More Cap Making Observations

cynthialee said:

anyone have any input on how they work in a revolver?

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I need to make some with double thickness cups and try them. The single thick ones I make don't work in revolvers. I think I'm loading them too heavy and they blow out the sides instead of firing the charge. They work perfectly on rifles though.

sheriff john said:

So ...how do you reckon the old-time manufacturers produced caps? I've never seen anything on the topic. Inventing the percussion cap system (Forsythe ?) was genius. Figuring out a method to produce them in massive quantities - how'd they do that ? Who made them?

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I was pondering that same question earlier today. They were on the cusp of the industrial revolution at that point in history. Maybe that played a role in the development and manufacture of this technology.

William Lincoln said:

The Duco diluted with acetone works. Also try putting the caps in cardboard punched with a pen
as a holder. Get some ultimate hold hairspray and spray the caps good at about 8 " Let
dry. Works for me. Faster than one at a time. Most hairspray dries good and is flammable.

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William, are you saying to forgo the acetone and duco and only use the hairspray after the dry mix is added to the caps? Or add the hairspray after placing the cardboard discs on top of the primeall mix after the acetone has been dripped in? I purchased hairspray today as others have written about its ability to help prevent the priming compound from crumbling and falling out.
Thanks for any suggestions that make this process faster and better.

I'm willing to try the hairspray too. The Duco/Acetone is kind of a pain.

I've seen some manual percussion cap machines in England. A handle on a crank raises and lowers the punch and simultaneously feeds a thin sheet of metal. Then there's a tray that the cups get dumped into. Shaking it gets them cup-up position. a floor-pedal advances one forward under a little funnel. Above that a handle is operated back and forth (like a reloading powder thrower) and drops in the compound. Another step on the foot pedal advances the "turret" to the next spot and, a little probe cuts and pushes a little piece of paper into the cup over the priming compound. From what I have seen of the old caps, the paper was a little paper cupcake holder within the metal cup, not just a round spot on the bottom. I don't know if any spray or adhesive was applied after the paper. With the two-station operation and a person at each, one percussion cap was made in just under a second. Kind of slow before automation took over - but I don't know what that automated process looks like.

Thanks for the old-timey information ! We have quite a bit of really good information available on firearms manufacturing from various periods. Haven't seen much on how/who invented and produced such things as percussion caps, fulminate of mercury, metal foil, etc. that enabled the transition.

Given that manufacturing power was either water or steam for much of the time period, transportation by horse/wagon, steamboat, and railroad, those years were world-changing. Even the standardization of nipples, manufacturing of taps & dies, etc. boggles my brain considering the relatively short time it took for such changes to occur.

Off-topic from the original intent of this thread, perhaps, but reading others' experiences making caps got me to thinking about how it was done "back in the day".

I'm thinking that this may be the way to go. Why not? I'm gonna order one next week.

A few more observations:
Last night I mixed up more Primall powder and loaded 100 more single layer caps that were previously punched out. The Large Rifle Primer tray is very handy to hold the cups when priming and putting a drop of liquid onto the powder. Another little tool I incorporated was a Small Rifle Primer Cup glued on to a Kabab Skewer Stick that was sanded to conform to the SRP Cup shape. This allowed the right amount of powder to fill the percussion cap and not loose powder off to the sides.

Someone had asked what ratio of Acetone and Duco to use. The first batch last week I put a couple drops of the glue into approximately a tablespoon of acetone. Those shoot just fine but they do show that the fine powder does shift out of the cups into the storage tin. I wanted to see if more glue could prevent that from happening.

This second batch I dribbled a very generous amount of Duco into the Tablespoon (+/-) of Acetone. I should have been more scientific and measured both ingredients exactly, but I'm not too prone to do that. Let's just say it was well over two full drops of Duco, more like 4 healthy drops.

A drop was administered into all 100 cups onto of the mix.

