Remington #11 caps?

Not to derail the dicussion, but does anyone have findings regarding Remington #11 caps, the kind that come in the white little tin with the black letters? I see them all over, usually at Bass or Cabela's. Are they any good? They sure are easy to find, relatively.

I've had zero problems with them! I've used them on the rifle & C&B pistols too! I tend to use them more when it's nice weather, not in the cold, snow or rainy stuff that I like the CCI Magnums for.

The trick to having ZERO ignition problems is keeping the gun clean and starting with a really clean gun in the first place :wink: .

Dave

smokin .50 said:

I've had zero problems with them! I've used them on the rifle & C&B pistols too! I tend to use them more when it's nice weather, not in the cold, snow or rainy stuff that I like the CCI Magnums for.

The trick to having ZERO ignition problems is keeping the gun clean and starting with a really clean gun in the first place :wink: .

Dave

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As our usual RWS caps were not available last week, we shot 300 RB through my ROA, with Pyrodex P and Remngont #11 caps from the little white tin.

Not a single misfire was noted.

Of course, I might just have got lucky. :idunno:

tac

Dave: Target shooters- who worry about everything ---- tell me that using Magnum caps causes the PRB or bullet to move forward BEFORE the main powder charge begins to burn. This changes the dimension of the "powder chamber" of the barrel, and opens up groups. THEY prefer using standard #11 caps.

With the unmentionable zip-guns, we also know that the powerful 209 shotgun primers are also causing those loads to move forward, giving wide variations then in MV, and group size, using all those modern powders, and components. Someone is now bringing out less powerful 209 sized primers, for use in Mlers, as a result of the complaints.

Similarly in BP Cartridge shooting, we find people reducing the size of the primer hole in the casing, and using pistol primers instead of rifle primers, so that the gas produced by the primer does not move the bullet forward in the casing before the powder in the casing builds up enough gas to begin pushing the bullet down the barrel.

I use standard #11 caps on my percussion DBL shotgun in the field, rain or shine, cold or warm. I have never had a misfire, or hang fire attributed to the percussion cap with that gun.

HOWEVER, I have ground down the face of both hammers so that they strike the top of the nipples evenly all around the nipple. This is something other percussion shooters almost never do. If you don't check to determine how "square" the face of your hammer strikes the top of the nipple, you will bang and collapse an edge, and then you can have trouble with ignition with some caps. The more you bang that top edge crooked, the worse the problems become. You might overcome a small problem with a more sensitive,"Hotter" cap, for awhile, but each hammer drop worsens the problem, IMHO.

My brother bought some of the Magnum caps by mistake, and we compared them with standard caps one evening, after dark, firing off primers, and watching to see how long a flame came out the muzzle of the guns. I have no doubt at all that the Magnum caps are "hotter".

I like the Remington caps. No problems at all.

Some say they aren't the best in the rain. I've only tried them in the snow with no problems.

I don't know if the same is true with the ones coming out today, but we had all sorts of problems with a bunch we bought a couple of years ago.

They are much more prone to misfires (as in OFTEN) in our wet climate, while the CCI are less prone (as in NEVER).

As bad or worse, we have to sort every tin. You open the tins and see loose priming pellets floating around and have to go through the whole tin to find the empties they came from. Anywhere from 1 to 10 loose in every tin. :barf:

Aw well. I still use them for practice and plinking. My hunting pard found them for $3 a tin, so we each bought 30 tins. I've still got around 20 to go, so I'll be sorting and cussing for a long time yet.

Surely those problems aren't still around for you other folks!!!!! :shocked2:

I really like remington caps, they have a thicker cup which helps with flying cap shards when it goes off, it also tends to stick to the nipple verses the hammer cup. the new ones seem really well made. I really prefer them on my original guns as they tend to have a smaller hammer cup and I don't have to dig spent caps out of the hammer every other shot like I do with the CCI's.

texcl said:

...and I don't have to dig spent caps out of the hammer every other shot like I do with the CCI's.

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Aint that the truth! I've polished cups till my fingers hurt, and the darned things still stick. BTW- Lyman's factory nipples are a perfect fit for the Remington, while they're slighly too big for CCI's to seat down all the way.

Hmmmm. :hmm:

Maybe it's no coincidence that the last three guns I've bought are flinters! :rotf:

I'm glad I saw this. I didn't know the CCI caps were sticking in my hammer cup the first time I shot the Renegade.
I noticed it when I got home and was cleaning the gun. I had 4 caps jammed in there. I'm sure it was the cause of my delayed shots.
I tried everything to fix it from happening, but switching to Remington caps is the only thing that worked.

My experiance is like BB, they're a little touchy when it comes to moisture and rain. If you have a rainy night in camp and things are a bit muggy and humid the next day you'll get some miss fires. Also be carefull of proper storage, ya don't wanna toss the tin in the glove box and forget about'm.
I think part of the problem is their original packing, you usually find'm on the rack in some big box store in a bubble pack on cardboard. Lord knows what kind of storage they had before they hit the shelf?
I'm still whittling away on my rapidily dwindling supply of RWS green, I'll probably go back to CCI when their gone, been pickin caps out of the hammer cup for so long it's habit to look. :idunno:

Yeah, most of mine are flint too, the remingtons stick too on occasion, just not half as much as the cci. I wonder if original caps were powerful enough to lodge them in the hammer.

paulvallandigham said:

Dave: Target shooters- who worry about everything ---- tell me that using Magnum caps causes the PRB or bullet to move forward BEFORE the main powder charge begins to burn. This changes the dimension of the "powder chamber" of the barrel, and opens up groups. THEY prefer using standard #11 caps.
for use in Mlers, as a result of the complaints...

