[wthig]

I am new here. New to black powder. Help.....

Just purchased from Cabela's 1851 Conf .44 cal revolver. For the price $139.00 I should be happy but..... Caps clog the pistol. Split open and clog the cylinder from revolving. I have used both 10 and 11 and no cigar on solving the prob. In a gun fight I don't have time for that lolololololol...

If it was just one clog in 5 shots I would not complain but its every time its fired there is a clog. Cabela's is going to replace the pistol but if I still have problems any help would be a thanks.

I shot as little as 15 grains of black powder. ??? Max was 25. Result was the same.

Nam Vet 66/67. Memorial Day...... Welcome Home to my brothers of that time. I remember.. Xin loi.......

Talmage

[shooter94]

The caps should just fall away...when you touch off a ball let the pistol come back at a 45 degree angle. They should just fall out of your action.

[Bezoar]

your supposed to tip the muzzle up about 45 degrees before cocking the hammer after a shot to allow the cap to fall out of the gun.
Almost sounds like you need to have a cap groove modification. look in the bp forum for that.

if its soooo dangerous to depend on in a gunfight, ill be happy to take it off your hands for cost of shipping....wink wink wink..

[wthig]

45 degree angle don't work brother. Thanks, I did not expect such a quick reply. I have to pic or shake the caps out. I love the pistol and the feel of it. I just don't think it should work that way. lol... If I am expecting more from it than I should. Tell me.. I am new to black powder and your response?? Thank you again. I need help from people like you that know.. again thanks.

Talmage

[shooter94]

This is the reason why Jesse James carried 7 revolvers at a time... Maybe a differant brand of caps.

[wthig]

I never expected such a quick response on my question. Thanks.. I will try again with a 45 degree angle to make sure I got it right. You guys are great. Its just fun to shoot.

Talmage

[Claude Clay]

for around $8 try a 'new' set of nipples. i squeeze slightly caps before i seat them--seldom have trouble as you describe. however, 3 to 5 cylinders is about all i can shoot before binding becomes a problem.
perhaps the light powder charge your using doest shake them loose.

[Calibre44]

A lot of BP shooters develop a ‘flick of the wrist’ to the right after pulling back the hammer to shed the split cap. Most of mine fall off my 51 Navy that way but I have some long nose pliers on hand to remove the stubborn ones.

[pohill]

I have 12 BP revolvers. Most of them have a spent cap jamming problem, or they did when I first started shooting. Now I take my time, make each shot count and account for each spent cap before it jams. I'd say the Walker is the worst. The Ruger never jams, nor does my Colt Signature Series .36. or my Paterson (those nipples are recessed deeply). If you return your revolver in hopes of getting one that does not have this problem, you're going to be really pissed -it's just a problem with these guns. It could be the grease or lube you're using that holds the spent caps, or a weak mainspring, or fouling...
By the way, if you do the gun-tipping/flicking method after each shot, be careful - your gun is off target for that time.

[mykeal]

Cap jams are not unusual with this sport. Cap jams on every shot are unusual.

Some have mentioned a 45 degree tilt - there is a maneuver known as the 'Gunfighter's flip' that is usually quite successful in getting the cap fragments to fall free. It's hard to describe and takes some practice but once it's learned it pretty much solves the problem. After the shot, roll the gun to the right while putting your thumb on the hammer. Continue the roll while pulling the hammer back; the muzzle will begin to elevate as you do this. The spent cap should clear the recoil shield and fall free just before the hammer reaches full cock. At that point the muzzle should be on the order of 30 to 40 degrees of elevation, but still pointed downrange. When the hammer reaches full cock, rotate the gun back to level on target while moving your thumb back to the firing grip position.

Once you've tried this maneuver and seen how the cylinder, hammer, spent cap and your thumb all move together you'll get the idea. You can practice it just sitting in a chair (with an unloaded gun, of course!) watching tv, but take care not to dry fire the gun as that will damage the nipples.

