cap making dies

[Rattus58]

Rattus58 you can find mannny's ad for his excellent cap maker on page 5 in the swappin & sellin section. That changes daily however. His op was 6-7-2014 and is titled WTS-Black Powder percussion cap maker by mannyCA. I do not have any connection with the sales of these, just a satisfied customer that wants to help spread the word that someone on the forum here is making and selling nice units at a good price. Thanks.

Thank you.. and Much Aloha...

[marcika]

I just find, that 4mm electronic capacitor upper ends are perfect for the Colt 1860. You just cut them in half and pull out the interior layers with a small screwdriver or something. I made about 20-25 pieces in half an hour. The walls of it are thicker, than the regular caps, hence it can be used multiple times. I need to mention though that i didnt measure out the amount of AM (prepared just quick for tsting about 15 mg without proper procedure just mixing bit of the not grinded ingredients on a paper and poured in the cap), but it made every time an adequate bang, and pushed a 12mm rubber plug through the barrel from the cylinder. I was using the same cap refilled after the trial. If You have a lot of this little capacitors in scrap PSUs or motherboards then it is an easy way.

[ofitg]

Marcika, thanks for the tip. I see that a person can buy ten 10uF capacitors on Ebay for one dollar(including postage from China to the U.S.). That's about the same price that people are paying for percussion caps nowadays..... if the little aluminum capacitor bodies are reusable, it becomes cost-effective.

I wonder if those Chinese 10uF capacitors are the correct width? The size is somewhat critical.

[marcika]

Well, the ones i collected have 4mm outer diameter. With some thick wall they are a bit loose on the Uberti 1860 Army. Pushing it a bit on the sides they seem to hold enough.
Other option might be the 4mm diameter glass tube fuse ends. Attachment 108880
Although, these are made of steel (sparks?), have thin wall. The fuse wire is welded in the middle of the cap representing a small bulge, that may couse some problems.
Sadly in our country common people are not allowed to have caps and BP. These are expected as cartridge ammo elements. Only with ammo loading licence and cartridge gun licence can i buy it in the gunshop. I dont have these yet. However, we can have muzzleloaders without any paper over 18 of age. I cant test the suggested caps for You but will post pictures of my gun capped with these empty caps and You decide

[ofitg]

Marcika, a couple of people on a different forum talked about modifying wire cutters to crimp caps down to the proper size - this might work on your capacitor bodies if they're loose -

http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=753806

[marcika]

Made some measurements. According to the dimensions published here (http://www.theopenrange.net/forum/in...p?topic=9093.0), the capacitor and fuse caps are a bit bigger in diameter resulting that the cap sides are holding on the bottom of the cone (with red on the sematic picture). They need to be cut longer to leave space (with green) for the priming mixture.
The fuse cap has to wide internal diameter and has to be pushed from the sides to take an oval shape or it is falling from the cone.
The capacitor cap used 3 times was torned at first shot, but i pushed it back to original shape and worked well at the 2 following trials.
Attachment 109004Attachment 109006Attachment 109007Attachment 109008Attachment 109009

[marcika]

Made some ~0.5g FoM just to ease my curiosity and to try in the alu and steel cups. Just wanted to inform you, that the waterish suspension of FoM is eating the alu caps quickly! The steel cup seems ok.
Read the post on the mixes and it seems that is not clear what is grit for. I just read, that it is forming incandescent particles and theese are the ones igniting the propellant. Sb2O3 and alu powder has the advantage beeing fuel and transforming into incandescent particles. Alu is burning faster which might be a con.

[brushhippie]

Is Mannyca still making these dies? Anybody know? Looked all over cant find his info...looked in sellin and swappin...no luck.

[Harter66]

Hippie I looked him up a couple of months ago he said he wasn't anymore .

[Idz]

Too bad MannyCA isn't making his dies anymore. If you have access to a lathe you can easily make your own dies. Here's a link to my write-up:

http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ercussion-caps

[OverMax]

This topic is so old its got chin whiskers.

[Texantothecore]

Roll caps are yesterday's tomatoes. FA42 primer works.

[wicket]

Works for me. Corrosive as hell, but but easy to make and very reliable.

[Idz]

I don't see how rollcap caps are very corrosive. You have 0.02 grains at most of corrosive salts buried in 50 grains or so of blackpowder crud. I haven't noticed any difference between commercial and homemade caps as far as corrosion. Maybe if you didn't clean the gun you could find a difference.

[just_shooter]

What is FA42?

[ofitg]

I think they are referring to Frankford Arsenal FH-42, listed here -

https://www.northwestfirearms.com/th...ixtures.58110/

[wicket]

Dunno whether toy caps are any more corrosive than FH42. I tried them a couple of times and found them weak, filled with inert grit, and annoying to work with, that's my objection to them. It is kind of a pain to have to perform a prompt thorough cleaning after firing corrosives, but them's the rules.