Corrected entry: When Sergeant Pepper reloads his musket and talks about settling the whole business with high stakes poker, he pours powder down the muzzle and then proceeds to ram the rod down but without having placed any bullet (buckshot) inside the barrel. The purpose of the rod is to ram the buckshot all the way down to get it seated on the powder. (00:07:05)
entrence
28th Oct 2017
Dances with Wolves (1990)
Correction: It's possible he's out of bullets and trying to simply scare the Confederates.
Or the bullet was a part of the powder pack.
Correction: Wouldn't be buckshot, it would be a minie ball. The bullet would be in the paper cartridge. No, he is not out of bullets and just firing blanks.
So he tears the wrapper, pours the powder down the barrel, throws the wrapper containing the bullet away and then rams the powder. He never put anything other than powder in the barrel. But then, this being a movie set, he would only have the supplies to load blank.