After I got my Pedersoli Brown Bess last year, I started realizing how different this was than any other firearm I owned. The ‘Bess was normally fed a diet of paper cartridges. A bore-sized roll of paper was created. The ball went down first. This was tied off on both ends. The powder was put in next and then the paper roll was folded over. When it came time to load, the shooter would bite off the top of the roll, prime the pan and then pour what remained down the barrel. What remained, ball and all, was stuffed down the barrel ball first. The paper acted as a wad to hold the ball in its place on top of the powder.

That was all well and good, but if you were going to do things the right way, you needed something to hold the cartridges close at hand. Enter the cartridge box. Your normal Lobsterback carried his on his right hip:

I looked into purchasing one of these and found out a woman’s designer handbag would be cheaper. Yikes. A period-correct leather cartridge box that carried less than 20 rounds would set me back $120. I’m not into dress-up. I’m not re-enacting. So I went after something more practical. Rothco, as usual, came to the rescue with a sub-$15 cross-body shoulder bag for ammo.

You can find this bag on Amazon

I took the bottom dimension and cut a piece of red-oak skid-runner and ended up with a 10 X 2.5″ chunk of wood that I finish-sanded. My ‘Bess has a .75 caliber (11 Gauge) bore. I positioned 16 GA shotgun shells on the top surface to plan the placement of the holes. If you take the brass rim into account a 16 GA shell is just about right. I came up with 20 holes drilled 15/16″ on center with a 1/4″ extra all the way around. I then took a 3/4″ Forster bit and bored 20 holes. A little more sanding and a bit of poly-stain and . . .Viola! (How did she get in the act!) The wood block fits nicely in the bottom of the bag. The origninal equipment was curved to fit the side of the soldier, but I kept it simple. There is enough room for jags, tow, and whatever other possibles I might need.

Come Da Revolution, I’m ready to report to the green.

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