How I fixed my Ampco nipples

[idahoron]

I fixed mine and made a video.



https://youtu.be/V0_Sbzy7A4E

[Fly]

Ron great video my friend. Being a tool & die maker I would have done that a different way. But nothing wrong with what you did, for it works.
The ole saying there is different way to skin a cat. What I would do is take a tapered centered punch & drive it into the hole of the nipple. I guess
being a machinist we think some what different then most. But ether way will work. Ron those nipples are bronze.

Fly

[idahoron]

I actually thought about using a punch but the reason I didn't was I wanted to swell the nipple down farther than just the lip. I wanted it. To grab inside the entire length of the inside of the cap.

[bedbugbilly]

A quick little story about an Ampco nipple . . . .

In the early 1960s, I bought my first muzzleloader - a very nice used Remington "Zouave" rifle. It had a steel nipple init and after a thousand or so rounds, it just wasn't doing the trick. A fellow "skirmisher" told me I should get an Ampco nipple and put in it. If I remember correctly, a steel musket nipple was a little under a dollar and a Ampco nipple was quite a bit more - almost two dollars! I'm not sure just when they came out but IIRC, they were a fairly new "wonder" st the time. Turner Kirkland had ordered something like a million of the Alcan musket caps and with a steel nipple, I always had about ten misfires per tin of 100. Not so when I switched to the Ampco. Then, in a year or so, German musket caps became readily available and they were 100% reliable and nice hot caps with the new Ampco. Well, thousands of rounds down the barrel over the years and fifty some years later, that nipple is still in that rifle barrel. I recently did a barrel "change out" on the rifle but I am going to pull that old Ampco nipple and put it on the new barrel. Maybe all of them don't last that long but I figure I got my money's worth and then some.

Enjoyed the video!

[big bore 99]

Good video. Thanks for sharing. I've done the same thing with a punch on the inside. I shoot an underhammer and want them to stick on good and tight. Even a little shy of seating completely, so they split and come off easy. Nothing worse than having to pick at them out in the field. That Ampco bronze is some tough stuff. I'm a retired injection mold maker and toolmaker and we used to make the injection nozzles from it. Hundreds of tons to seal and it's a real bear to machine.

[rodwha]

What size cap were you forming it to fit?

[OverMax]

Just a little different in ways but accomplishing the same ending.
Before filing a nipple I think I would file the removal tools jaws larger to accommodate them Ampco's. Perhaps buy another Removal tool for use on the typical T/C size nipples.


As far as a loose fitting cap? Yup!! Nothings perfect fitting.
I seldom squeeze a Cap between my fingers having to wear gloves when I'm out & about on the scout. {Extreme Cold where I hunt.} But I do have a good pair of choppers (teeth) for the purpose to which I can collapse a Caps side walls to a my'nute thousands where I'll bet Fly hasn't got a caliper in his machinist tool box to measure that small.

I don't know if biting a Cap is proper? Although it works for me and many old timers I've seen in the movies doing the same..

[idahoron]

#11 cci mag.

[Buckshot]

................The Ampco nipples are made of Beryllium Copper. I use them in my Whitworth and Rigby muzzle loading .451" match rifles. They last a lot longer then any steel nipple, but are not as long lived as a Platinum lined nipple. Just much easier to find and buy

................Buckshot

[Pavia]

................The Ampco nipples are made of Beryllium Copper. I use them in my Whitworth and Rigby muzzle loading .451" match rifles. They last a lot longer then any steel nipple, but are not as long lived as a Platinum lined nipple. Just much easier to find and buy

................Buckshot

I concur with Buckshot. My Whitworth beats on nipples and the Ampco ones last longer, easy to find, and a lot cheaper than platinum.