After all the primers were completed a little powder was left of the primall mix I poured the left over powder into a small ziplock bag and saturated it with the Acetone/Duco liquid. This was not just wet but excess liquid was in the small corner of the bag surrounding the wetted powder. This means that even more glue residue would be dried into this portion.

This morning I began to rethink the amount of Duco in the Acetone. What if it makes the powder too gummy, not igniting consistently due to the glue mix absorbing the hammer blow? The Acetone was evaporated from the left over powder so I took the ziplock back to the garage, inserted ear plugs and smacked it with a hammer. The first blow didn't set it off, but that was something I've already noticed with the first batch, The hit must be flush on top or it doesn't pop. The second hammer strike initiated the loudest POP yet, blew out the whole corner of the bag and a fragment of the charge hit my finger sharply.

I didn't want to need to clean a rifle, but this needed to be duplicated with an actual cap on a nipple with a normal sidelock hammer blow. The TC Renegade has not been shot for a number of years, and a good cleaning and lubing wouldn't hurt it any. Ear plugs in, cap on nipple, trigger pulled and the garage had smoke and noise.
Next test was to pour some Goex FFg in, stuff a wad of cotton on top and shoot if off in the back yard with one of these test caps. I am pleased to say that a hearty boom, smoke and cotton confetti were the satisfying results. Thankfully the amount of Duco I liberally added last night did not prevent successful ignition.

This test did not include spraying the caps with Hairspray after the mixture dried overnight. I may get around to that in the next testing, but for now I'll prepare the double layer cups that are punched out to be ready to shoot and hunt with those. I count only 39 CC1 #11's left in my kit and this is a very viable alternative.

I used to use hairspray(Rave). I will say it did work .I still had some problems with fallout at times. For the last two years I moved on to other binders with better results. The Duco Cement/acetone does work really well with little chance of overdoing it. With that and some other binders no paper or foil need be used at all.
For using pop cans,two layers are much better. For the revolvers using .005 thick brass will give the least trouble with function.Highest cost though. For the rifles you have all the options for metal. Good luck to all in this really neat hobby we have. Be careful in mixing the powders as it can surprise you. I know it did for me.

sheriff john said:

So ...how do you reckon the old-time manufacturers produced caps? I've never seen anything on the topic. Inventing the percussion cap system (Forsythe ?) was genius. Figuring out a method to produce them in massive quantities - how'd they do that ? Who made them?

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This is from a post I made back in January of this year regarding the manufacture of the brass percussion cups.

"In a passing conversation with my tool and die maker the other day. I asked him the cost to make a set of progressive dies for making brass or copper cups identical to the factory percussion caps minus the priming compound. He looked at a few Remington caps and said a minimum of $12,000 to make the dies. Then you would have to figure the cost of brass or copper stock, roll slit where it would feed the press on a roll feed in order to be cost effective. He said you would have to sell 750,000 @ .02 cents a piece before you would start to see a profit. Who ever bought the finished cups @ $2.00 per hundred, would still have to load with primer in order to have a functioning cap. Just a passing thought that I let float on down the river".

Only thing I have to add is to make a small power measure, I glued a red ring cap on a stick. I cut it down a little smaller to hold less powder. I hold the cap with tweezers and load the cap with powder. Then the caps goes in cardboard with holes drilled in it. From there I tamp down the power with a stick and then add a drop of my Duco/Acetone mix.
I'm using 3 drops of Duco to about a teaspoon of Acetone. Also I'm not using the small off-white bag from Prime-All. It is their hardener, but not needed with the Duco/Acetone mix. It helps to break up the Potassium Perchlorate in the large bag before you mix the other ingredients. Rolling a wood dowl over the bag works better then using fingers.
I'm sure lots of other ways works good too, but this is working great for me.

n.h.schmidt said:

Good luck to all in this really neat hobby we have. Be careful in mixing the powders as it can surprise you. I know it did for me.

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That sounds like an interesting story. I hope it ended ok.

