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Capgun Caps

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AZbpBurner

54 Cal.
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Got a pack of 96 plastic capgun caps. It's easy to cut them apart from the rings & they tightly fit both #10 and #11 nipples. Pkg says they contain potassium chlorate & red phosphorus. Made in Italy ...

I've read that someone tried these for cap & ball revolvers, but couldn't find the thread. Is the ignition reliable?
 
I've got a bag full of the Italian ring caps that my kid bought for me to experiment with a couple years ago. There's very little powder in them, and I couldn't get them to fire a charge. I tried priming the nipple with fine blackpowder, but it didn't work for me. I've seen a lot of posts about methods of using the more powerful German-made caps to load Tap-A-Cap hulls, which seems to work.
 
I recall a thread (or hijacked thread) where folks ws talking bout these. If my mind is right it may have been Cynthia (where she been?) that tried em and had "decent" luck with em. Better than nothin if caps U/A :idunno:

May be "brand" like other components. Try a few different types?
 
Thanks for the real life input. For some reason people don't seem to realize that a percussion cap puts out a very respectable blast.
 
They're designed for a different kind of "hammer/anvil" impact then we have with a nipple.
Toy cap guns have a solid post for the hammer to strike, a bp gun has a hollow post (nipple).
They're not going to have the careful placement of the ignition compound as real caps have.
Ignition? 50/50 at best, it'll be random if there's some of the ignition stuff in the right place to get hit.
 
Tried these a few years ago. Didn't work. They don't put enough compound in them any more.
 
They are too week as is. They can be enhanced though.Two or three dots can be removed from the German made role caps and inserted in the plastic cups.First remove the paper disk from the plastic cups. A needle works well here. You can wet down the role cap strip with tap water and the very thin red tissue comes right off. This exposes the dots on the surface of the thick paper. The dots can be easily removed with a sharp knife .These dots are damp and can be used safely. Pack two or more into the plastic cup and set aside to dry. A light coat of hairspray holds it all in. These dots harvested this way can also be used for the aluminum cups some of us still make. Six dots provide a reasonable blast but I like to use ten.
They work well and have worked with Pyrodex for me. The dots are so thin you could put twenty dots in a cup. That would have some power. No paper to obstruct the nipple passage .This has a lot going for it. Wally world has the role caps for $3 per 2400 shots. Sometimes the same caps can be found at dollar stores under other names but are also German made.
n.h.schmidt
 
Has any one tried the percussion cap maker that is advertised in the "Backwoodsman" magazine? The advertisement indicates that a liquid primer mix is used.
 
I have not tried it. It is a clone of the Tap o cap and should work like that. The prime mix to put in it is whats interesting. I know it works. Is it safe ?I don't know.
n.h.schmidt
 
I have no idea how much money you have tied up in the press and dies plus the cost for the copper from which to make the caps. How long will it take for the savings to pay for your initial investment in the press, dies and copper? Of course, if you have other uses for the press, it may pay for itself in other ways. What was the source for the dies? What did they cost? What do you put in your caps? I'm just full of questions. :haha:

I do have to take into consideration the possibility that where you live no caps are available and the only way for you to get them is to make them yourself. Is that the case?
 
The press was around thirty bucks Bill. The copper was free when I was rolling it out of scrap roofing copper, but I recently bought a roll online, I think it works out to a couple of cents per cap. The dies are home made from scrap steel.
You hit the nail right on the head about the local cap situation, they're scarce as frog hair.
The machine makes very good caps, I use 10 mil annealed copper and they blow out into nice umbrellas that ride the nipple right to the cutout and then fall off.
I enjoy tinkering, for me it's part of the fun of shooting blackpowder, so I don't worry too much about all the complications of making caps, an it's nice to be ammo independent in case the dingbats take over and ban everything right down to slingshots.
 
I'd sure like to see a video of you making caps that way. From start to finish and then shooting them. This is very interesting to me how you would do this. I bet others would be interested too. :thumbsup:
 
It sure looks like a lot is finally happening in home cap making. I'm using a auto tap clone to make mine. I use two pop can layers for a total of .008 thick. .009 if I use Pepsi cans. It wouldn't be hard to invert a tap o cap or clone, hook it up to a arbor press and have great production. It would be a lot like how Free checks check makers are used in a arbor press. Is it worth the effort?
For me yes. The tap o cap was first produced when you could still buy percussion caps for $.50 per 100. Somebody thought it was a good idea even then. My cost is about $1 per 100.
n.h.schmidt
 
You must be a machinist or die maker and have access to tools that most folks don't. I can see how you could make the die on a drill press. Maybe you could make the punch from a bold but machining it so that each petal would be exactly the same and exactly match the die would be the trick. Pray tell, how did you do it? :hmm:
 
Bill, actually I'm a carpenter, but I do own a drill press. The trick to the cloverleaf punch is to bundle four rods firmly together with a collar cut from black iron pipe, place the bundle into four holes drilled through two stacked pieces of bar stock, and drill the hole for the plunger for forming the cap down through the center of the bundle of rods. The arbor press pushes the cloverleaf punch down first, to form a cap blank, then the cap forming plunger comes down in a second operation to press the clover leaf into a cap, which drops out the bottom of the die. The die will also work with can metal, but I found that aluminum spalled too much and tended to gum up the die.
 

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