Musket Caps?

[Uncle Russ]

Another thread here got me to thinking about musket caps.....

I picked up five boxes of RWS Musket caps recently at Hooked on Toys in Wenatchee....our best stocked gun and fishing store here in Central Washington.
Anyway, when I got them I had three or four choices. I knew I wanted RWS and I knew I wanted flanged.

But what I didn't know was there is now a different type made by CCI and they are called "Re-enactor or Reenactment" or something like that. They are about three plus bucks cheaper, and they lack the flange.....can't even call 'em a top-hat anymore, they just look like a big percussion cap.

When I asked the guy behind the counter, he said he thought they had a little less "uumph" than a regular flanged cap.

Anyone know for sure what the difference is?
I mean heck, if they go boom, and you can get 'em off the nipple after they've been fired, it might be worth the savings.

I'm not a big fan of CCI other than their LRPrimers, but I can be a fan, if the price is right, and the product performs like it should.
The reason I say I'm not a fan is because of the bad luck I have had with their percussion caps.
I have had worse luck with CCI Magnum Caps than any other brand, and their regular percussion caps seem to never want to release on the nipple. However, their centerfire primers are top notch....go figure. (It's gotta be me, I guess.)

Anyway, what's your thoughts on the new, or new to me, Musket Cap.

Uncle Russ...

[shootrj2003]

Uncle Russ,
 I'm not sure,I haven't used musket caps,I have considered changing for the hotter spark so I read up a little,could it be they took off the flange to keep down the "shrapnel" effect when used in close ranks? I had read this was a problem with musket caps and maybe they powered them down a bit also for the same reason.As I said, I considered using a musket nipple on my Renegade for a hotter spark and maybe a little bit easier handling on cold days.Although I have never detected any real need for hotter spark "they" told me I would get 700 percent hotter spark and "they" I said, needed it{!?}

[Hanshi]

According to the information on the CCI site, they recommend their four-flanged musket caps for reenactments.  I couldn't find any info about flangless caps.

[Loyalist Dave]

Russ I think it comes down to manufacturing process..., and the flanged ones take more steps to produce and more materials, so they pass on the cost.  (iirc) The flanged type were made to make it easier to clear them from the nipple of a military musket, which was a concern when speed loading in battle..., so the cheaper, unflanged ones probably work fine for targets and hunting.  I know with the number 11's that sometimes on my SxS I have to scrape the old cap off the nipple with the edge of my knife, especially if I get a fail to fire, or a dud.  

LD

[snake eyes]

According to the information on the CCI site, they recommend their four-flanged musket caps for reenactments.  I couldn't find any info about flangless caps.

Russ,
      Me either.CCI,CCI magnuns and CCI tophat musket caps is all I could come up with from CCI.
John

[Bigsmoke]

Russ,
The flangeless musket cap is nothing new.  Maybe 10 years ago I seem to recollect RWS selling a flangeless musket cap.  Before that, I believe there were some Italian cap makers that offered them.  I used to run across some straight line cappers that were made for them years and years ago.
So, CCI is finally getting on the bandwagon with their own?  It's just another case of Me Too.  They had to call them something, might as well call them Re-Enactor Caps.  That is probably their biggest market.  If they run parallel to the RWS, it's just a case of one has flanges and the other does not.  Has nothing to do with the amount of "go bang" stuff inside of them.  When you said they were $3.00 per tin cheaper, was that compared to the RWS caps or to CCI flanged caps?
Just an aside, I remember when CCI first came out with their musket caps, we sold 10,000 to a gun shop in Oregon.  A week or so after we shipped that order, I got a call from a very mad gun shop owner.  It seems like the priming charge had come loose from inside the caps and he had some angry customers on his hands and didn't want to pay HazMat to send them back and what the heck was I going to do about it?  I contacted The Good Ol' Boys and they delt with it, because they knew they had a problem on their hands.  They had put out thousands and thousands of them two piece caps.  There was probably a QC inspector that went to work the next day, saying, "You want fries with that Big Mac?"

[Captchee]

Also Russ , if you recall , somewhere  on here , some time back , i posted a compression of the actual strength between different primers ,  it may have gotten deleted as it was a sticky .
 But in reality  and surprising enough , it showed  that the musket caps are not  all that  hotter then a #11 .
this  wasnt allways the case . it also listed the re-enacting  musket cap at a lower  temp then the standard musket cap
As I recall the chart was either one of Fedelas or it was from CCI .
 But it listed  everything from #10 all the way through  the different 209 and  case primers .
 where you get the benifit is IMO from the diffrent nipple design.
 when i get home tonight , ill see if i can find that chart and re post it