Musket Caps Availability

[springfield art]

With all the discussion of Percussion Pistol Cap shortages over the last couple years, was there ever a shortage of Musket Caps? Just curious, as all the comments seemed directed toward #11, or #10 caps.

 

[64Springer]

With all the world's problems officially solved, we can now ponder questions like this.

 

[hawkeye2]

Having been overwhelmed by the "short arbor" thread I need a diversion. I believe I'll ponder this issue as I plod on through the next few days.

 

[Notchy Bob]

I think there probably was a shortage, but not as bad as with #10 and #11 caps. The CCI Reenactor musket caps in particular were (and are) not hard to find. I think one reason for this is that serious shooters don’t generally like that specific cap because of its relatively weak priming charge.

I have no idea how consumer usage patterns factor in. N-SSA competitors do a lot of shooting and many of them complete extensive practice. They use a lot of musket caps. I don’t know how much actual shooting Civil War reenactors do, but there are legions of them. You would think there would be a lot of demand.

I thought the question was interesting.

Notchy Bob

 

[hawkeye2]

RWS musket caps completely sold out and none were coming in to the country. A small shipment arrived a number of weeks back and I'm sure they are all gone.

 

[smokepolehall]

Graf's & Sons have had stock on Schuetzen musket caps for 2 years now. They did go up on price from about $80 a thousand to about $110 now.

 

[dave951]

Only RWS were hard to find. Scheutzen were easy to get.

 

[#blackpowderbill]

What lube was that again?

 

[maillemaker]

With all the discussion of Percussion Pistol Cap shortages over the last couple years, was there ever a shortage of Musket Caps? Just curious, as all the comments seemed directed toward #11, or #10 caps.

There still is. The best musket caps in the world are Dynamite Nobel RWS. They have not been available in the United States since Covid.

CCI weakened their musket caps after a lawsuit probably 7 years ago now, but at least they were available. Have not seen them in many years either.

The only musket cap available today is Schuetzen. They are pretty good, but they are not brass, they are brass-plated steel. They don't always hammer down tightly on the nipple like a pure brass cap would, but on the one problem musket I had I replaced the nipple and no more problems.

 

[springfield art]

I have some older copper ones; I miss them! Copper seems so perfect for that application. Guess it's too costly now. Brass-plated steel? Yikes!

 

[Hawk54]

I have some older copper ones; I miss them! Copper seems so perfect for that application. Guess it's too costly now. Brass-plated steel? Yikes!

When I was civil war reenacting that was all we used. Never had a bad one.

 

[northernThaiguy]

Graf's is a great shop, but their prices are going up again. Their musket 4-wing caps went from $135/1000 to $169/1000 just in the past few weeks.

They used to have a store in St Charles, MO, but sold it around Covid time. A new guy there at the new store made an ordering mistake, and ordered over 75,000 4-wing caps in 2022. I heard about it, went in and talked to them, and they are anxious to unload as many of these musket caps as possible. Regular price right now is $10.xx/100, but they said if I bought a brick of them they'd sell them for $9/100. A brick of 1000 ended up running me about $97! (including tax)

I told them that I'd post this on the ML forum, and they thought that would be great! They said they would work with y'all as far as shipping and hazmat chgs. It sounded like they might charge for those like Graf's does - maybe about $23.50 for hazmat and $12.95 or so for actual shipping?? These guys seem like good guys to work with!

Their phone number is on the cash receipt. Give them a call, and tell them you heard about it on the ML forum!

Lloyd