If you end up going with a flask, be sure to wait a minute after discharging the gun before dispensing powder directly into the bore from it. You wouldn't be the first guy to encounter a latent spark in the barrel that ignites the fresh charge, thus igniting the flask poised over the muzzle otherwise known as a bomb. The cognoscenti dispense from the flask into an intermediate charger and thence into the barrel.
Paper cartridges are indeed handy. I've used them countless times for shooting smoothbore muskets and rifled muskets, having rolled the cartridges around a mandrel for both blanks and with balls/bullets. Newsprint makes for excellent cartridge paper in that instance. I tried coin wrappers (dime size is smaller and makes for a more compact unit) but found them to be tougher to tear open with my teeth than those made from newsprint. For leisurely shooting (which is most shooting) I just use the horn and measure - after you do it a few hundred times you'll find yourself getting pretty quick at it, doing away with the need for vials/paper cartridges. Even when hunting, during those one or two times I remember needing to do a quick reload, loading from the horn wasn't a handicap - but then again I'm to the point where I can do it blindfolded.
Another common thing for a newbie to do is to outfit himself with a gigantic horn. There's no need to carry a pound of powder with you for a hunting trip. I use two horns, one fairly large to hold enough for a day of target shooting, and the other being about 1/3 as big for hunting - not much bigger than a priming flask - that still holds far more powder than I'll possibly need for a day or three of hunting.*
Always remember - the less crap you gotta juggle and the less stuff in your shooting bag the more efficient you can be. If you're hellbent to lug around a lot of superfluous stuff, at least stow it in your possibles bag (that separate bag which holds the stuff you might "possibly" need for a day afield). Keep the shooting bag lean and mean with the bare essentials in their places so you can go through the loading process by feel with your eyes closed.
* Another trick an old ridgerunner taught me is to not attach the horn stopper to the horn with a tether. The temptation is to let the stopper dangle on the string thus exposing the powder in the horn to the elements and quite possibly allow a spark from the lock to fly in and detonate that bomb. Get in the habit of putting the stopper back in place, it'll become second nature, and not having it on a tether is an inducement for that. Besides, you have the stopper there in your fingers and have to do something with it so you might as well put it back in the horn as do anything else. Don't discount the possibility of detonation from errant sparks, even from a cap lock - a buddy in Washington state just last fall had that very thing happen to him. The tiny spark from his percussion gun ignited a pound of powder sitting on the bench right beside him with the lid off of it. He was lucky to get by with just substantial 2nd and 3rd degree burns over his chest and face.
Last edited by gnoahhh; 04/17/23.
