Guide to making percussion caps

[ofitg]

There are so many formulas... H42, H48, EPH20, EPH25...etc. Have we reached a consensus on which is the easiest and most practical to use in muzzleloaders?

Can you buy Lead Nitrate where you live? Can you buy Calcium Hypophosphite (or Sodium Hypophosphite)? You would need those chemicals to make EPH20 or EPH25.

The biggest difference between H48 and FH42, is that H48 contains ground glass (ie, "grit", fine sand will work) to facilitate ignition.

[Idz]

quartz sand is very abrasive, glass is much softer. Glass was removed from primers because some felt it was too abrasive also.

[ofitg]

It is difficult to find online documents which detail how primers were evolving more than 100 years ago. It is not clear to me exactly when FH42 superseded H48. Hatcher’s Notebook mentions that “some shooters” were worried that H48 might cause bore erosion, but he does not indicate that it was ever established to be true. Hatcher did state that Frankford Arsenal switched from H48 (Typo? Perhaps he meant to write FH42?) to 35NF/FA70 during WW1, but the change was because of misfires, not bore erosion.
In any event, misfires could be more catastrophic than hypothetical long-term bore erosion.

[Sandro_ventania]

Can you buy Lead Nitrate where you live? Can you buy Calcium Hypophosphite (or Sodium Hypophosphite)? You would need those chemicals to make EPH20 or EPH25.

The biggest difference between H48 and FH42, is that H48 contains ground glass (ie, "grit", fine sand will work) to facilitate ignition.

For me to make H48 I would have to make my own chlorate and in this case, my own tin sulfide...(or pay the absurd price of antimony sulfide charged here). I have been researching and I am coming to the conclusion that it is more viable for me to produce EPH 20... I have access to lead nitrate and sodium hypophosphite, to synthesize lead hypophosphite. We live in easy times with increasingly difficult laws... but I think this is the way everywhere.

[LAGS]

I agree , make your stuff out of what you have available.

[MUSTANG]

For me to make H48 I would have to make my own chlorate and in this case, my own tin sulfide...(or pay the absurd price of antimony sulfide charged here). I have been researching and I am coming to the conclusion that it is more viable for me to produce EPH 20... I have access to lead nitrate and sodium hypophosphite, to synthesize lead hypophosphite. We live in easy times with increasingly difficult laws... but I think this is the way everywhere.

Whereas in the USofA; many have trouble getting chemicals to make EPH20 since the lead hypophosphite requires extraordinary effort to acquire (took me almost 18 months).

[Sandro_ventania]

Whereas in the USofA; many have trouble getting chemicals to make EPH20 since the lead hypophosphite requires extraordinary effort to acquire (took me almost 18 months).

I can't find it here. I'll have to synthesize it at home, using sodium hypophosphite... it didn't seem difficult.

[MUSTANG]

I can't find it here. I'll have to synthesize it at home, using sodium hypophosphite... it didn't seem difficult.

Apologies; I meant that sodium hypophosphite (used to make the Lead Hypopho****e for making EPH20) is difficult to come by here in the States. It took me 18 months to get the sodium hypophosphite - and it was sourced from outside of the USofA.

[ofitg]

I can't find it here. I'll have to synthesize it at home, using sodium hypophosphite... it didn't seem difficult.

After you do it the first time, stirring manually, you will probably want to buy one of these hotplate/stirring machines

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[Sandro_ventania]

The tool to make the caps is now ready.

[ofitg]

Here are illustrations from the aardvarkreloading.com website (dimensions in inches) -

https://aardvarkreloading.com/resour...2021-06-01.pdf

[Nobade]

I made two of those, one as dimensioned and another that is scaled up for musket caps. Recently I bought one of the 22 reloader ones to see if I was missing anything. Nope! My homemade ones work a lot better than the commercial one. I need to get a small triangular stone to sharpen and reshape the cutters on that. It is also made of very soft steel and mine is stressproof, hardened. Not impressive for the 50 bucks they cost.