Move slowly and observe how things work together the first few times. Like I said, it takes practice to do successfully, so don't expect too much the first several times. Once you've done it correctly it'll be a lot easier.

Good advice about returning the gun. Some designs are more prone than others, but they all can do it. It's very unlikely that exchanging the gun will be successful mitigation. Just practice and learn how you gun likes to be handled and you'll be fine sooner than you think.

[Cincinnati Slim]

Getting the right cap/nipple combo is the trickiest part of shooting a C&B revolver.

I replace the factory nipples with stainless TRM versions from Thunder Ridge Muzzloading. Combined with Remington #11 caps jams now are very rare.

Others have had good luck with Treso alloy nipples. I believe they work best with #10 CCI caps. The Remington and CCI caps are slightly different sizes.
Both are pretty easy to find around here. The CCI caps are "hotter" but the Remington's seem to work best for me.

Anybody else feel free to add their two cents here...

Trust me, once you get the cap/nipple thing worked out you'll really start enjoying your charcoal burning wheel gun !

Slim

[Steve499]

The location the caps are jamming up in is an important clue to how to try to come up with a fix. If you have fragmented caps down in the hammer cut in front of the hammer, you need to look closely after you fire and as you cock for the next shot. If you see that the nipple has already lost the cap but when you cock you find it in front of the hammer, that means it came off at firing due to the hammer failing to remain down on the nipple. The hammer can be assisted staying down by increasing the hammer spring tension by shimming and/or the hammer blowback can be minimized by nipple replacement with Ampco nipples or some of the others with small orifices.

If the cap fragments are trapped under the hammer after firing but escape to jam things up as soon as you cock the pistol, some version of the 'gunfighter's flip' mentioned earlier may help. On my one revolver which gives me trouble that way, I found that if I flip it out in front of me, muzzle pointing down as I cock, sorta like you toss coffee grounds from the bottom of your coffee cup, most times the cap is thrown clear. On mine, vertical flipping just lets the cap fall down in front of the hammer and there you go.

If the cap is riding partially around before coming from the nipple and then wedging up somewhere, the front of the standing breech can be opened up in the area between the hammer cut and capping groove; also the frame corner to the right of the hammer can be rounded somewhat. This allows more clearance which allows, theoretically, the fired cap to fall free and exit at the capping cut out.

I'd recommend nipple replacement for starters.

[theotherwaldo]

I've never had much trouble with cap jams, probably because I learned to shoot on cap-and-ball guns. This is the first time that I've heard of the 'gunfighter flip', but it's basically the way that I've always fired revolvers.

From what I've seen, jams occur among folks that shoot modern style. That is, keeping the muzzle down in preparation for super-fast following shots, tightly gripping that plow-handle instead of letting it slide and pivot in your hand.

When I shoot, the pistol pivots on my middle finger and the recoil is absorbed by my two lower fingers and the mass of the gun. My hand doesn't pivot much, but the gun does. At the peak of recoil the tip of the hammer is naturally under the tip of my thumb and a slight flip forward cocks the gun and brings it back into battery.

It's always worked for me, anyway.

[Im283]

I learned shooting these pistols back way before Al Gore's internet could teach a person.

Dunno how I learned it but I have always tilted the gun to the right as I cock for the next shot. Pretty much most of the time the spent cap falls away. Of course I shoot left handed and turning the gun as I recock it is pretty easy on me.

I bought one of these round barreled revolvers a couple months ago and the gun shoots just fine. I get no more or less jams than I do with any other percussion pistol.

I don't think returning the gun is gonna fix nothing for you.

[Shotgun Willy]

Cap jams are just one of those things we have to deal with. I loaded up my guns last weekend with just caps- in preperation to actual loading - and the caps still fragmented. My Euroarms 1858 never has problems and my Anonymous 1851 only has occasional problems. My 1860 Pietta has constant problems because the hammer spring is weak. The 1860 is also the only one that I can use one handed. The other two take one hand to fire and one hand to cock. Thanks to Steve499's trick with the leather shim I get fewer failures to fire but still have to deal with some cap fragments. Unfortunately I haven't learned 'the flip' yet.

