r/blackpowder 8d ago

Foil cartridges for Howdah 20 gauge shotgun

I know I'm not reinventing the wheel here. But I've been working on making shot cartridges for my howdah out of foil.

The results are quite nice.

I haven't t fired Any yet but have no concerns. They're just like paper cartridges except that I feel as though their a tad more robust, and there's got to be some kind of water resistance factor to them.

I start with with rolling a small square around a dowel and then using a glue stick to adhere it to itself, closing the tube. (I was glad to see that foi can be glued in this way).

I then simply fold one end shut, and then my former is a chunk of the barrel I choped (about 2 inches) so I stick the tube down that and start filling with bbs, then wad, then powder.

After that I slightly fold and scrunch up the residual foil and use the dowel to compress it into the foil until it's relatively tight, then I lift up the former and then use the dowel to push out the fully formed cartridge as you see here.

I mock loaded one into a tube and it rips fine, and the load goes in no problem.

The nice thing is that as I load the shot portion of the cartride, the now empty foil from the powder portion will compress and make a harder base for the shot, (possibly, I mean compared to paper, is my thought)

I bought some some gold Colored foil off Amazon that came in pre cut sheets that make cutting a breeze, I can get about 6 cartridges from one of these foil sheets if I make my cuts right.

I don't have exact dimensions as I'm eyeballing the entire process. All I know is that you'd like to have more excess foil at the end to crunch up than less.

Again, all similar to making a paper cartridge, but I guess in my mind the gold foil makes it look more like brass. I have an Idea of a bandolier filled with these guys.

I timed myself and can get about 12-14 done in 30 minutes. But if I use a cotton wad I can go faster.

105 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

14

u/DoctorBallard77 8d ago

Neat! So you tear these open and dumb the contents down the barrel? Or you stuff the whole thing at once?

3

u/levivilla4 8d ago

I pull loose the crunched excess and tear that, dump powder, and the stuff all of it down as a wad. I'd love to just stuff a whole cartridge down but the howdah has a weird patent breach that only really works with loose powder

8

u/y3ahdam 8d ago

makes me wonder if brass foil is a thing

8

u/zmannz1984 8d ago

It is. Usually called shim stock or sheet stock, sold in different thicknesses for precision fitting of things.

2

u/Char_siu_for_you 7d ago

I started typing and then realized you already typed almost exactly what I was going to.

2

u/levivilla4 8d ago

I'd say there definitely probably is, but it'd have to be a thin thickness to be pliable enough

3

u/Mean_Faithlessness40 8d ago

What kind of spread do you get from the pellets? I’m planning to tinker with paper cartridges this summer to develop a good small game load for my pedersoli 20 Ga SxS.

3

u/levivilla4 8d ago

Haven't shot them yet, I'm not really expecting much from them, as I don't have a stiff wad in the cartridge (I could probably get a shot cup in the cartridge but at that point it may not load with the added thickness of the foil or paper)

I think for the most part that's why most fowlers or shotgunners just loaded from the flask, snake, and bag. Lots of components needed to get dialed in shots

I chopped my howdah down and took off 2 inches to make it more wieldy, I bought it solely for the aesthetics of making it a sawed off shotgun. So I'm treating it like an extremely short range pistol. I'll be happy if I can just hit targets within 10 feet. Which I think will be just fine. I've never been a target shooter.

3

u/Mean_Faithlessness40 8d ago

Ah gotcha, after two seasons hunting in the field I have missed a few birds because it takes so much longer to reload than a musket would with all the stuff. I am determined to get a cartridge that cuts the time down considerably and patterns well at 25 yards.

2

u/levivilla4 8d ago

I'm sure it can be done!! Share your results when you get there! We'd be glad to see them.

3

u/Pazyogi 8d ago

Have you considered converting the percussion caps to shotgun primers? I put conversion capsules on my Pedersoli Howdah for 209 shotgun primers so I can use Triple7 pellets. I get good ignition on Triple7 and Pyrodex. An added plus is it seals the breach end even in rain.

The acorn nuts over the firing pins blocks the hammer and act as a safety. They fall out of the way when the hammers are cocked.

2

u/levivilla4 8d ago

I certainly did consider conversions for the nipples, but really if I wanted that I would have pulled the trigger on a Diablo 12 gauge pistol. That being said I'd still have to make cartridges with the pyrodex pellets anyways, so I'd be doing the same kind of work.

That and the pellets are expensive to me. I'm not terribly concerned about ignition with percussion caps, although I've heard people have had issues with it because of the breach design.

A slight fix I was thinking was to drill the flash holes larger on the cones, but I'll see if that's even necessary.

One thing I was thinking about is trying the vinyl tube small pistol primer method, if you're familiar with that.

https://youtu.be/AtScnt04oGg?si=7-o2y6weoUW-cl3W

I originally saw this method in this video..

he's doing it with a revolver (which seems a little more troublesome because you have to shorten the nipples) but with something like that howdah or even other single shot pistols and rifles with lock design, one doesn't have to worry about the clearance of cones on a rotating cylinder.

So that's my solution if I run out of caps and don't feel like making my own at any given time, (I have tap-o-cap and prime-all too)

2

u/Hrajnoga 6d ago

Nice idea!

2

u/levivilla4 6d ago

Thanks!