[Sandro_ventania]

Here are illustrations from the aardvarkreloading.com website (dimensions in inches) -

https://aardvarkreloading.com/resour...2021-06-01.pdf

Yes...I used this illustration to guide me. My drawing was just to convert the measurements to the metric system.

[Sandro_ventania]

I made two of those, one as dimensioned and another that is scaled up for musket caps. Recently I bought one of the 22 reloader ones to see if I was missing anything. Nope! My homemade ones work a lot better than the commercial one. I need to get a small triangular stone to sharpen and reshape the cutters on that. It is also made of very soft steel and mine is stressproof, hardened. Not impressive for the 50 bucks they cost.

I'm going to make another one sized to use aluminum sheets used in gutters. I believe the caps will look better with a thicker sheet. It is also possible to do a gas check with a similar system.

[HWooldridge]

I made two of those, one as dimensioned and another that is scaled up for musket caps. Recently I bought one of the 22 reloader ones to see if I was missing anything. Nope! My homemade ones work a lot better than the commercial one. I need to get a small triangular stone to sharpen and reshape the cutters on that. It is also made of very soft steel and mine is stressproof, hardened. Not impressive for the 50 bucks they cost.

Might be able to case harden the teeth and get it to last longer. IIRC, 1144 won’t get very hard in conventional heat treatment.

[n.h.schmidt]

Nobade It is true that the 22 reloader Cap Maker can stand some improvements. A closer fit of the punch to die is needed. Mine had a .005 difference. This makes for a lot of hangups in the base metals. I expanded my punch teeth with the use of a couple of ball bearings tapped with light hammer blows to the inside of the teeth. Now the fit is about perfect. I have mine on a reloading press and have made about 20,000 + cups with no sign of wear on anything. I use double pop can metal and .005 brass.

[Nobade]

Nobade It is true that the 22 reloader Cap Maker can stand some improvements. A closer fit of the punch to die is needed. Mine had a .005 difference. This makes for a lot of hangups in the base metals. I expanded my punch teeth with the use of a couple of ball bearings tapped with light hammer blows to the inside of the teeth. Now the fit is about perfect. I have mine on a reloading press and have made about 20,000 + cups with no sign of wear on anything. I use double pop can metal and .005 brass.

That's a good idea for expanding the teeth. I'll look at that as well.

[Nobade]

Might be able to case harden the teeth and get it to last longer. IIRC, 1144 won’t get very hard in conventional heat treatment.

No, not super hard but it skates a file. Good enough for this application and considerably harder than the factory made one.

[HamGunner]

Apologies; I meant that sodium hypophosphite (used to make the Lead Hypopho****e for making EPH20) is difficult to come by here in the States. It took me 18 months to get the sodium hypophosphite - and it was sourced from outside of the USofA.

I too sourced my Sodium Hypophosphite from outside the US. I think it came form Bulgaria perhaps. I actually got my Lead Nitrate from outside the US as well, but from a different country still. Only took about 5-6 weeks though for both, if I remember correctly.

The chemical conversion from Sodium Hypophosphite into Lead Hypophosphite was very simple, but I do have a magnetic stirring hot plate. (The one on Amazon looks to be simpler to use than mine and is certainly cheap enough.)

I found that EPH-20 worked just a well as the H-48 or the FH-42, but I only use the EPH-20 in my center fire primers. Since I am cleaning my Black Powder guns anyway, the corrosive priming is not an issue using it for my percussion caps.

[lead chucker]

Making the lead hypophosphate wasnt very hard to do If you watch the Aardvark reloading video and take notes and buy a few things you need the hot plate stirrer was a big help and not very expensive. Sky Lighter fire works seemed reasonable priced for the components i needed. One thing that helped me was to call them on the phone instead of ordering on line. They will work with you on the shipping.