[theotherwaldo]

Two hands to cock? Sounds like you have 1911 Syndrome, a form of conditioning that prevents you from raising your thumb while a firearm is in recoil!

[Shotgun Willy]

I miss my 1911 sometimes, then I remember what it costs to feed it and I get over it.
Actually, my thumbs don't work so good any more, so I don't have the strength in them to pull the hammers back. I can still squeeze the triggers pretty good though.

[scrat]

Not that many people have mentioned it. But its all about Nipple and caps. Different cap brands will be different. Example #10cci and number 10 remington are both different. Same with number 11. So the most important part is to match the cap to the nipple. This will give you a lot less misfires, cap fragments and falling off caps. If there is a gun shop around you the best thing to do is take the cylinder and nipples to the gun shop and have them match you up some nipples with the types of caps your going to be using

[hildo]

You can hold the gun upside down (triggerguard up), then cock it and at the same time check where the spend cap parts are going. Gravity should do it's work. If they stick on the nipple, remove the spend cap. This way you should hardly have any problems.

Hildo

[Jamie C.]

Also check the inside face of the recoil shield to see if it's rough. If it is, a bit of polishing will make spent caps slide off rather than wedge into place and lock things up.

Just don't get carried away and remove too much metal.


J.C.

[PeashooterJoe]

Have better luck with the Remington caps over CCI for jams, try some if available. Cured some of my jam prone Colts that were giving me fits. PeashooterJoe..

[Misfire99]

I did some research on the term "Gunfighter's flip." I didn't find much so it seems this is not a common term. But what I did find is two posts on this forum and a book written by Johnney Bates and Mike Cumpston titled Percussion Pistols and Revolvers, History, Performance, and Practical use. The term "Gunfighter's flip" was coined to describe the action of holding the barrel straight up, not rotating it as described here, to allow the cap to fall free. So it seems this term was coined in a book, that was copyrighted 2005, to describe a movement to dislodge caps. This term does not seem to have been in use before this book and only reintroduced on this forum. But on this forum it has been used to describe a completely different movement.

But hey Gunfighter's flip sure sounds good. If nobody use it before they sure should have:).

To verify my research just input "Gunfighter's flip", including quotes, into goggle and see what you get. When I did it I got this thread, one other on this forum and the book listing.

Isn't the internet great!

[mykeal]

Gee, I guess all those guys I used to shoot with at the rendezvous 30 years ago didn't know that what they were saying and doing hadn't been invented yet. How did they ever know what to do without the internet to tell them how wrong they were?

[hildo]

Misfire no need to get upset, I don't think Mykeal meant it in the way you think. Written words can easily be misinterpeted.

I don't know about the term 'gunfighters flip' per se, but I did read somewhere that pointing the gun up, and than cocking it was quite common.
In fact even when percussion revolvers were long gone it seemes to have been a common thing in the (US) military right upto the 2nd world war to cock their handguns that way, although there is no apparent sence in doing so.
Can anybody varify that? That would be interesting.

Hildo

[sundance44s]

I feel sure the people that carried and used these gun for selfdefence would have figured a way to keep the cap jams from happening ..it didn`t take me long at all ..it isn`t rocket science . Don`t know if they had a name for what they did or not ..They did express their selves well though, you can see that in their writeing .

[tightgroups]

I haven't shot my '58 Army in about a year but I don't recall having any jamming problems with this pistol. The Remington design is a little better function wise, IMHO. Buy a Remmy, you'll love it! Plus, they are much easier to load and the cylinder can be taken out without tools, just lower the loading lever and pull the pin out, pull the hammer back a bit and the cylinder will slide right out!

[mec]

I don't take credit for inventing the term "Gunfighter's flip." It has been around for a long time and I forget where I first heard it.

