Originally Posted by
firefly1957
I have been working on making my own percussion caps one die I made uses large primers to form them. I dumped the empties from my RCBS 4X4 press set up for .45 acp and found three small primers and one primer with a upside down anvil ! The primer looks to have fired fine and was most likely range pickup brass.
I am using a odd mix for priming it is made in small batches 8 grains Barium Chlorate , 2 grains Charcoal and .3 grains Red Phosphorous . I have been working with .2 grains in a cap and it is a bit energetic so I will be reducing it . The other day I put 15 grains old Clumped up CTG Pyrodex in my CVA .45 pistol with a bit of paper towel on the powder it went off without a hitch . Commercial caps tend to misfire or hangfire with this old can of Pyrodex . I started by making pellets with Gum Arabic or N.C. Lacquer as binder and finding scooping the mix in then adding a touch of thinned Lacquer seems to be best . Pistol has fired quite a few caps in two weeks without cleaning no rust so far...It was cleaned after firing Pyrodex .