Cap Jams … again. But this solved my issue

[CaptainVane]

I hate to post new when its been beat to death but read this.
Yesterday I watched the utube by Blackie Thomas called The Percussion Revolver Cap Jams. Look it up and watch.
I did exactly what he said about smoothing the groove in the hammer, not the sight groove, lower.
Well I just got back from the range with my Colt 51 Navy, and I gotta say. What a farkin improvement. Out of about 100 to 120 shot i only had 2 fall off into hammer action from cap suck. All the other caps stayed on nipples, cycled thru the channel on recoil shield and dropped off at opening. Just like Sam intended. My god what a pleasant experience.
Look up the video. It worked for me.

 

[IanH]

Good to know, thanks! "Blackie" knows a thing or two.

 

[CaptainVane]

PS. These were Rem 11 on Slixshot nipples.

 

[Wheelman]

I have seen such videos.

My question is why are they part of the design?

 

[M. De Land]

I have seen such videos.

My question is why are they part of the design?

If you mean the slot in the lower face of the hammer, it is a safety of sorts to hold on the pins in the cylinder between the nipple wells. The at rest hammer sits on these rather than a charged and capped chamber.

 

[Wheelman]

Thanks

 

[wiscoaster]

PS. These were Rem 11 on Slixshot nipples.

Do I understand you had cap jams with Slixshot nipples? I thought they were supposed to prevent that?

 

[CaptainVane]

Not hardly. They improve a lot, But certainly don’t eliminate. In fact i found original nipples work better with RWS caps than Slixshots.
But slowly getting close to small amount of cap jams. And depends on pistol.
my 51 Colt Navy is down to seldom cap jams.
My 48 Colt 31 is down to about 20% cap jams out of 100 shots.

 

[Des52]

I have said before the first thing to do with a colt clone is to smooth the hammer face. This is the most common cause of cap jams. I use a hard arkansas stone on the face of the hammer to smooth it. And it should not be a surprise that RWS caps fit on original nipples. They both come from European countries, that is what I use on all my replicas.

 

[Griff093]

There are only two ways to prevent cap sucking: 1 - a cap rake, basically a post at the top of the hammer channel to keep caps from falling into the action; or 2 - a Manhattan Conversion, a narrowing of the hammer slot to just about the width of a nipple and attendant narrowing of the hammer face... along with filling the hammer slot. All other methods simply reduce the chances it'll happen. I prefer to stop them altogether.

Oh yeah, there is a third way... convert your perfect revolver to a suppository shooter.

 

[Blitz]

If you mean the slot in the lower face of the hammer, it is a safety of sorts to hold on the pins in the cylinder between the nipple wells. The at rest hammer sits on these rather than a charged and capped chamber.

Makers should do away with slot for everybody`s benefit or for originality put back the saftyey pins.



Blitz

 

[Blitz]

If you mean the slot in the lower face of the hammer, it is a safety of sorts to hold on the pins in the cylinder between the nipple wells. The at rest hammer sits on these rather than a charged and capped chamber.

It seems the majority colt replicas have the hammer slots but not the cylinder pins. why? I percieve it as an Italien thing.

 

[M. De Land]

Makers should do away with slot for everybody`s benefit or for originality put back the saftyey pins.



Blitz

What good are the pins without the hammer slot ?
I was thinking of milling in some cylinder notches between nipple ports where the pins would usually be, just deep enough to capture the hammer nose as the safety pins do. This way one could close the hammer face slot to eliminate cap suck and still have the" between nipple" safety advantage, for full capacity charging.

 

[Johnny Tremain]

Using the order of arms 1866 book. The main problem modern folks have is not shooting correctly.
With the new to me 1860 Army, Ive never had a cap jam yet.
There is a you tuber called Cap & Ball our of Hungary.
He used the order of arms book and shows folks how to do it correctly.
Now this thread will be filled with posts about how its unsafe, and you will get thrown off the range for doing it.
I do have slix shots cones on it, but it never jammed with the Pietta cones either.

Well once again, I do it and do not get cap jams.

 

[wiscoaster]

....
With the new to me 1860 Army, Ive never had a cap jam yet.
There is a you tuber called Cap & Ball our of Hungary.
He used the order of arms book and shows folks how to do it correctly.
....

I spent some considerable time trying to score a link to the referenced video, which I've seen, but couldn't find again. I think it's titled or keyworded in such a way that's not the primary topic, and that channel must have hundreds of videos (all excellent). However, there are multiple other videos showing the same technique, which basically involves flipping the revolver to vertical while cocking the hammer for the next shot so that as the cylinder rotates the fired cap falls out and down the recoil shield's cutout to the ground. I've used that technique and haven't gotten any RSO comment yet, though most of them know me and know I'm not dangerous.

 

[Crow Choker]

There are only two ways to prevent cap sucking: 1 - a cap rake, basically a post at the top of the hammer channel to keep caps from falling into the action; or 2 - a Manhattan Conversion, a narrowing of the hammer slot to just about the width of a nipple and attendant narrowing of the hammer face... along with filling the hammer slot. All other methods simply reduce the chances it'll happen. I prefer to stop them altogether.

Oh yeah, there is a third way... convert your perfect revolver to a suppository shooter.

Then there is another option. The technique of raising the barrel up vertical while cocking for the next shot so as the last round shot spent cap falls away has been around a long time. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I haven't had a cap jam or one fall into the action for a long long time. I think one of the big reasons is the almost 100% use of Remington #10 Caps. They have the longest skirt of any caps made that cover more of the external surface of a nipple. When fired even though the cap skirt will sometimes separate, the spent cap hangs onto the nipple better than any other cap. I do use CCI 11 and RWS 1075's once in a while just because I have em and figure saves from using my Rem 10 stash up.

I've noticed this tendency for the spent cap to hug the nipple using Rem 10's vs Rem 11, CCI 11, and RWS 1075's. Observed it with factory nipples and especially some of the other nipples such as Treso, Slix and Track of the Wolf's. Still need to do my three cap (Rem 10, CCI 11, RWS1075)/four brand of nipple's shoot-out seeing what likes what, pretty much know but want to really compare side by side. Don't use Rem 11's anymore as they pretty much have the shortest skirt of em all. CCI 10's have narrowest internal diameter and fit way to tight to even seat. All of the this and that to do with a cap gun (cap post/rake) doesn't hurt, but IMO if vertical cocking and/or proper cap to nipple matching is done, problems with spent caps can be alleviated alot or avoided. I can fire off six rounds fast keeping the barrel horizonal and experience no cap jams. FWIW this observation isn't something I've just noticed with a few years of shooting cap and balls, but since 1972-alotta powder burned and caps hammered.