My youngest son just bought a Browning 1885 BPCR in 45-70 on Gunbroker. He's not a silhouette shooter (yet) but just wanted a highwall. The gun hasn't come yet and we're both pretty excited.

Is there a good book that anyone can recommend on black powder cartridge reloading and general care and maintenance of these guns?

Also, are paper patched bullets ever used for silhouette?

Google up Texas Mac for a pretty definitive book on the maintenance.
Lots of books around about bp loading, but by and large it's a pretty straight forward thing 65-70 grains of 2f black and a 480- 530 grain grease groove bullet cast from 20-1 or 16-1, sized .458-459 and lubed with a good bp lube (my preference goes to Bullshop Nasa) with a ..030 fiber Use the "M" die for a compression die to compress the powder and seat the wad, don't use the bullet.
Fouling control is paramount to good accuracy.
Several folks shoot patched bullets, but I've never been able to get the 2 miroku built bpcr's I have to shoot patched worth a flip. My Sharps rifles don't have that problem.
Again fouling control is vital.

Regarding reloading Mike Venturino and Steve Garbe wrote a primer on reloading BP cartridges. pretty basic and good place to start. Mike also wrote a book on buffalo rifles. Paul Matthews wrote a nice little book about paper patched bullets if you want to get into that. Enjoy!
Rick B.

Regarding reloading Mike Venturino and Steve Garbe wrote a primer on reloading BP cartridges. pretty basic and good place to start. Mike also wrote a book on buffalo rifles. Paul Matthews wrote a nice little book about paper patched bullets if you want to get into that. Enjoy!
Rick B.

I started BPCR Silhouette with this same rifle.It took me to AAA in a short time.
First I read everything from the books mentioned and all the books by Paul Matthews,all great reading and info.
It’s an incredible amount of work and procedure to be accomplished in BPCR silhouette shooting.
I sold the rifle and every piece of equipment along with it.It was a beautiful rifle.
So much so ,years later I bought another in 40-65 ( thanks Rick B.).
Not wanting to get into the black powder reloading again,I bought a Crossno’s 22 liner and enjoy shooting this great rifle at less work and expense.These liners are extremely accurate.I’m not sure if they are currently available.
I highly recommend going this route.

Thanks all. I forwarded him a link to this thread.

He ordered some 405 grain cast bullets and we have some brass and a die set on the way. Our plan was to play with it using smokeless powder a little at first until we can accumulate the knowledge and tools to start loading black powder.

One thing you should do when you get the rifle in hand is give it a good cleaning before you shoot it. If the flannel cleaning patches come out the muzzle with any discoloring , then you'll likely have to go in and do some serious lead mining and carbon removal.
Montana extreme Cowboy blend is a good solvent for deep clean, and pure gum spirits of turpentine for deep lead removal. A good brass jag and heavy 2 1/2 inch flannel patches.
The throat of that chamber and the 18 twist rifling may not treat those 405 grain bullets very well.

Sounds good we will do that. You mean you figure the 405's are too light/short?

To short. They have a bit further to fly thru the freebore before they engage the rifling. But you never know until you try them. Some rifles shoot the 405's just fine the next one may not shoot them much better than 00 buck from a 410.

If you're going to shoot smokeless in that, dig into good sources like the Lyman reloading handbook and use the trapdoor data. Pay particular attention to the pressures various powders generate. It sort of sounds counter intuitive, but 4895 gives a decent amount of case fill, but relatively low pressures and good velocity and accuracy. 5744 and 4895 are pretty popular among the gong match shooters that use smokeless. WC870 is another one that is finding popularity among smokeless shooters.

Ok sounds good! I have the Lyman cast bullet loading book and that's what I was looking at. Will do on the pressure comments!

http://www.texas-mac.com/

Wayne and his book is the definitive resource on Browning 1885's...

Well his gun came today. To me it looks unshot. We bore scoped it and the barrel is super clean. Throat looks new. It has a few small dots of rust on the exterior of the barrel but otherwise very nice. No real signs of use at all.

Those are awesome rifles. When fed properly they can be super competitive in bpcr competitions.

I have another question,

I've been reading everything I can find on black powder cartridge reloading. I got Texas Mac's book, also found a copy of the SPG black powder cartridge loading primer. I can't see an answer to my question in these.

I know the powder needs to be settled and compressed with a card wad and maybe a piece of news print between the wad and the bullet. Does the bullet need to be seated tight against the wad or can there be space between the two? Looks like the bullet should be pretty close to the rifling, which makes sense but if it also needs to be tight against the wad then I guess I'd need to adjust the height of the powder/wad combo accordingly.

Opps, Never mind. I just was reading some more in the SPG reloading primer. No space. Good book by the way! Looks like it's out of print. I got a copy on ebay.