How i make HOT percussion caps

Nothing I did seemed to make a difference. 90% or more of my caps failed. I have been doing a lot of reading about making caps. One article I found complained that the caps were to small to fit on his #11 replacement nipples. I removed one of my nipples and found that my caps didn’t fit on my replacement nipples. I checked my caps with the factory nipples and they easily fit on. I reinstalled the factory nipples and tested with empty chambers. 100% fired. I haven’t been able to go to the desert and try live fire. My goal is to go shooting this week. Weatherman says sunny and 90’s this week.

I have a couple of questions. Does the homemade caps work with the blackpowder substitutes? Are there other manufacturers of cap makers? Is there instructions on making your own? I have inlines, would I need to prime the nipple? When pressing the caps on with a stick, is the stick flat or cupped out for the cap? Is anyone doing anything special for musket caps that have ears? Thanks in advance, our last time out with our BP we went through a couple of packs of caps and 209 primers, I have plenty of 209s but running low on caps. W

I bought replacement nipples because CCI #11 are very loose with the factory nipples. CCI is all that I have been able to find. Has anyone used SlixShot nipples with home made caps or CCI #11 caps? I was thinking about ordering a set.

Thanks Mr Kid.I like to think that we buck each other up .Pretty much in agreement on the what needs to be done.Your discovery of using Duco Cement is inspired. As was you using the brass roles and copper too from hobby lobby. I would say that more than half of the metal hangups are gone.I didn't stop it as much as I would like but now I can work it better. I use it on a drill press now and production is good. The drill press is ponderous and seems clunky compaired to a reloading press.
Lyle These caps have folded sides. If you push them on with more pressure the skirts will expand a lot to fit on any normal nipple. My caps made with the forrester die are even smaller and need a lot of extra pressure to go on any nipple I have. You can feel the skirt give when pushed on.
rdnktrkr Yes The caps made with the 22 reloader powders or FA-42 formula work very well with Pyrodex , Black MZ and 777. all that I have tried. They are powerful enough for any normal use. The flame is dark but penetrates . There is a fair amt of fouling with this and good cleaning is needed. The toy pistol caps can work too if done like the Kid has worked out. At this time there is only one capmaker to be bought. They can be made if you have the equipment and skills. Including for the musket caps. I have made one myself and made thousands of the cups with it.
Black Jack Shellac

TheOutlawKid said:

I believe Duco cement is a nitrocellulose glue...but i read somewhere that you can technically make nitrocellulose glue by using a smokeless powder and acetone. I have never done this...but it might work.

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Have you tried this? I picked up the Duco locally, just asking. Waiting for a break in the weather and the time to do a testing on my caps.

Just4FunOldGuns said:

Have you tried this? I picked up the Duco locally, just asking. Waiting for a break in the weather and the time to do a testing on my caps.

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I recently posted about nitrocellulose glue or lacquer, it's been used for making paper cartridges. --->>> https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...cartridge-formers.885180/page-2#post-11901460

I went shooting today and used my home made caps. I filled the cap about 1/2 to 3/4 full of priming compound, then compressed the priming compound. Then I put the Duco cement in acetone and added one drop to each cap. I waited a minute or two and added another drop of acetone. Every cap fired and set off the powder in the cylinders. I used 24g of Pyrodex P and a .375 round ball.

Lyle said:

I went shooting today and used my home made caps. I filled the cap about 1/2 to 3/4 full of priming compound, then compressed the priming compound. Then I put the Duco cement in acetone and added one drop to each cap. I waited a minute or two and added another drop of acetone. Every cap fired and set of the powder in the cylinders. I used 24g of Pyrodex P and a .375 round ball.

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Thanks for the report brother. Im still waiting on my cap maker. What material did you use for the metal cap?

I used pop cans.

The only reason I have for wanting to make my own primers and caps is because I know many powerful people think everything that goes bang should be illegal, and they seem to be taking over. It gives me a seriously good feeling just knowing they can't stop me from having whatever rights God gave me. However, not being omniscient I don't know that we'll ever need home made caps.
If they ever get enough power to stop the production and sale of primers and caps you can just about guess that they will find ways to dry up components like toy caps and primer compounds, even precursor chemicals.

