Cap guard/retainer

[WRussell]

An article in the current issue of "Man At Arms" brought to my attention the fact that I own one of these things, so now I'm interested.

It seems that in the early days of percussion there were lots of folks trying to be numero uno at supplying percussion caps, and consequently there were dozens of different sizes. If you carried a pocket pistol around for protection, it would be at half cock, ready for use, and you worried about the cap coming off. Finding the right size cap must have been a problem.

So, some clever devils came up with the idea of taking advantage of existing flintlock frizzen tooling and making a gizmo to grab the cap on the outside to hold it on the nipple.

Here's a photo of mine. Others were full circle instead of a notch. See the magazine.

The hammer could have no cup, of course, so the device also served to confine the cap fragments somewhat.

Cap sizes were standardized pretty quickly, so these were only built for a few years, and few examples are known. Apparently there are no known examples of this system being used on a long arm.

So... if anyone out there has one of these or has ever seen one on a long arm, let's hear about it.

 

[SAJones]

I read the article also. Interesting, and I have seen such pistols in the hands of gun collectors. Actually a sort of common sense transition to caplock. However, I don't recall any longarms with the same type of device, but that dosen't mean they aren't out there. Closest I've seen is a cap, usually brass, the fits over the cap/cone & is removed before firing.