I've sent hundreds of balls downrange over the last few months before I realized that virtually all of the instructions, and all of you cap your cylinders last.
I've been capping them first.
Made sense to me.
On my first two Cap and Ball pistols, the nipples run pretty snug for the caps that are readily available... Too snug for me to get 100% first strike reliability by just pushing the caps onto the nipples through the cutout with my fingers the way the directions say you should.
I was getting too high a proportion of misfires seating the caps that way for my liking. They do fire on the second strike, but I wanted more reliability than I was getting.
I probably only loaded about a dozen cylinders before I began loading my cylinders outside of the guns so that I could better seat the caps.
I've been capping the cylinders with my fingers, then using the bottom of my brass powder measure to press the caps more firmly onto the nipples over empty chambers.
It seemed a real simple way to cure almost all of my ignition problems.
There is no way in the world that I'd be doing that on a nipple that has a charge and a ball underneath it.
What am I missing here fella's?
My thought is/was that once the cap is firmly seated on the nipple, it's safe until you hit it with a hammer... is there some other time during the loading process where you might accidently set off a cap besides when you are seating it?
It is possible that I could drop the cylinder in the middle of the loading process, while only some of the chambers are charged, and that one or more caps could discharge from the drop, but if that happened, while I'd be overcome with smoke, and perhaps pummelled by felt wads, none of the cylinders would have balls seated, I seat those using the loading lever once my cylinder is capped, charged, topped with some filler and a wad and back inside my pistol.
I guess the bottom line is that I just felt really creepy pushing an explosive cap onto a metal nipple over a fully loaded cylinder that isn't even aligned with the gun barrel... especially given the potential that if that cap goes off, it might well touch off any other loaded, but uncapped chambers.
I'm either onto something, or I've missed something completely.
I've been capping them first.
Made sense to me.
On my first two Cap and Ball pistols, the nipples run pretty snug for the caps that are readily available... Too snug for me to get 100% first strike reliability by just pushing the caps onto the nipples through the cutout with my fingers the way the directions say you should.
I was getting too high a proportion of misfires seating the caps that way for my liking. They do fire on the second strike, but I wanted more reliability than I was getting.
I probably only loaded about a dozen cylinders before I began loading my cylinders outside of the guns so that I could better seat the caps.
I've been capping the cylinders with my fingers, then using the bottom of my brass powder measure to press the caps more firmly onto the nipples over empty chambers.
It seemed a real simple way to cure almost all of my ignition problems.
There is no way in the world that I'd be doing that on a nipple that has a charge and a ball underneath it.
What am I missing here fella's?
My thought is/was that once the cap is firmly seated on the nipple, it's safe until you hit it with a hammer... is there some other time during the loading process where you might accidently set off a cap besides when you are seating it?
It is possible that I could drop the cylinder in the middle of the loading process, while only some of the chambers are charged, and that one or more caps could discharge from the drop, but if that happened, while I'd be overcome with smoke, and perhaps pummelled by felt wads, none of the cylinders would have balls seated, I seat those using the loading lever once my cylinder is capped, charged, topped with some filler and a wad and back inside my pistol.
I guess the bottom line is that I just felt really creepy pushing an explosive cap onto a metal nipple over a fully loaded cylinder that isn't even aligned with the gun barrel... especially given the potential that if that cap goes off, it might well touch off any other loaded, but uncapped chambers.
I'm either onto something, or I've missed something completely.