On the .005" copper I should try that again, but what we really need is for someone to design and make a set of dies for the reloading press, cut the copper into close tolerance strips and feed them, have the punch in the ram and die where they normally reside so they come out the top and drop down a tube into a cup.
Then copy-rite and sell drawings, many of us have machine tools, I'd buy a set of drawings in a heartbeat.

TheOutlawKid said:

Im surprised they worked without allowing them to dry a while. I let mine dry 24-48 hours...usually 36-48 hours before i use them. I have had cap failure due to not allowing them to dry. But thats awesome that it worked for you!

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I don’t know why you have the impression that the caps were not dry. I loaded the caps last week, did a test of them on Sunday, shot them today.

H.S. I started making my own caps because they are difficult to find. I paid about $70 for the die and one package of Prime All. That equals about 1,000 caps in cost. Hopefully caps will soon be available again and I can put the cap making supplies in storage.

TheOutlawKid said:

My apologies sir....the way i read it i thought you made the caps and then waited a minute or two and then shot them. Sorry about that. I do know the priming compound will work immediately once mixed if you compress it (which i experimented with but it easily crumbled). I am glad you were able to get them to work though. The next step is to have them have a longer shelf life for storage. I add baking soda to my sulfur, i put in .4 grains for every 3 grains of sulfur. I actually have a batch of sulfur used just for caps and i mix it 1:9 ratio of baking soda to sulfur. So thats 1 gram of baking soda for every 9 grams of sulfur.

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Maybe you should sell the compound with instructions as a more shelf stable priming compound

TheOutlawKid said:

In this pic you can kinda see better what the finished caps will look like...and the way i make them ensures that the contents never fall out of the cap...theyre solid and going no where. View attachment 832640 View attachment 832641

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this is a great post, I recommend it should be a TUTORIAL!!!

Commercial percussion cap manufacturing is something I haven't yet seen on youtube, it may be that to make caps of that quality they need to go through more than one die, and maybe even annealing between dies. I think the cap maker disussed here is a worthwhile tool but it would be nice to see the edges smoother like commercial caps. Also, the sides of commercial caps have striations but no folds.
There was a youtube video wherein a guy was designing a proper die which had a centered clearance grind for a copper strip to slide through the die to be punched, I wonder if that's still up and if the guy continued the research.

You can find the drawings of press mounted cap makers in the muzzleloading forum in CAST Boolits. Some have been made and they work. Free for all. I have myself attached my capmaker to a drill press. It wasn't so hard to do. I can get a high production rate. The cups drop out the bottom and into a plastic cup. Eventually I may mod the cap maker for reloading press work.
Black Jack Shellac

Black Jack Shellac said:

View attachment 993997 View attachment 993998 You can find the drawings of press mounted cap makers in the muzzleloading forum in CAST Boolits. Some have been made and they work. Free for all. I have myself attached my capmaker to a drill press. It wasn't so hard to do. I can get a high production rate. The cups drop out the bottom and into a plastic cup. Eventually I may mod the cap maker for reloading press work.
Black Jack Shellac

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Mr. Black Jack Shellac,

That is a thing of beauty. Your ability to make percussion caps is a unique skill. Most people would scoff at the tedious work of making caps. But then again if we were most people we wouldnt shoot muzzleloaders ;-) I respect your can-do attitude. I hope to put out a few nice caps when my cap-maker gets here

Hey Kid You may want to use a drill press too. It isn't hard. Do you have a good size drill press? A arbor press even better. How about a reloading press? . There is a advantage . Since the punch is held in the die all the while ,you can't drop it or do other things that could dull the teeth. Thanks to you both for the compliments. I think the cap maker people are missing the boat with this. Forrester had the auto-cap press mounted 45 years ago. I hope others will also explore the ways to do this.
Black Jack Shellac

You see the board the punch is sitting on? It sits in a shallow depression.!" x 1/8" deep. Dead center of the depression is a hole drilled all the way through.The cups fall all the way though and through the center of the table into a plastic cup. Simple and trouble free. It helps if your drill press is good sized .Doing this on a smaller press my be too much for it to handel.
Black Jack Shellac

webrx said:

I have not ventured down this path yet, but I did buy both roll caps and plastic caps just in case.

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In my area the shortage of caps has been extreme enough to make me consider those plastic caps. I’ve picked up a few and will test them out in my 1851 Navy. Other members have said they are either unreliable or don’t work for them, so I’ll be experimenting to see if the exact issue can be figured out.