Wednesday dried out enough I was able to get out onto the Range with the 3rd Model Dragoon. My friend Jared was visiting and he had brought his Walker and a couple other charcoal burners ... 1860 Army and an 1861 Navy. I had never had a chance to test out the paper cartridges that I had loaded and this was a perfect opportunity.

The photo is when I was learning to make the paper cartridges. I had 40 rounds in the ammo box when we went to the Range. The ones on the left are round ball .. the ones on the right are my home-made conical. I had 10 rounds of the conical.

On the range we shot about 15 yards, offhand.

I found the round ball cartridges much easier to load than the home-made conical. The base on the conical is large enough that the paper cartridge interferes with loading and requires MUCH MORE seating pressure to get it started.

Accuracy was great with both loads. At 15 yards I kept most shots in or close to a 1 inch square, shooting offhand. Later I will shoot these loads at 20/25 yards from a rest to determine accuracy. But so far they are looking good.

Out of the 40 rounds I had one fail-to-fire. A little work with a nipple pick and a new cap and it fired. Later, cleaning the gun, I found quite a bit of unburned paper in the chambers and figure that was probably what caused it.

I am using Goex FFFg and CCI Magnum #11 caps with SPG lube on top of the ball or conical.

Comparing the Walker and the Dragoon