I had a batch of the powders go off on me. It was a single batch as instructed in the instructions. I thought I had crushed out the Chlorate good enough and started mixing the other powders with it. I soon realized that there was still some lumps in the chlorate .So I grabbed something too short and too hard and started crushing. I did this in a plastic measuring spoon. I got too aggressive and off it went. No explosion but plenty intense. Burned three fingers with blisters and pain .They eventually recovered but I learned a lesson. . I did several things wrong and payed the price. I still work with the the powders but I mix with water.
It would be hard to set that off while still wet. Water does not ruin the prime in any way and results in a very complete mixing. Keep you batches small and don't save any mixed and unused back for later.

Glad your ok now, and thanks for sharing a lesson we all can learn from. I tried mixing a batch with Acetone/Duco and using a eye dropper to load the caps. I didn't have much luck getting it to mix good. Some of the caps got a good mix and worked good, but some of the caps was duds.
Are you letting it dry again after mixing with water or loading the caps with the wet mix? Thanks

I add enough water drops to make a grainy paste. Working with water gives you much more working time I made a dispensing tool to pack the paste into and then push out into the cups. Before it fully dries I then push the now formed paste in the cups and press down. Let dry and them add one of several binders. Lately a pinch of high energy pistol powder (700X) in a tablespoon of acetone . I let it mix for a while stir it up and use a pip cleaner as a dip stick. Is it any better than other ways ? Can't prove it but I like it

I used a worm blower to drip in the acetone. Works well.

Walkabout said:

I used a worm blower to drip in the acetone. Works well.

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I thought you were talking about a worm gear blower like the hand crank on a forge, but I had to look it up. Its amazing at what folks come up with in fishing gear, bet the inventor is a millionaire.

Gearing up for more shooting and hunting which prompted these additional primed 100 more double thickness caps.



I punched out 500 pieces a few weeks ago and sat down the other day to fill these up. Once all the little tools and prep is ready a steady cadence can make this an enjoyable process that doesn't take too long.
It is a good to know that smoke can continue to roil out of the barrel's muzzle for some time to come.

The mixing of powder for a cap is too time intensive and frankly, why? Use the homemade caps with one toy cap gun ribbon charge instead. 1000 cap strip costs like 12 bucks, and yes, they work at almost 100% of the time, pistol or rifle. Look at you tube. its easy and more importantly, WORKS

I've never made any caps with one of the cap makers; however, I had some kids roll caps and since I'm in the leather business, I wanted to see what size leather punch would punch a perfect diameter slug with the primer dot on it to fit into a commercial percussion cap. I found that a hollow tube leather punch size #4 or #5 (11/64" - .171 dia.) works best. The actual diameter of the punch tubes will vary according to the tool manufacturer. Using a hollow tube leather punch is more accurate and faster than trying to cut these out with scissors or separating the two layers of paper in order to recover the priming compound. You do have to be careful not to cut into the edge of cap primer, if you do it will probably set it off. I also wouldn't let numerous caps stack up in the punch tube, if you do detonate one, all in the tube will go off. I removed the slugs (dots) from the punch tube with the flat butt end of a bamboo skewer. Weaver Leather has a rotary leather punch imported from Germany, which is good quality for the cost, under $20 at Amazon, and free shipping if you have Prime.
Weaver Rotary Leather Punch

I've seen some of the caps turned out with the Tap-O-Cap and read where they work, but that is one ugly cap. Kind of like a cheap ugly straw hat compared to a Stetson. The finished cap reminds me of those accordion cupcake papers you use in the cupcake pan, just not as clean looking. Here are the dots, the punch is a single tube C.S. Osborne Mfg.

Sure the punched out cups don't look pretty. They do the job for most of us.You don't offer anything better. If you use punched out role caps all them layers of paper will affect the power of the charge.You don't get that if the dots are lifted off the paper and then used in the cup. The role caps aren't as cheap as they used to be. If you use several dots per cup the cost per cup can easily get higher than using the powders. Plus the powders are more powerful and work better. Been there and done that.