It seems to work for a lot of people but when I've tried it, It just helps the cap fall into the hammer cut either to act as a hammer block for the next shot or slides down into the action and really gums things up. What works better for me is to hold the revolver pointed slightly downward to keep the cap from leaving the nipple and letting it cycle to the right to fall off at the capping window in the frame. When I remember, I give it a slight flick as the hammer reaches full cock to kick it loose at that point.
It is also helpful to keep the hammer face free of grease, fouling or other sticky stuff so that the cap doesn't stick to it.

On one of the history channel, tales of the gun or similar program episodes, there is a slow motion film of a guy working two percussion revolvers (colt types) fast. You can see him dip the muzzles as he cocks the guns.

[Im283]

WOW , I thought we were above such harshness on the BP Shooting subforum.

very disappointing.

[scrat]

yep reminds me of handloads.com

they closed the black powder forums for the same thing. has been closed ever since.
http://forums.handloads.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=17505&PN=1
http://forums.handloads.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=17502&PN=1
http://forums.handloads.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=17478&PN=1

[scrat]

yep reminds me of handloads.com

they closed the black powder forums for the same thing. has been closed ever since.
http://forums.handloads.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=17505&PN=1
http://forums.handloads.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=17502&PN=1
http://forums.handloads.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=17478&PN=1

[scrat]

Whats up with the forum i know it was down for about an hour but this is ridiculous.

[JayC]

I always thought black powder was a way to relax. It seems it gets some folks really cranked up!

Google is just a tool, it is not gospel. Garbage in, garbage out. Nothing in, nothing out.

[wthig]

Dang, you guys are great. Everything helped me. I got a new pistol from Cabelas today and it did make a difference. The "flip" worked (I am left handed if that matters lol) and thank you all for the advice I will take. I just had a good time with that old/new pistol.

Talmage

[scrat]

Good to hear

[Rachen]

WOW , I thought we were above such harshness on the BP Shooting subforum.

very disappointing.

Wait. What the heck is going on? I have read this entire thread, I found absolutely no evidence of BS. Everybody made a very good contribution, and I learned many new things from it, even though I have worked with black powder for such a long time.

You should see Glocktalk and HK forums, especially when three fellows named Todd, Gecko45, and SPECOPS were on there:D

[tightgroups]

I concur, this forum is well behaved. Things can get down and dirty on some of the forums I've been on!

TG.

[sundance44s]

Something I might add ..caps back in the day ..were made different than what they are today ..infact very corrosive to the gun , but they could have been made thicker and not had the problems with the small fragments we do today . Things today are made much cheaper , for greater proffits . Todays makers probally didn`t do enought testing to relize there would be a problem by makeing the cap out of thinner materials ..after all 20 years ago guys like us that shoot these replicas were hard to find .

[tightgroups]

Sundance,

The original caps of the period (19th century) were made very thin, so they wouldn't cause jams. I use Remington percussion caps because they are a bit thinner, not to mention that they perform better than CCI in almost every way, at least in my opinion, whatever it is worth.

TG.

[sundance44s]

Tightgroups you might be right ..I`ve never seen a cap from that era ..although hard to beleive anything from that period being made thinner than whats made here today .
I do know musket caps are made much thicker and when I fire my Zuave rifled musket , the caps don`t fragment at all thats what got me to thinking about the possibility of the thicker caps cureing the small fragmenting problems ...they stay put untill I take them off ..and they have a larger charge in them than the smaller #11`s and such . I use the Remington#10 caps on all my pistols , and never have a problem ..CCI`s and me don`t get along at all ..I`ve got guns with weak hammer springs that won`t even pop a CCI cap .

[tightgroups]

Hi,

They made them thinner specifically so they would crumple up and not jam the action of the gun. Think about it, the thicker the cap, the more problems with jams, less clearance and more resistance when they do fall into the action. The thinner caps would shred easily and probably fall right out.

