Originally Posted by
W.R.Buchanan
Jim: This is right down the Survivalist's alley... And I could see using matchheads that are probably easier to find than caps.
Actually, I think that has swapped ends. I live in Floyd, VA, a small town in the mountains. The local hardware store is the only business in the entire county that carries the old fashioned 'strike anywhere' matches. Roll caps are on the shelf in the toy section of Wally World.
I have some questions?
What do the primers have in them in the first place?
I don't know, but I do know it's classified as a high explosive.
Is there a formula that could be made at home with readily available chemicals?
Yeah, but I ain't touchin' that with a ten foot fiberglass pole.
It seems like if you are going to go to all the trouble of reloading primers that making the priming compound wouldn't be that much more work, unless the mixture is too complicated or required some super duper process to complete.
Making the compound is not difficult, it's as dangerous as playin' with nitro.
A nice new modern Black Powder Rifle like a TC Encore in Stainless would be at the top of my list. You can make black powder, and Boolits, but the caps would be more of a challenge, and there aren't any Flintlock TC Encores. So reloading the caps would be nice to be able to do.
I always look at what we would do if we were thrown into an apocalyptic situation. Weapons would always be on the top of the list as needed items, and a Black powder rifle would be the easiest to keep running over the long haul. (100+ years) or until you got the infrastructure to make new guns and ammo up and running. If you are thrown into a place where there are resources but no technology, then being able to make the components easily is key.
I have enough ammo to last me for the rest of my life unless we get into a shootin war, however if we were able to fold time back into the past like on the "Terra Nova" show on Fox and get cut off from the future then the knowledge to make something out of nothing would come in handy. MIght be a good idea to take up archery as will.
Randy