Legends of the wild west caps

Status
Not open for further replies.
Damn man. I know when something is way beyond my capabilities, and this is certainly it. I would buy Maynard tapes if somebody made and sold them commercially. A good place to sell them would be at the N-SSA Nationals, when they start up again. (This would give the maker plenty of time to get ready.)



Mr.alexander, i know it seems outside of your capabilities and i too feel this way at times...as i did when i first started looking into making black powder and primers. Once you attempt it, you realize how simple it can be...it just seems intimidating at first. Making H-42 and H-48 primer formula is way simple, just measure 3 powders and mix together gently and carefully...then scoop it up with a small scoop and place into cap hulls. Im sure if you tried it that it would be successful. Dont let intimidation limit you from attaining your goal.
 
All this talking about caps got me thinking about when I was a kid mom would be at the grocery store and she would buy me a package of caps. Most of the time I did not have a cap gun. She would just give me one of Dad's hammers and send me to the back yard. Today there is no way people would give a seven-year-old a hammer. good times!
 
Mike 56, i grew up poor and didnt have a cap gun..but every now and then id run into caps i would mash with rocks. Heck at age 7-8 i already was trying to carve my own bow and arrow with a pocket knife cuz i had no toys...and the hammer...well i used one all the time to nail stuff together...again out of boredom. Kids my age at the time had nintendos and fancy game players etc, although we were too poor to own one...they didnt catch my interest. By todays standards i think i would have been considered think a "feral child". Id daydream all day about living primitively...but was born in the era of electrical technology and spoiled brats.
 
You ever make rubber band guns? We would make them out of scrap wood and a close pin. We would be outside playing cowboys and Indians running around shooting each other and come home with red marks all over us.
 
My favorite cap toy was those darts with a heavy metal holder and plunger set up on one end and plastic flettching. You tore off a single cap square and put it in the holder, screwed the plunger back in place and threw it at something had so the cap popped. I gues it was a precurser to my being forced into the Field Artillery when as a preteen I figured out you could shoot the things over the house with a sling shot and have them hurtle down like mortar shells into the driver way where sister and girl buddies were playing hop scotch. Unfortunatly odds that a dart might wack a girl on the noggin were high enough to cause some concern, but over looked, until all the darts and caps got taken away amongst the crying and wailing.

Later I had "Replica Models" very realistic zinc firearms models that frequently field strip pretty much the same as the real gun they were a model of (P38 close enough that when first handed a P1 by the German Army I stripped it right down, the 1911 lacked a barrel link and locking grooves on barrel or slide but otherwise was like a real one for assembly ). Some of these used solid bras dummy cartridges with what appeared to be a hollow point. One cut the dots from paper caps and pressed a couple into the hollow point and one could "fire" the model.

The theatrical Model M1928 A1 Thompson belonging to a friend actually cycled when so loaded semi or full auto! This caused a few "Wee-wee" moments for some folks. This one did not strip like an original but looked close enough I nearly got arrested with it on the floorboard of my car one night. Local Yokel LEO finally convinced it was a toy actually pulled the trigger....and got of a four round burst as a surprise....that counted as one of the "Wee-wee" moments!

My dad around 1960 got a very realistic chrome plated zinc DA cap pistol that looked like the then new Colt Commander. A couple of his friends initially thought it real. It was stolen around 1971 at a car repair shop because we forgot it was in the glove box. Never have found one like it. You pushed down the slide safety and the slide could be drawn back and the cap magazine popped out of the ejection port, hinged at the front, a roll was inserted the strip started and the magazine pused back in and the slide locked forward. Tearing off the excess cap tape reurned it to its realistic guise.

I loved roll caps. We also had in the early and mid 1960s sheets of round green stick on caps. Pealed them off a sheet like a price sticker and pressed them onto the backs of Faux cartridges for SAA toy revolvers for instance. My gunslingers gun had little brass cartridges with a spring in them and one pressed a grey plastic bullet into the end and when the hammer fell on them it imparted sufficient inertia that the bullets unhooked from the cartridges and the springs shot them down the barrel. They launched the grey bullets with out the caps but the added sound and smoke made the game better...oh course we drew on one another ... and still argued about who shot first and who's shot was most effective.

