Range report Super Bang Ring Caps and CCI magnums

Last night I was in the grocery and I saw a pack of these.

There was only one pack left and I figured at $1.99 it wasn't a big gamble to give them a try.

So results?
They work.
Sorta...
They do not fit on a #11 nipple very well and ya gotta force it.
First shot...FTF, hmmm maybe I wasted 2 bucks?
Second shot...Hang Fire ok...I got an idea!
Third shot and fourth shot I put a tiny pinch of 3F in the nipple before I caped it with the plastic caps....BANG! Worked just fine and dandy.

After proving to myself they would work in a pinch I moved on to some real serious shooting with the CCI magnum caps. I got my barrel good and cruddy then dry swabed to get gunk down in the CVA looser breach and they still fired the gun!

I am totaly sold on the magnum caps for the CVA. They do not seem to be needed for my T/C rifles but the CVA does.

Probably corrosive as all hell with grit in the mix for ignition when struck. I'd be leary of a steady use of those.

I have no intention of using them ever again. I just wanted to know if they would work in a pinch.

I confess, I have seen these and always wondered if they would work. Thanks for the experiment.

Back in the late 70's I bought and used a home-made cap making machine called a tap-o-cap, that formed caps out of aluminum from cans, then you put two toy caps in them. They wotked just over half the time, but making the caps was more trouble than it was worth. Thanks again.

I used those all the time back in the '70s (the plastic ones)I bought the ones that came in straight lines. I tried it again when I got back into this about 6 years ago and could not get them to fire off a load. Good to see you could make them work.

In the 70's I think they were made here in the states and the new ones are most always to be from china . They are not near as hot as years ago but just as corrosive.

I noticed when I was using them that they didn't bang as loud as the ones I saw as a kid. (I never owned a toy gun, but the neighbor kids did.)
The easy fix to them not being hot enough is a simple tiny pinch of powder in the niple.

When I saw them in the store I just had to know. Now I know.
I am thinking I might try them on the revolver once to see if they work. The powder is alot closer to the cap than in the rifle.

cynthialee said:

...I just had to know. Now I know.

Click to expand...

And good on you for that! :hatsoff:

Lotta yawping gets passed around on the internet and in life, mostly by folks that have never tried the things they're so dogmatic about.

Ya done good!

I remember using paper caps when I was a kid. They kinda sorta worked. The trick was balancing them on the nipple and firing before the wind blew them off. They also clogged up the nipple with paper.

Oh the things we gotta try. :idunno: Bill

One of the fellows at our club built a side slapper with a touch hole, not a nipple. He uses paper caps over the touch hole and it goes off pretty reliably. The caps have a sticky side (?) that holds them on the barrel.
Mark

snowdragon said:

I remember using paper caps when I was a kid. They kinda sorta worked. The trick was balancing them on the nipple and firing before the wind blew them off. They also clogged up the nipple with paper.

Oh the things we gotta try. :idunno: Bill

Click to expand...

When I was a kid one of my friend's dad was a serious muzzleloader, so the kid shot lots too.

One time we snuck out of the house for a short hunting trip while his folks were gone, and quickly discovered he'd forgotten caps in our haste. I had a box of kitchen matches in my saddle bags, so he tried scraping the white tips off and packing them in the cap recess in his hammer. It worked when the stuff stayed put, but that was the real trick!

If it wasn't for someone experimenting.We would be talking about how best to throw a rock. :rotf:

I have used those with success on my Dixie Pennsylvania as it has a short path to powder chamber, but a small plastic disk remains in the nipple to be dug out. I have a few packs in storage because they were cheap.

BrownBear said:

snowdragon said:

I remember using paper caps when I was a kid. They kinda sorta worked. The trick was balancing them on the nipple and firing before the wind blew them off. They also clogged up the nipple with paper.

Oh the things we gotta try. :idunno: Bill

Click to expand...

When I was a kid one of my friend's dad was a serious muzzleloader, so the kid shot lots too.

One time we snuck out of the house for a short hunting trip while his folks were gone, and quickly discovered he'd forgotten caps in our haste. I had a box of kitchen matches in my saddle bags, so he tried scraping the white tips off and packing them in the cap recess in his hammer. It worked when the stuff stayed put, but that was the real trick!

Click to expand...

And I'll bet you thought of that from making those "bolt bombs". Ya know, the ones that pop and one of the bolts comes flying back at you. How did we survive? :idunno: Bill

i have only ever used ring caps , never had a plastic thingy in the nipple , or found them very corrosive , just need a 1.8mm flash hole and a smaller diameter nipple . they go off every time , i do sometimes get a "pop.boom" . but this can be avoided by having the right size powder

Interesting experment, you mentioned liking cci mag # 11's. Over the years I have many times had no fires, or hangfires using standard # 11 caps. I once killed a small buck with a hangfire that took about a second to go off. I now use cci mag's wenever I can get them, I'm not sure if I have ever had a hang fire with them. When on my way to my farm to shoot a while back I went the long way through town to get caps at the local hardware. All they had were # 10 caps so I bought a tin of them. When I started shooting I got lots of cap snap no bang, and a few hangfires. This happened about 1 time every 8 or ten shots, rest of the time they fired the gun ok. The cap seem to fit the nipple a bit tighter so my question: does the # 10 refer to physical size of cap or power of the cap, or both??
Next time I get to the big city will stock up on # 11 cci mags. :wink:

Back in the early 1980's I used plastic caps from the toy store in my brass frame remmie 36 repro.

They worked fairly well. BUT, I had to use a needle to pick the plastic out of the nipple after firing and before reloading.

The caps I used came in long plastic strips, about ten or twelve to a strip, not rings.

Yes they worked. Yes they were corrosive, Yes it was a PIRB to remove the little plastic disc that the hammer fall punched out and pushed into the nipple hollow. But they did work about 90%.


An even bigger PIRB was prying off those stiff Italian made brass No. 11's from my Ruger old Army nipples. Have to scrape them with a knife.

try using the " Star caps " brand , they are made in Taiwan , and you wont get the plastic in the nipple ,they have a paper wad to keep the percussion mix in . the recipe is on the box in fine print it could be modified to be a bit safer to make in small quantitys , like 20 caps at a time , and you could use spent .22 short cases for the cap :stir:

270,the cap# is the size of the cap.The # 10's are generally used on pistols.So when you use #10's on a #11 nipple you can get misfires because the smaller cap does not fully seat on the bigger nipple.So whatever cap you use just make sure it fully seats on your nipple on whichever gun you are shooting at the time.I have #10 caps fit #11 nipples better than #11 caps.Nipple sizes vary brand to brand and as the nipple mushrooms from use it gets bigger.Different cap brands vary in size too.Just something to keep your eye on.

I also wondered about that..THANKS! Now I know..I may have to try it for myself and keep a few on hand.