Brent, first I engraved a channel in the brass using a pocket knife, then an exacto knife, and then an engraving tool. Then I used the Dremel at low RPMs, around 7,000, with the thinnest cutting wheel I could find. Wearing jeweler's glasses that allowed me to get just a couple inches away and see everything perfectly, the Dremel made very slow and shallow passes, with no heat generated. Eventually opened it up without hitting anything below, and I was able to carefully pull the case apart with needle nose pliers and tweezers to pull stuff out. I agree with you about the taper/ sizer crimp in general. These cartridges have paper that stuck to the case wall and which could not be pulled out en toto with the bullet. I did try to pull all of the bullets out with my fingers, and any one that would have been loose was going to be the one I took apart, but none of the bullets were loose. Or rather, all of the bullets were glued in by virtue of their old paper adhering to the case.
The powder looks closest to the 1.5FG size. It might not just be OE, could be Swiss, too, but I only looked at Swiss FFG, not Swiss 1.5FG. Truth is, none of today's powders look anything like the powder in that old Eley case. It has a variety of grain sizes; all of the grains are jagged and highly fractured (your shattered glass) appearing. They are highly polished, unlike the OE. So the high performing old C&H #6 wasn't just its manufacturing quality, it was also the way the different screen size grains mingle with one another and then fire up when ignited. I am not aware of any black powder made today that resembles anything like C&H #6. Then again, what the heck do I know...
Ken! Thank you for posting your data!
