Cap making question

Not sure if its a binder or just crushed glass/sand grit...but its the tan stuff. You will only need the black/dark gray powder (antimony trisulfide), the yellow powder (sulfur), and white powder (potassium chlorate). Those are the only three ingredients you need.

Oh...and its marked with an S. There's only one tan colored packet. Should be easy enough to tell apart from sulfur as the sulfur is bright yellow and has that sulfur smell.

Navy Six 2 said:

I just purchased the cap making kit and priming compound from Sharp Shooter LLC. In previous posts, people have recommended NOT using the provided "binder". There are a total four packets; two marked L& L2, and two different packets marked "S". My question is which one of these is the "binder"?

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Did you receive the kit yet, as I was told they are 4 weeks behind in their orders when I ordered at the beginning of the month.
Thanks

TheOutlawKid said:

Oh...and its marked with an S.... and has that sulfur smell.

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like you’ve had a close brush with el diablo?

The gritty one is the binder but it may contain crushed glass. I need to mix a sample with of binder with alcohol, acetone to see if there's anything left behind.
Took at least 2 weeks to get mine.
Try it with out the binder, the mix that's shock sensitive with out crushed glass contains more sulfur, this looks like it has enough sulfur to be shock sensitive with out glass.
If a cap worth doesn't light off without the binder, add half a scoop or less of sulfur and carefully remix and retest.

The antimony (black powder) included in the kit is gritty enough to be the "frictioner"...no need for crushed glass. I only use the 3 ingredients. One thing i cant stand about the .22 reloader company that sells the prime-all mix is how they lie to their customers about the ingredients. If you look on youtube...some of the users listed the ingredients correctly and the .22 reloader company were quick to say that they were wrong and that it wasnt the correct ingredients. Now i completely understand they are trying to sell this product for profit..but dont call people liars when they list the ingredients. They want people to think its some secret proprietary ingredients and formula...but it isnt. Its a simple old formula from readily available ingredients. The only 3 packets/ingredients you need are the white powder bag (potassium chlorate), black powder bag (antimony), and yellow powder bag (sulfur). And dont listen to the company when they say that those arent the ingredients...because thats exactly what they are. As a matter of fact i might make a write up on how to make the "prime-all"/H-48 mix and how to improve it and add a good binder...but not sure if folks would be interested in a write up

There is one experiment to decide if the off white small bag stuff in the kit is glass. Put a small amount of it in a spoon. Add water and stir a little. Let dry completely. If its glass powder it will still be powder when it drys. If it looks like a dried glob of glue ,It's likely dextrin. Hi Kid nice to see you back. Oh I have a new binder for you guys to try. It is working very well for me.
Black Jack Shellac

Thanks mr.blackjack! Happy to be back! Care to share your new binder?

Black Jack Shellac said:

There is one experiment to decide if the off white small bag stuff in the kit is glass. Put a small amount of it in a spoon. Add water and stir a little. Let dry completely. If its glass powder it will still be powder when it drys. If it looks like a dried glob of glue ,It's likely dextrin. Hi Kid nice to see you back. Oh I have a new binder for you guys to try. It is working very well for me.
Black Jack Shellac

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If i remember correctly i ran that experiment and put some acetone or alcohol in a little container and mixed it with the powder and found that it did not disolve...thats when i figured it wasnt a binder but most likely finely crushed glass or even sand. It stayed gritty and wouldnt disolve. Either way...its an unnecessary ingredient so i dont even mess with it.

H-42 is the 3 simple ingredients.
H-48 is the same 3 ingredients plus glass.

You could mix up a tiny amount of H-42 and wet it with a tiny drop of slightly watered shellac to make it set up into a hard pellet once dry.

But H-42 and H-48 compound don't have a long shelf life. You need a little bit more advanced chemistry for very long life primers.