Some toys featured plastic bullets that worked like a spigot mortar. They fit over and undersized spigot on a cartridge or fixed in the barrel of the toy and the blast of a cap, Greenie Stickie or Red Roll, powered the shot. One kid had a Parris Rifle that rather than being an 1903 clone was a percussion muzzle loader. It came with little undersized cork balls that could be rolled down the barrel and launched via the gasses from a cap crushed by the hammer....just like a real Maynard Tape Primer, except it was individual caps and not roll. There were two vent holes at the breech to prevent balls being driven to hard lest on "Put Your Sister's Eye Out" (How did moms always manage to capitalize that in spoken word?) I think it took us five minutes or so to go looking for duct tape to close the vents with. It worked yet none of us have sisters with eye patches.

Maybe they called us Boomers for the caps and not the Baby Boom?

"OK, BOOMER!"

-kBob
 
As a kid i ran into a box in the attic with old toys and them green stick em dots you were speaking about and a couple rolls of caps. There was also an old toy cap gun, not plastic...was made out of some cheap pot metal or something and it has some heft but was rusted shut. I remember setting off a couple of the caps and remembering how much louder they were than the current ones of the day. They were LOUD. wish they still made caps like that as it would definately help with making home made primers in a pinch. I have a good 30 or 40 packs of them 2400 count Legends of the West caps made in germany...they are hotter and of better quality than the cheap chinese ones, but the german ones are hard to come by..especially the 2400 count packs. I stocked these up to make home made caps, but now just make them by mixing some H-48 and H-42 formula. For now ill keep the roll caps to use in muzzleloader rifles where all i need is 1 or 2 roll cap dots in the cap hull and using a couple pumps of the Treso nipple primer to fill the nipple with powder. This guarantees ignition...and this way it allows me to make 1200-2400 homemade percussion caps per package that only cost me 3 bucks.
 
I made a few caps the other day while they worked well I had a hard time putting the glue in them. That glue stringy and hard to work with. any tips? will super glue work?
 
Get an eye dropper...mix a ratio of 1:1 or 1:2 parts Duco cement to acetone. Then you can just place a couple drops of glue in the cap...it will be liquidy and not stringy.
 
Sounds good. What acetone are you using The acetone fingernail polish remover from the dollar store? I mix that with ATF to make penetrating oil. Or do I have to get the high dollar stuff from the hardware store? I know I'm cheap.
 
Oh im sure it doesnt matter..i use the generic stuff from walmarts hardware and paint dept. The finger nail polish remover is basically the same with just some added color and fragrance...but should work just as well. Dont use any other types of thinner with this glue tho...just acetone.
 
Oh also forgot to mention that most clear nail polishes are just nitrocellulose...thin out the nail polish with nail polish remover so that its thin enough to use a dropper....dont use the nail polish alone without thinning...ive tried this and it just makes a mess and the powder/primer mix just sticks to the brush. I prefer using Duco cement glue mixed with acetone tho as this works better and is the best glue and sealer i have ever used. You can also disolve some smokeless powder in acetone to make the glue...smokeless powder is nitrocellulose based. But since you already have duco glue i would just use that. I get an eye dropper...an empty Visene bottle...put about 1/3 of the bottle filled with glue and the rest with acetone..and if you store it and it dries out or gets hardened ...you can just add acetone and it will break it up and be able to be used again.
 
I would like to but in. The Kid put me on to the Duco cement.Thank you kid. You can thin the cement a lot and still have it work. I put a drop into a teaspoon amt of acetone. Stir and use. A little wooden matchstick serves as a dipstick. The mixture is so thin that a drop will just fall off into the cup. Works well. No crumbling and nothing falls out of the cups. Kbob I also used the cap darts. Lots of fun. I did have a Matell Thompson Sub Gun that fired role caps in full auto. Only worked a few times. Still it was neat.
Black Jack Shellac
 
Mr.black jack shellac is right, not a lot of duco cement is needed. I go really thin...maybe 1:8 to 1:10 ratio of duco to acetone, i only gave the higher ratios due to being able to "eyeball" larger ratios. Love duco cement....it has had so many uses when it comes to adhesive necessities in making caps and paper cartridges. I really did enjoy your primer mix that consisted of charcoal...i just wish red phosphorus was easier to come by in larger quantities. It was cleaner than the H-48/H-42 primer mix...and the orange/yellow residue was gone. I wonder if instead of using the regular portion of antimony... If it was replaced with a charcoal+antimony mix of 1:1 ratio..if it would be just as good yet cut down on the yellow/orange tinted fouling.
 
My last cap gun was a Fanner-Fifty, for those who remember. I'm about to be 72 so you can guess how long ago that was.

And by the way TWC, that is a fine looking mule you have in your Avatar.

Dave
 
I had one of the Hubly cap guns that looked like a Colt 1860 cartridge conversion. It was the same size as one. Dave T I am only 2 years behind you.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top