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You are quite correct when you say target shooters think Magnum caps cause the patched ball to move forward but IMO it is just their imagination working.

As you may recall I ran an experiment to see what really happens when Magnum caps, RWS 1075 caps (which are as hot as a Magnum cap if not more so) and a standard #11 cap does to the ball location when it is fired.

I used my little .36 cal. brass barreled boot pistol and I intentionally loaded the pistol without powder and with a thin .010 patch lubricated with bore butter around a .350 diameter ball.

The result of all of this testing showed absolutely NO movement of the ball after repeatedly firing 5 each of the above mentioned caps. By "No movement" I am talking about as little as .001 as measured with my digital calipers depth gage. The depth did not change at all.
Pulling the ball after the tests was very easy with a ball screw so I know the patched ball was not 'hung up' in the barrel.

Getting back to #11 Remington caps, I have shot over 300 without a problem and I rate them as high if not higher than the CCI brand of caps.

Zonie..........Wouldn't you need the powder charge to help push the PRB? Basically, the cap, or in the case of the inline, the primer, is pushing the whole charge before the powder goes off.

You mean like "fire" pushing the load?

I really don't think this can happen with BP and caps.

I can understand with sub powders in inlines and powerful primers.

I suppose I could have put some flour in the breech but from an engineering standpoint the cap will create a certain amount of pressure in the breech. It is this pressure that supposedly moves the patched ball when a Magnum cap is used.

The net effect, whether the pressure is pushing on a "powder" or just pushing directly on the patched ball will be the same.

Well....almost the same.
Way out there in the "so small it doesn't matter" area, if an inert powder was between the cap and the patched ball some of the caps energy would be absorbed by the powder so in theory it would move the patched ball less than firing it without any powder at all.

As for putting real muzzleloading powder between the cap and the ball it would be the powder firing that moves the ball and it would probably have ended up poking a hole thru my wall. :rotf:

Zonie said:

As for putting real muzzleloading powder between the cap and the ball it would be the powder firing that moves the ball and it would probably have ended up poking a hole thru my wall. :rotf:

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Not good. They whistle when it's windy. :grin:

I usually prefer RWS 1075 caps for my pistols when I can find them but have used them and the Remington #11's on pistols and my Trade rifle with zero problems or misfires.
I have no problem recommending them.

Zonie said:

I suppose I could have put some flour in the breech but from an engineering standpoint the cap will create a certain amount of pressure in the breech. It is this pressure that supposedly moves the patched ball when a Magnum cap is used.

The net effect, whether the pressure is pushing on a "powder" or just pushing directly on the patched ball will be the same.

Well....almost the same.
Way out there in the "so small it doesn't matter" area, if an inert powder was between the cap and the patched ball some of the caps energy would be absorbed by the powder so in theory it would move the patched ball less than firing it without any powder at all.

As for putting real muzzleloading powder between the cap and the ball it would be the powder firing that moves the ball and it would probably have ended up poking a hole thru my wall. :rotf:

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I can verify all that from my first dry ball back when I was first starting out and didn't have tricks up my sleeve.

"No problem" thinks I, when I discovered the lack of powder. "I'll just pop a cap and blow the ball out." :rotf:

Heck, half a tin of caps later, the ball still hadn't budged a molecule down the bore. A friend showed up, and when he quit laughing at me, he got it right out. Lesson #1.

ALL percussion hammers should have a WEDGE or "Hair-lip" cut out of the front of the skirt, so that the cap ruptures toward the muzzle, and away from the shooter's face and trigger hand. If your wedge is NOT deep enough, its a small matter of time to use a jeweler's file- a small triangle file works fine-- to deepen the notch so that your cap ruptures, and cannot Stick to the inside of the skirt.

I have performed this " surgery" on any number and makes of percussion hammers, always with success. I had to do it to my own rifle, and had been carrying some needle-nose pliers in my bag just to pull the caps out of the skirt after every shot. Like BB, I too polished the heck out of the inside of the skirt, and the face of the hammer. ONLY WHEN I DEEPENED that notch did the problem end.

You do have to have a properly sized Nipple for the caps you choose to use. There are several makes of percussion hammers that have too little room inside the skirt to allow the cap to expand and release from the nipple, leaving the nipple stuck on the nipple, rather than inside the skirt. I thinned the skirt at the mouth, forming a slight taper to the skirt, so that the cap would release from the nipple reliably.

But, putting that deep wedge in the front of the skirt cured both the problem of spent caps sticking to the nipple, AND caps sticking to the inside of the skirt on the hammer. OH, By filing that wedge deeper, it allows the point of a knife to get behind that spent cap should it stick in the skirt.

I used a Dremel Grinding bit to cone the inside of that skirt. The Edges of the mouth of the skirt are thin, but its just a metal "skirt", deflecting debris from the cap. It doesn't need to be as thick as it comes from the factories. :hmm: