Sorry, I don't get the reload black powder thing. I've reloaded for over 40 yrs, shot muzzleloaders for over 20 yrs and shot cap 'n ball maybe 10 years. Black powder means meticulous cleaning if you don't want rust/corrosion. The biggest drawback to the cap 'n ball revolver in my mind is the cleaning required very soon after shooting...like same day. Admittedly your 1873 won't get as filthy as a cap 'n ball 1858, but you'll have to clean the gun and then clean out those cartridge cases if you intend to use them again. So there's a fair amount of work needed when you may be too tired to do it.
If you don't get the "black powder thing" that is fine. To each his own.
But some of us like the experience of shooting old firearms the way they were actually shot over 100 years ago. In addition, I have several antique S&W Top Break revolvers that I would not dream of shooting with modern Smokeless powder.
As I said earlier, Black Powder is not as corrosive as most shooters think.
I absolutely do not clean my revolvers, rifles and shotgun the same day I shoot them with ammo loaded with Black Powder. There are some tricks to make that possible. I have been loading Black Powder in 45 Colt, 45 Schofield, 44-40, 44 Russian, 38-40 and 45-70 for twenty years, and I almost never clean my guns the same day I shot them. Shooting BP guns in CAS means cleaning two revolvers, a rifle and a shotgun, and I am just too tired after a day of shooting to clean them all the same day. Cleaning them a week later is fine, and as I said earlier I have often gone much longer than a week.
Contrary to what most people think, if BP fouling is coated with oil, it can no longer absorb moisture from the air. The fouling is like a sponge that is saturated with water, it cannot absorb any more water. Absorbing moisture from the air is the main reason BP fouling causes corrosion. If the fouling is soaked in oil, it will not absorb any moisture from the air and corrosion can be avoided.
I also do not take them apart to completely clean them as many shooters do, that's a good way to bugger up screw heads and accidentally cross thread tapped holes. There are a couple of tricks to avoid that. Any firearm that I intend to shoot mostly with Black Powder, I completely disassemble it, then I coat all the parts, including the inside of the frame, with a Black Powder compatible oil such as Ballistol before shooting. The oil will keep any fouling that gets inside the action from causing any corrosion. I take them completely apart maybe once a year to clean out all the goo that accumulates inside. There is always plenty of oily, black goo, there is never any corrosion.
Normal cleaning consists of wiping the bore and chambers with my favorite water based BP solvent and wiping the outside of the firearm too. Then a light coating of Ballistol to prevent any corrosion from happening. I have lots of antiques with pitted old bores. It is impossible to clean all the BP fouling out of all the pits. Coating the bore with Ballistol prevents any fouling left in the bottom of the pits from causing corrosion.
Here is a photo of one of my Colts, completely disassembled for its yearly cleaning. Notice there is lots of black, oily goo. Once all of that was cleaned away, there was no corrosion. I have been doing this for close to 20 years now, and it really works.
As far as cleaning the brass, simple as pie. At the end of a match all my brass gets dumped into a jug of water that has a squirt of dish soap in it. Some guys will add some vinegar, but you have to be careful or the acid in the vinegar will attack the brass. I never add vinegar. You will often hear guys talk about 'neutralizing' the fouling in the brass. That is incorrect. The name of the game is diluting the fouling by rinsing the brass a lot. When I get home I dump the brass out of the jug into a kitchen strainer in the kitchen sink. Then I fill the jug with fresh water and dump the brass back in. Shake it good, dump out the water, and repeat. After about 3 or 4 rinses the water in the jug is clear and the great majority of the fouling has been washed away. I allow the brass to dry over night, then dump it into my tumbler and run it for an hour or so, no different than brass that has been fired with Smokeless.
Here is my jug of dirty brass at the end of a match. Notice the brass still has some fouling on it and the water is cloudy with suspended BP fouling. Sitting on the floor of my car on the drive home keeps it stirred up.
Here is a batch of freshly loaded 44-40. Yes, the brass is stained. It never gets shiny again. I don't care. The brass is not dirty, it is clean, it is just stained. If I wanted shiny brass I would do some extra cleaning, but stained brass shoots just as well as shiny brass, trust me. The only advantage to shiny brass is it is easier to find in the grass.
I load all my BP brass on a Hornady Lock & Load AP progressive press. Here is a batch of 44-40 being loaded. Yup, the brass is stained, I don't care.
There are 7000 grains in a pound. A pound of Bullseye will load a lot more cartridges at 3 gr per load than a pound of black powder at 30 gr per load.
You are absolutely correct there. 7000 grains of BP in a pound means I can only get about 200 35 grain loads out of a pound of Black Powder. I have not priced Smokeless in a long time, but I used to put about 7.5 grains of Unique into 45 Colt. Yup, much more expensive to put 35 grains of FFg into a cartridge than 7.5 grains of Unique. Cannot argue with that.
Loading and shooting BP is an act of love. A bunch of years ago there were some new rules added to the SASS handbook regarding shooting Black Powder.
"Blackpowder category contestants are expected to understand they will contend with smoke obscured targets."
I wrote that. The idea was like JFK said so many years ago. "We do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."