Home made caps

Black Jack Shellac said:

James It's good that you have tried full strength Duco cement and found that the charge will still go off.Man you would go through a tube fast that way..The split cap lets us know not to go this way..Are you using single layer pop cans? I like your way to sort and hold the caps.. Careful with them all upright.They can cut you. Us home made cap makers used to be thought different .Now we can claim respect. I would like to find a faster way to put the charge into the coups.Any ideas?
Black jack shellac

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The split caps probably had glue in the sides so they wouldn't open to go on the nipples... Single layer pop can caps, they split when fired but 90% fall off the open side when the cylinder rotates, easy to pick off any that are left on a nipple My pistol is the 1860 Colt... A faster way to put in the charges would be nice, something to think about there! I work on a piece of computer paper, if any is spilled on the paper its easy to pour back in the mix. I hold a cap with tweezers and pour in with a small homemade scoop. When filled it goes in the cardboard holders. Tamped and duco/acetone mix added after in the cardboard holders.

Ideas, but not tested, lol... I'm guessing the factory made caps have a wet compound sprayed in. Running an explosive dry powder mix through a powder measure doesn't sound good... maybe we can work out a wet mix we can just load the cap with a eye dropper. Not sure how well it will mix with any liquid carrier, guess I'll have to experiment. Maybe someone else has some ideas?

Well here is how they do it.

Rustmangler said:

Well here is how they do it.

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Hmm, could I have a different job, please!

Their is a new plant opening in Texas and PSA has imported an ammo manufacturing plant. They might need cap makers.

I think that when you get to using them you will see why nobody is happy with just using acetone in the cups. I no longer have the priming crumble and fall out. It used to do that until I started using a real binder. Put some of your filled cups in something and give them a shake or two. Acetone alone will not bind anything.
Black Jack Shellac

Black Jack Shellac said:

I think that when you get to using them you will see why nobody is happy with just using acetone in the cups. I no longer have the priming crumble and fall out. It used to do that until I started using a real binder. Put some of your filled cups in something and give them a shake or two. Acetone alone will not bind anything.
Black Jack Shellac

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I agree! Until I started adding the Duco cement to the acetone I had problems with the priming compound crumbling. No issues with the current system of acetone and Duco cement.

Just got my #10 set from 22reloader. The caps I’ve punched from single layer pop cans have fit my ROA factory nipples well.
Glad to find this thread before priming-I got the Prime-all, now to find some Duco and mix up a test batch.
I did find that the #10 caps fit well in an old large pistol primer tray the Winchester primers come in and will be using that for my tray to prime/bind.
I was lucky when I got my first BP last month and found 600 old CCI #11’s and just jumped on 500 REM #10’s, so once my technique is proved the cap kit will be set aside for rainy day/TEOTWAWKI use.

I use the prime all kit as it is. I started out using a acetone and had about half of them go of on the first pull. I switched to denatured alcohol and haven't had one fail yet.

I tried .005" thick copper sheet but it took too much pressure I thought, but it could have benefited from annealing I suppose. Then I tried .003 that that worked well. Aardvark reloading website has several formulas very close to factory compounds (https://aardvarkreloading.com/labequipment.html), and mewe primer reloading is where those guys hang out. (https://mewe.com/group/5ffcbdeadbcef71f84e867e)
These guys are pretty serious and they don't play with matches or toy cap gun rolls much, they use available chemicals to create reactions that produce commercial type compounds and there is much discussion also about the processes involved in loading the primers safely. Some of the compounds produce nearly true high explosive velocities but that's not needed. They explain how to make your own H48 which is prime-all but the higher goal is non mercuric non corrosive compounds with lots of flash and heat for primers for centerfire rifles and pistols. The same compounds work as well for percussion caps.
It's intense and tedious chemical work needing lab equipment but the actual costs are not over $200 to get started. Uh, adjust for inflation, that may be $500 in a week or so the way things are going.