I don't like CCI's, I used to use them in the beginning but switched to the Remington caps because they were made of thinner material. Plus the Remington caps are easier to "bend" into an elliptical/oval shape, so when you put them on the nipple they stay put, giving a nice and snug fit.

TG.

[Rachen]

I sometimes use my own caps, made with the Tap-O-Cap out of Bud light cans. These caps, made from aluminum, tends to stick on tight on the cylinder cones and not fragment, like the Remington and CCI caps tend to do.

Also the German caps from Dynamit Nobel tends not to fragment as much, although they do, occasionally, especially on my LeMat, where the mainspring is much more powerful than conventional caplocks.

I read that closed-recess revolvers such as Patersons will experience more problems with cap fragment jams. large revolvers with open recesses, such as Navies and Remingtons, tend to cycle spent primers with better efficiency, thats what the recesses on the recoil shield is for.

[tightgroups]

Hi Rachen,

I want my caps to fragment and drop out, so the nipple is clear for the next reloading. During real combat, that is exactly what you would want to happen. Since we needn't worry about that now-a-days, it really is a personal preference. I like the Remington caps the best as they are much softer and don't gum up the action, at least in my revolvers.

I've heard of those Tap-O-Cap gizmos'...Are you happy with yours and do they work alright?, or would you recommend everyone to stick with the store-bought percussion caps?

TG.

[Rachen]

I've heard of those Tap-O-Cap gizmos'...Are you happy with yours and do they work alright?, or would you recommend everyone to stick with the store-bought percussion caps?

Howdy there, Tightgroups.

Midsouth Shooting Supply sells those, and I got mine from them a year ago. I don't know if they still sell them or not, but mine worked extremely well for me. The only pet peeve about using homemade caps is that the primer chemical in the kid's capgun caps tend to be very corrosive. I haven't had an issue with corrosion due to the caps, but every time I finish firing, I clean the cylinder and cones as soon as possible.

I bought the Tap-O-Cap because I am self reliant and I enjoy playing frontiersman once in a while. However, now that I done several tests with them, I tend to keep it aside for emergencies, and use store bought caps for regular range practice. HOWEVER, the tool is absolutely good, and I recommend everyone have one as part of his/her emergency kit.

[pohill]

I've never had a cap jamming problem with my Paterson. The nipples are set fairly deep in the cylinder.
Tap O Cap drive me nuts. I can't find an ignition source that sets off the powder - the red rolled caps make a nice POP but they don't ignite the powder.

[scrat]

hmmmm you know ive heard of tap o caps. REad different things about them but never tried them. Cost is cheap. But then you read reviews like pohills then it just makes you rethink it. Tap o caps only come in # 11 caps though. Id love to get one in a #10

[pohill]

It's a great product for about $20.00. It's time consuming, but once you get the hang of it you can crank them out. I just can't find a good paper cap to make it go BOOM.

[tightgroups]

I might break down and buy one o' those Tap-o-Caps someday, thanks Rachen!

You can always squeeze the the #11's so they are a bit oval shaped, then they will stay on a #10 nipple just fine.

TG.

[Shotgun Willy]

Is anyone that owns a Tap-O-Cap making their own powder also? If so I've got an experiment for you. Would a tiny bit of homebrew powder in a homemade cap work in place of the paper caps? Perhaps, when you form your ball, before corning it, you put a thin layer into a cap, and let it dry. Will it explode when the hammer lands on it?

[mykeal]

Black powder is not impact sensitive.

[Rachen]

Black powder is not impact sensitive.
I was going to say the exact same thing too.

I might break down and buy one o' those Tap-o-Caps someday, thanks Rachen!

You can always squeeze the the #11's so they are a bit oval shaped, then they will stay on a #10 nipple just fine.

TG.

It's very worth it! Yes, the caps can always be pinched to be made to fit the cones.

If you have ignition problems with the paper roll caps, you can always try the daisy petal caps. HOWEVER, THEY ARE CORROSIVE, AND ABSOLUTELY MAKE SURE YOU CLEAN YOUR GUN AFTER USE.