You can extend the life of the h-48 and h-42 by bringing down the acidity. Use baking soda in your sulfur...like 1/1000th and replace the sulfur with low acidic rubber makers sulfur

For those interested in priming compounds I recommend this site:

https://aardvarkreloading.com/index.html

Please be very careful and follow all safety instructions if you plan to try this out, otherwise we'll be calling you, "Stumpy."

I recommend the link above. Great source of info...but the chemistry for the non corrosive mixes were waaaaay over my head.

If you pick the right chemistry the chemicals pretty much synthesize them selves.
The lead Hypophosphate one is pretty interesting. You can't buy lead Hypophosphate but you can make it. The feed stocks and byproduct water soluble and the lead Hypophosphate is only slightly water soluble so it pretty much immediately precipitates out of solution. Beside being poisonous it's pretty harmless, stabile.
It makes what's known as a 2 salt mix, there's 2 lead salts in this one that are fairly inert besides being poisonous, oxidizer, ect but not explosive or sensitive at all until wetted. Once the chemicals are wetted something called lead nitro Hypophosphate forms in a minute or two and it's very shock sensitive once dry. But it only goes live once it's already divided into primer sized amounts.
So you could mix up a thousand primers worth of magic pixy dust with 0 explosive danger, perfectly safe aside from the water soluble lead salt part, set them all and go down the line adding a droplet of water or alcohol, water shellac mix, let dry and they are ready to go.
You just made your own match grade primers.

See thats the stuff that confuses me. I need exact steps in order to learn stuff like this. I need the steps to be precise and in laymans terms...as in "put X amount of X chemical and mix it with X amount of water and let it boil for X amount of time" etc. Mr.milsurpguy are you able to make the non-corrosive primer mix? If so...perhaps you could do a simple yet easy to follow write up? We would all love to learn how.

The ArdvarkReloading pdf does most of that. Before the ArdvarkReloading guy got booted from youtube he said he was going to eventually make a lead nitro Hypophosphate primer video and last I saw he was collecting the chemicals or waiting for them to arrive.
I am missing the Hypophosphate donor feed stock, it's used in nickle plating so it's pretty common.

TheOutlawKid said:

As a matter of fact i might make a write up on how to make the "prime-all"/H-48 mix and how to improve it and add a good binder...but not sure if folks would be interested in a write up

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Yeah...yeah, we're interested.

Sorry i meant 1:100 ratio of baking soda to sulfur. BUT i have read that some folks have had better experience if they wet mix their potassium chlorate with baking soda at a ratio of 25:1 or so...mix it well in a mortar and then allow to completely dry before using it in a primer mix. They say this method is way better and gives longer life. Im going to try mixing a batch of it today and drying it out so that i can do a few experiments on making the FA-42/H-42 mix...see if it performs well

Hi again. I would like to share with anyone who is interested in another binder for our percussion caps. This is to be applied with a dipstick as a final thing to do. You need a teaspoon of water and a drop of Elmer's white glue.Everyone has or can get the glue I combine the two in a small bottle and shake the heck out of it. You could stir it until the cows come home but that dose not work nearly as well. .. When mixed pour it out into a suitable sized thing like a spoon or pop can bottom. I use a small sized wooden matchstick as a dipstick. The water is thicker than acetone or alcohol so is different to work with. I have to lay the matchstick mostly in the water to get enough on it to form a drop. Just touching the inside of percussion cap will let the water/glue get into the cup. Let dry and done. Give it plenty of time as the water is slower to evaporate. I don't use any foil or paper .Everything has stayed put. All have fired in my tester and on my Mountain Rifle shooting Pyrodex.
Black Jack Shellac

Oh wow...that sounds simple. Never thought of using elmers. Im suprised the water doesnt affect the fa-42/H-48 mix...i always thought water would ruin it...but ur tests show otherwise. So thats great news! I wonder if maybe some gum arabic can be used since the mix works with water.

Wetting a H-42 or H-48 mix and allowing it to dry makes it more sensitive and reliable.
It will still go off wet.
The good thing about H-42 and H-48 is its got plenty of power to light off a powder charge even in tiny sub grain amounts.