If you're able to push the hammer down onto the nipples and hear an audible "Click", that's telling "me" that the caps aren't seated.
With a clean gun you can get away with a few indescretions, but once she gets some crud on her things have to be working the way St. Sam intended or you basically have a non-lethal weapon in your hand.
oxide80 said:
If you bed the hammer and give it gentle push into the nipple it will make a final click and then you can cycle the gun to the next round. It does not do this with out caps on the nipples.
My take on this is as follows: The caps "might" not be getting seated properly. This will cause them to drag on the recoil shield. If the recoil shield is spotlessly clean you might get away with this, if not the drag will be just that, a drag. More likely is you are trying to stuff too much nipple into too little cap. Try a larger cap, i.e. #11 in either CCI or Remington
I have an 1860 Sheriff Model by Pietta which for some unknown reason likes CCI #10's, I only have one other gun that uses the things. In fact I had the gun out today, loaded it and then capped it with CCI #11's. After it was capped I stuffed it in my pocket (remember, stubby barrel Sheriff) and helped my buddy get his pistol loaded. When I pulled it out of my pocket I noticed that a couple of the caps were missing, so THAT'S what happened to the other gun I own that takes CCI #10's, it's in my pocket!!
Anyway, try a larger cap. Also, and this sounds dumb but....make sure that the nipples are actually screwed ALL the way into the cylinder. Don't lean on them, they just need to be snug, but if one or two is backing out it would cause the caps to drag on the recoil shield.
Let us know what you figure out so that which ever of us made the closest diagnosis can gloat.