Paper Cartridges, Gettysburg PA

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Paper Cartridges, Gettysburg PA Recreating history in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. No sales! No powder, no primers. Just history, demonstration, and discussion of Civil War-era paper cartridges.

Look how they massacred my boy! In fairness, usually the extra tall front sights put onto ri**es used in N-SSA skirmishi...
10/24/2026

Look how they massacred my boy!

In fairness, usually the extra tall front sights put onto ri**es used in N-SSA skirmishing are only lightly brazed on and can be removed without any permanent damage or alteration to original ri**es.

The tall front sights are necessary because most N-SSA r***e matches are shot at 50 yards, and back when these r***e-muskets were being designed and built, nobody in their right minds ever imagined having to have the sights zeroed for such a short distance as 50 yards. The U.S. r***e systems were zeroed to a minimum of 100 yards, the P/53 (with standard half-sight picture) was set up for 150 yards, and the Austrian M1854 Lorenz was zeroed to a base setting of 270 yards with a full sight picture.

This means to hit something at 50 yards, which is well below the minimum trajectory on the standard ri**es, either the back rear sight needs to be lowered (an impossibility because the barrel is in the way) or the front sight needs to be made taller. This forces the muzzle down.

Because the Lorenz battle sight zero was for 270 yards, to get it to hit a 50 yard target, the front sight post needs to be almost absurdly tall, which is what we see here.

I understand the reason and logic for these tall sight alterations, but they’re not my cup of tea. Changing the front sight makes it zeroed to 50 yards, but makes it extremely, extremely difficult to accurately shoot at any other ranges. Because I primarily shoot at longer ranges (200 yards and further) I need the original sights, calibrated based on the historic military trajectory.

But different posts for different folks!

Historically, in Frankford and Washington arsenals where the U.S. Army manufactured Maynard tape primers, the priming po...
10/23/2026

Historically, in Frankford and Washington arsenals where the U.S. Army manufactured Maynard tape primers, the priming powder was inserted into the blisters of the tape in one operation by a machine. The machine simultaneously dispensed the correct amount of primer powder and then pressed it firmly under a considerable amount of pressure, forming a hard-pressed pellet.

Since I lack one of these useful machines, I have to fill the blisters individually by hand. After two years of practice I can do this surprisingly fast. Once filled the powder is (delicately) pressed before the paper covering is glued on with a wonderfully Victorian concoction of isinglass (made from sturgeon fish bladders), turpentine, and gum shellac.

I appreciate all the leads on how I can resupply on alder buckthorn! Many people commented about “better” charcoal sourc...
10/22/2026

I appreciate all the leads on how I can resupply on alder buckthorn!

Many people commented about “better” charcoal sources such as osage, willow, etc. I am sure there are better sources, but I am not making powder to get the best performing powder; I make it to match the historic powder made specifically for the P/53 Enfield.

This liberates me from the pursuit of the “best” and keeps me focused on historic replication for experimental archaeology. My baseline goal is to obtain a muzzle velocity of 1265 feet per second with the .550 Boxer-Pritchett and plug (weight 530 grains) with a charge of 68.4 grains (2.5 drams) of powder.

If I get that velocity, it means the bullet and r***e will perform exactly the way it was designed and the projectile will follow the trajectory that the sights were calibrated to.

Now for *reenactor powder* I am eager to experiment with cornstalks and toilet paper because for reenactor blanks we really only need the powder to do two things: make smoke and a bang. Back when I could get Goex or Schuetzen, making thousands of blanks for reenactors was no problem. Now that we are in the Great Powder Famine of 2026, I’ve had to restart my powder mill again. I can make enough powder for several hundred reenactor blanks a week, which helps pay the rent. But for a reenactor blank, ideally we would want the fastest burning powder, to expel the column of air out of the barrel quickly, as this is what creates the noise with a blank. Bang bang!

Wanted: alder buckthorn wood! I use it to make charcoal for my powder, which is a recreation of the “Rifle Fine Grain” p...
10/21/2026

Wanted: alder buckthorn wood!

I use it to make charcoal for my powder, which is a recreation of the “Rifle Fine Grain” powder used in the P/53 Enfield.

Alder buckthorn makes exceptional powder. Unfortunately, since it is an invasive species in the northeast U.S., my sources have been extirpated by do-gooding nature-loving conservationists who fail to appreciate the qualities of a high performing powder with minimal fouling and maximum velocities.

If I don’t get more buckthrorn then the orphans in the powder mill will be out of work and they’ll have to be kicked back out into the streets.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangula_alnus

Here's your obscure musketry nerdery for the day, from an 1854 report written my Major Hagner, Commandant of Frankford A...
10/17/2026

Here's your obscure musketry nerdery for the day, from an 1854 report written my Major Hagner, Commandant of Frankford Arsenal, as he was testing the Maynard tape priming system.

