I am considering the purchase of a percussion Sharps rifle
Before I do I would like to learn the process of nitrating paper.   As I understand it nitrated paper will be consumed with the shot so there will be nothing left in the chamber or barrel that could cause problems for consecutive shots.   Does anyone here have a procedure for nitrating paper ?

I believe I saw a couple 63 Shiloh’s on the Lock, Stock and Barrel gunbroker auction.

"eras gone" Mark Hubbs has a YouTube deal on it.he used stump remover to nitrate his paper.

Back when I was lost down the rabbit hole of cap&ball revolver shooting I made my tapered paper cartridges out of Japanese rice paper. Reason: I felt that the porous nature of it aided ignition. Whether I was right or not I don't know but they went off with alacrity and the paper was consumed entirely. I don't recall encountering smoldering embers and I generally reloaded as soon as the guns were empty.

My protocol was to soak the paper in a hot supersaturated solution of saltpetre in water. I had a clothesline strung across my basement upon which to dry my "paper laundry".

Early on I used newspaper and subway sandwich wrappers for my paper cartridges.    They get pretty well consumed and blown out the muzzle.   However, I much prefer nitrated paper because the cartridges are a lot more riiged than the previously mentioned papers.   There are some brands of stump remover that are almost pure potassium nitrate and I make a saturated solution with that.   I don't bother with boiling the solution, just soak the papers in a flat plactic container with about an inch or so of solution in it.  I made 2 quarts of solution 5 or 6 years ago and am still using it.   I soak the paper then hang it up to dry.

I make my cartridges to chamber length with bullet and plug the base with a disc of  cigerette paper.   I use these in both my Shiloh infantry rifle and an original carbine.

I've always used the Lyman 54 caliber hollow base bullet.  Started using that because I had the mould.  It worked so well that I never bothered with getting a specific mould for the paper cartridges.   One real advantage of the minie is that the grease grooves are covered with paper so the lube isn't exposed to pick up grime.

George

never shot any, or heard of others doing so, but in the old days some cartridge makers used foil for the envelopes. I once owned two packets of these, but never broke the string to inspect the interior items. They were for .44 revolvers. Makes me doubt the need for nitrated envelopes.

gnoahhh wrote on Dec 30^th, 2023 at 12:08pm:

Yes Sir they do and I would like to hear them