papers, nitrated with stump remover in hot water. It's easy and cheap do, and one session produces hundreds of them.

I also have used flash paper. It certainly does burn completely, but is expensive and quite difficult to fashion into cartridges. It tears easily and doesn't stick to itself very well, even with specialty glue sold for the purpose.

full.jpg

On the left is cartridge of plain curling paper, resting on a homemade box. Center is a nitrated cartridge, dip lubed and ready to go, sitting on a capandball.com box. Right side is roundball cartridge made with flash paper, shown on a Track of the Wolf (iirc) box.

I use bullets cast of pure lead from an ErasGone mold, and a cartridge former from capandball.com. Lube for dipping is beeswax with a bit of paraffin.
 
Last edited:
@TheOutlawKid linked to a very interesting thread in his post above. In addition to his excellent tutorial on making straight wall paper cartridges, there was a treasure trove of period paper cartridge packs posted by the Hungarian gentleman that hosts the most excellent Cap -n- Ball channel on YouTube.

Among the labels were a number for Colt Revolvers, Colt and Whitney Army Revolvers etc., that were marked both
44-100 caliber AND 46-100 caliber.

I have never seen that before, 46-100 caliber. Anyone know what the label designation may be referencing? I am not aware of a 46 or 47 caliber percussion revolver, so find this confusing.
 
I made paper cartridges using American Spirits cigarette papers. At the range I’d notice several shards leftover in a few chambers after each cylinder full. I’d pull them out, but then decided to see if it would interfere. I only got through 3 cylinders as I ran out, but it never caused an issue.

I decided to buy stump killer try nitrating them but it was just such a mess I never completed it, nor made any more cartridges. I won’t be bothering, but I would like to see it once if nothing else.
 
being a Sharps collector and shooter I used to make the paper Sharps ctg. with nitrated paper. soaked the paper in potassium nitrite let it dry and used it.
but. Sharps in 1862 stopped using the nitrated paper, they found it stuck in the chamber, and really did nothing. regular bank note paper was all burnt up after firing and
was easier to use and was stronger. just fyi...Ken
 
I use tea bags, lifetime supply at my house, works great , no need to nitrate.


This is a great suggestion for our British counterparts and I am sure it will please Her majesty the queen so much that she will be most thankful for the economical boost that gun owners have graciously provided despite the obvious obstacles.

What brand of British teabags would work best ?
 
I settled on curling papers, nitrated with stump remover in hot water. It's easy and cheap do, and one session produces hundreds of them.

I also have used flash paper. It certainly does burn completely, but is expensive and quite difficult to fashion into cartridges. It tears easily and doesn't stick to itself very well, even with specialty glue sold for the purpose.

View attachment 951913

On the left is cartridge of plain curling paper, resting on a homemade box. Center is a nitrated cartridge, dip lubed and ready to go, sitting on a capandball.com box. Right side is roundball cartridge made with flash paper, shown on a Track of the Wolf (iirc) box.

I use bullets cast of pure lead from an ErasGone mold, and a cartridge former from capandball.com. Lube for dipping is beeswax with a bit of paraffin.

Once you use curling papers, you'll never go back to anything else. I've been using them for years. Cheap and durable.....and burns all the way. I'll never use anything else.....
 
This is a great suggestion for our British counterparts and I am sure it will please Her majesty the queen so much that she will be most thankful for the economical boost that gun owners have graciously provided despite the obvious obstacles.

What brand of British teabags would work best ?
No true Britisher would make tea with tea bags :)
 
I gave up coffee for tea a couple of years ago.
Not being British, I produce prodigious quantities of used teabags.
They go in the compost pile, but free cartridge papers sound like a good use.
BTW, English Breakfast and Darjeeling are really the only proper choices for tea.
 
Tea bags, rolling papers, coffee filters...all of these make great cartridge material...the trick to having complete burn is to not overlap any material or "crunch" paper in the cylinder. Thats one reason i wont taper my cartridges and only make straight walled. If you get a clear plastic/glass tube (i used a thin test tube and cigar tube) and shove a tapered cartridge in you will see it squish and sandwich powder between folds of paper. A big mash up of powder and paper. This causes uneven burn of powder (and some left unburnt and shot out the barrel with the paper) and the large possibility paper left over in the chamber. Try the straigh walled design with a thin rice paper or similar disk as a cartridge end and the percussion cap will burst right through it and do a complete EVEN burn. You want all the powder to burn simultaneously...and leaving some powder sandwiched between crunched up paper leaves powder to burn a split second later (most likely after the ball/bullet left the barrel) or not burn at all and getting shot out the barrel and this also leaves paper behind in the cylinder. Its easier to burn through one thin even layer of paper than 2 or more layers sandwiched and squished together. Although it does take time i assure you that you will love them. My favorite is to make them with a thin lube disk inside the cartridge and topped off with an over powder card (cereal box cardboard disk). So it goes powder, wax paper disk, thin lube disk of a hard lube, optional wax paper disk, cardboard disk. This makes for a cartidge where i can choose the ball/bullet of choice. The lube disk and the cardboard disk help create a seal in the barrel behind the bullet..this prevents gas cutting and will improve accuracy and loss of powder. Heres a pic of what i mean..
20191009_101246.jpg 20191009_101351.jpg
And heres a pic of the thin lube disk...you dont need a lot of lube for such a small barrel. The thin disk works better because it melts faster and desintegrates in the barrel keeping fouling soft. You also waste less lube. 20191009_100431.jpg
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top