primer caps?

[smorin2]

Hello all,this morning i purchased some older tins of caps cheap. One of them i thought were percussion caps reads "primer caps", they look like regular percussion caps but with a steel cup.The tin reads "GulioFiocchiLecco" primer cap 57 "Alcan Co."Alton (250 count) They do not fit on my Ruger Old Army. Does anyone here know what i bought?

[William Yanda]

57.....isn't that an old shotgun primer?

[smorin2]

Hi,i'm not sure. These caps resemble small pistol primers without the anvil,the priming mixture is mustard/beige colored and it is quite thick inside tapering to a point,kind of like looking into a cone.The wall thickness of these caps appears to be thicker the a percussion cap also.

[rhbrink]

I think that you have some shotgun primers when I was a young'un I remember depriming the fired shotgun primers. There was a tool much like what Lee makes today where you punched out the fired primer and then seated a new one back in. I can't remember about the anvil whether it came out with the old primer and you had to put it back into place then seat the new cap? Too many years ago?

RB

[Alberta woodsman]

They might be berdan primers

[MarkP]

I think the anvils are in the primer pocket on berdan primed cases

[smorin2]

Well thank you guys for the responses. I have one more question on this though,these caps are pretty much the same size-height and diameter as a small pistol primer,wouldn't it be larger if it was a shotgun primer or have shotgun primers changed? thank you

[shaune509]

As said above you have the cap portion of a #57 shot shell primer, these were reset into the outer flanged primer cup. This went out of use some time in the '60s followed by the demise of the small #57 primer to the #209. I have a box of Canuk 2B's to do the same.
Shaune509

[smorin2]

Ahh,ok,i get it now,i did not know that the 2 primer pieces were separate items once. Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond.There's always something new to learn in this hobby.