Rick, I am happy if I can inspire someone else to come over to the dark side:

Here is my recipe for a BP shot shell:

12 ga. Magtech brass shell (work in old, short-chambered (65 mm) guns)
Large pistol primer
3 dram of 3F Goex (tried 2F and didnt see much difference)
Nitrocard
Solid lube added in liquid form (see below)
Cushion wad
1 1/8 oz shot (#8 or 9)
over shot card
seal with Duco cement

Most of this information can be found at various sites on the web. In my experience the most critical part for making this work is the lube. I am relatively new to BP shot shell loading, but I have a fair amount of experience with black powder bullet shooting where the lube is an essential ingredient. In old texts the lube is sometimes referred to as fouling softener, which is its essential role in a BP shot shell. At first I shot a few shells without any lube and ended up with barrels with a horrible amount of fouling that, I am sure, affected the pattern and definitely made the clean-up very difficult. I then decided to add my regular bullet lube to the shells, which made all the difference. The burning powder melts and coats the inside of the barrel with lube and the powder residues mix with this. Unlike pure black powder residues, the mix remains soft which is the critical property you need. This allows the cushion wad of the second shell to easily scour out the old layer of fouling/lube mix after which a new layer of the same mix is deposited. Now you have reached a steady state and after the first shot the inside of the barrel looks the same, no matter how many shells you fire. As for amount of lube, I use an empty 45 ACP case as a dipper and pour melted lube down the shell. It solidifies right away. I tried soaking the cushion wads in melted lube, but I couldnt get consistent results.

Finally a word of caution on the brass. The primer pockets of the first batch I bought were too shallow they did not meet SAAMI specs. This caused the primers to stick out over the head face, which can be very dangerous. Unlike the internet merchant, who did not want to acknowledge a problem, Magtech was very generous and sent me a new batch of shells, no questions asked, and didnt even request me to send back the defective ones.