Percussion Caps

[Jim in Wisconsin]

Gee - my local Fleet Farm has CCI #11 caps in stock! I bought two tins @ $12.99. Just had to tell someone.
Now I can make some noise and smoke in the back yard. Most of the snow has melted, but it's still only in  the 30's here.
I think we won't be seeing caps for $5 anymore.

[RobD]

Having only flintlock guns, I only need powder and flint but Good for you! 

But I'll be needing caps if I get a few cap'n'ball pistols. 

I wonder how/IF those percussion cap making kits actually work?

[Jim in Wisconsin]

I wondered about those kits too. You still need to buy the chemical "stuff" anyway.  I think I would rather just buy them.

[RobD]

Well, it is nice to be reasonably self sufficient. 

I can make black powder that's at least reasonably good.  I can find flint rock and knap it into gun flints.  I can find cotton and linen cloth easily for patch material.  I like that I can gather or make whatever I need to make accurate muzzleloader loads.  The same should be true for percussion caps, and ever more important as the stuff we need for making muzzleloaders do their thing aren't getting easier to acquire ... and then there's the Co$t!

[Ohio Joe]

I wondered about those kits too. You still need to buy the chemical "stuff" anyway.  I think I would rather just buy them.

I thought about getting one of those "cap" making kits / than I figured since I'm shooting more flintlock now a days, I'll just ride with what I have - and the flow of pricing when the time comes to buy more caps? There's not much (if anything at all) a person can do about retail pricing. But you can also bet that if Percussion Caps are up / so will be the price on new flints... So, if you can make your own flints - that's the way to go. (I'll have to get down to the Rock Show this year and get some flint.
   

[BEAVERMAN]

Jim, be happy that you found some caps!, they're like hens teeth here, glad that I have a good supply hoarded away! I shoot both rock locks and cap locks, now if I only had more than 15 lbs of goex I'd be a rich man!

[The Miner '49er]

From what I have read, the scarcity of primers and percussion caps is largely due to the lion's share of the priming mixture being gobbled up by the US military. They have first dibs on it, and hobbyists like us are way down the totem pole. We are also supplying Ukraine with ammo, so that reduces the priming mixture availability even more. Since the manufacture of primers and caps is the most dangerous link in the ammo making chain, there are just a few (I believe it's three) manufacturers, and no one else wants to jump in the game. I don't know, but would bet, that the chemicals needed to make primers and caps comes from sources outside the US.

[Jim in Wisconsin]

There was a sign in the gun section of the Fleet Farm store - "Black Powder available, ask a clerk about it". I wonder if they meant real black powder or substitute. I should have asked - it seems doubtful to me that they would have the real stuff, with all the problems with that. I'll ask the next time I'm there.
I hope the cap stortage turns out like the 22 rimfire deal a while back. Now there are plenty of them on the shelves.

[Winter Hawk]

Unfortunately, Fleet Farm is too far a drive for me to go get some of those caps.   

However, I bought one of those cap making kits a couple of months ago.  I made a couple of dozen caps with it, need to get busy and make some more.  They came out a bit iffy, but those that went off did so with authority.  I can't fault the kit or chemicals.  Once I have used it more I am sure that I will have better results.  One thing I need is a tray of some kind to hold the caps for adding the chemicals.  Trying to balance them while adding the powder and then acetone doesn't work well.  I may load up some unmentionable ammo so I get a primer tray empty and use that.

~Kees~

[Bigsmoke]

Back in the "good old days", an outfit by the name of Forrester or something close to that offered a percussion cap making kit.  IIRC, it consisted of a form to shape the cap body out of an aluminum can, a wood rod about 3/16" in diameter and a single hole punch.
That was used to punch out dots from a roll of caps for a toy pistol.
After the body was formed, the wood rod was used to insert the punched out cap into the body.  Need more umph?  Put in another cap, or two.
It sounded kind of hokey to me, so I never tried it.  I had lots of caps on hand, and anyway, RWS red labels were available for $0.99 a tin.  Like I said, the good old days.
John (Bigsmoke)

[LongWalker]

Back in the "good old days", an outfit by the name of Forrester or something close to that offered a percussion cap making kit.  IIRC, it consisted of a form to shape the cap body out of an aluminum can, a wood rod about 3/16" in diameter and a single hole punch.
That was used to punch out dots from a roll of caps for a toy pistol.
After the body was formed, the wood rod was used to insert the punched out cap into the body.  Need more umph?  Put in another cap, or two.
It sounded kind of hokey to me, so I never tried it.  I had lots of caps on hand, and anyway, RWS red labels were available for $0.99 a tin.  Like I said, the good old days.
John (Bigsmoke)

Ah, the Tap-o-Cap!  I won one in a blanket shoot back in high school, actually had to buy a caplock so I could try it out.  Later on, I picked up the "high-tech" version that was threaded for a loading press--much easier to punch and form those little caps.  Paper roll caps were easy to find, and cheap!  Two paper caps gave fairly reliable igniton.  Only problem was wet weather, which could sometimes turn the chemicals to mush. 

I used the aluminum cups for my experiments with old cap formulas, substituting various mixes of chemicals for the paper caps (because all high school students should play with unstable explosive chemical mixtures, right?).  For anyone thinking along those lines, I have to point out that anything a 17 year old farm kid decides is unsafe should probably not be undertaken by anyone sane. 

[Winter Hawk]

https://22lrreloader.com/

[BEAVERMAN]

Back in the "good old days", an outfit by the name of Forrester or something close to that offered a percussion cap making kit.  IIRC, it consisted of a form to shape the cap body out of an aluminum can, a wood rod about 3/16" in diameter and a single hole punch.
That was used to punch out dots from a roll of caps for a toy pistol.
After the body was formed, the wood rod was used to insert the punched out cap into the body.  Need more umph?  Put in another cap, or two.
It sounded kind of hokey to me, so I never tried it.  I had lots of caps on hand, and anyway, RWS red labels were available for $0.99 a tin.  Like I said, the good old days.
John (Bigsmoke)

.99 a tin!!!!!!!!!!!!!! man you ARE old!

[BEAVERMAN]

I just got off the phone with the Weaving Welshman, otherwise known here many years back Short Arm, he said that l when he was in  Lewiston Idaho a few months back that they stopped at the CCI plant and they have a factory store there were shelves full 
 with any caps a guy needs for reloading of ML shooting! He's heading back that way after ice out for a fishing trip and will check then, told him to get me 10 bricks if they have them.

[Bigsmoke]

10 bricks of CCI Caps?
You getting ready to fight a war or something?
John (Bigsmoke)
PS:  RE:  RWS caps at $0.99 per hundred.  Yeah, Jim, I am getting kinda long in the tooth.  But I am not done yet.