Using the Re*****on conversion breech and lock for the M1816 musket (which used the Maynard tape priming system), Major Hagner found that the mainspring in the Re*****on lock had a "weight" or strength of 74 pounds. This was how much weight was required to compress the mainspring.

This was a very heavy, very strong mainspring and could damage the cone and hammer from the repeated strong shock. So Major Hagner tested lighter, weaker mainsprings, and found that they failed to fire the Maynard primers.

The Army required non-corrosive primers, made with fulminate of mercury. While the mercury fulminate was more powerful than the corrosive primers made with potassium chlorate, the mercury fulminate was harder to ignite and required a stronger hammer strike.

These tests prompted deliberation over what to do: should they add corrosive potassium chlorate to the primers to make them more sensitive and allow the reduction of the mainspring strength, or keep the non-corrosive mixture and require 70+ pound mainsprings that would probably continue to damage cones and hammers?

Ultimately the decision was made to keep the non-corrosive fulminate and retain 70 to 75lb mainsprings in the system of Model 1855 ri**es. This goes to show how convinced the Ordnance Department was that the corrosive effects of potassium chlorate would be even worse than the damage to hammers and cones from using extremely strong mainsprings.

Also, a small curious detail, the Maynard primer strips used in these tests were colored green!

This is what my shop looks like at the moment… it’s been such a whirlwind this month and everything is literally piling ...
10/16/2026

This is what my shop looks like at the moment… it’s been such a whirlwind this month and everything is literally piling up.

Buck and ball, Williams cleaners, some Minies here and there, a few Maynard primer tapes, fine premium ci**rs, a proper Islay scotch, church committee notes and a 425 year old 1599 Geneva bible, all on the same table.

This is my world. The ADHD can be a blessing and a curse. I can hyperfocus on things for hours and hours and be extremely productive, but I can also get distracted and have twelve different projects simultaneously in progress.

We put the bore scope down the infamous rusted Whitworth to see the full scale of the corrosion. At the muzzle, it’s bri...
10/14/2026

We put the bore scope down the infamous rusted Whitworth to see the full scale of the corrosion.

At the muzzle, it’s bright orange mostly surface rust.

As we go down, it turns into globules of heavy corrosion, which (and it pains me to say it) is actually worse than what it seems to show on the camera.

This is not my r***e, I do not know who owns it, it was sent for cleaning and restoration to my friend Joe (whose Civil War Ordnance Department defarb and restoration business shares the same building as Paper Cartridges shop on Baltimore St in Gettysburg). But what Joe was told … taking a huge grain of salt here … it was fired at a reenactment a week ago, and this corrosion allegedly happened within the last week.

While it may well have been fired with blanks at a reenactment a week ago, this corrosion could not have happened in just a week, especially the very advanced dark pitting in the chamber area. This r***e has not been cleaned in a very long time.

Is it able to be saved, as a shooter? I don’t think so. This was at one time a precision instrument, a replica of the first truly 1 MOA r***e. It is not that anymore. Maybe it will clean up to where it might shoot, and stabilize a bullet, but it’s not a precision r***e anymore. No amount of Evaporust can put metal back where it’s been eaten away.

The moral of the story: CLEAN YOUR GUNS!

Another tough lesson about the corrosive effects of plain ordinary black powder. This poor reproduction Whitworth came i...
10/14/2026

Another tough lesson about the corrosive effects of plain ordinary black powder. This poor reproduction Whitworth came in to Civil War Ordnance Department for restoration and cleaning. It had been used for reenacting, fired with blanks, then left to sit without cleaning for at least a few months.

The barrel is absolutely toast. There is intense, aggressive rust all the way down.

Black powder is corrosive because when it burns, potassium sulfide and sulfate are reside combustion products. Potassium compounds like these (and other combustion products of BP) draw moisture out of the air, and hold that moisture right up against the metal, accelerating corrosion.

The only silver lining is that this was a late production Italian made repro, and not an original or a Parker Hale.

Still a sad demise for what was once an expensive r***e.

(Edited to correct my bad chemistry… I’m a history major, so forgive me!)

10/12/2026

I love Swiss powder but I can’t bring myself to pay almost $60 a pound for it. So I’ve fired up the old powder mill again. Fortunately I have a lot of alder buckthorn charcoal I made years ago, that can rather quickly be turned into excellent powder.

I have too much fun making these displays.
10/10/2026

I have too much fun making these displays.

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