cap substitute?

[rice1817]

A year or so ago, either Muzzleblasts or Muzzleloader magazine did a writeup on muzzleloading hunting in China. Apparently, black powder is readily available, but percussion caps are not. Lots of villagers own muzzleloaders for subsistance hunting. The local police have more important things to do than round up villagers with homemade muzzleloaders. Anyway, the author watched his friend load a fowling piece, but instead of caps this guy filled the nipple with powder and put a piece of plastic over it to keep it there. Apparently, it worked as the guy shot several birds with it.

Has anyone tried this? Seems to me that all you would get would be a deformed, battered nipple. I put some loose powder on an anvil and smacked it with a hammer, and all it did was scatter the powder. How could the weight of a falling muzzleloader hammer detonate powder in nipple?

 

[Legionair]

I imagine it's not blackpowder... They probably primed with something else that is pressure sensitive.

With the fireworks availiable over there, I bet there's a lot of compounds that would be hard to get or even illegal here...

Legion

 

[rice1817]

I thought of that. Kids can buy those little gray balls that make a small explosion when you throw them on a hard surface. A person may also be able to rig something up out of capgun caps even if he does not have a metallic cup to set them in ala "tap-a-cap". However, the guy in the article did say it was black powder that was used. He may have been mistaken in his assessment.

 

Maybe he witnessed someone putting mercury of fulminate in the nipple. :hmm:

 

[Black Powder]

When I was a kid many years ago there was a fire cracker. It a round silver ball about the size of a quarter that had pebbles inside, you threw against the wall to explode.They were made in China, sounds like the same powder. B. P.

 

[cowpoke1955]

Pressure sensitive caps have been around since I was a kid. Those paper cap rolls you use in cap pistols. In fact, Dixie use to market a "Tap-A-Cap". If I recall, you'd get a tin snip to cut open a soda can, a forming die/punch to form small metal cups, a paper punch to punch out the charges from a paper cap roll and a small wooden dowl to push the punched cap into the cups. Home made percussion caps. I heard they were not the best, but they would work.

 

[Tumblernotch]

The toy cap pistol tape that we grew up with is simply a copy of Edward Maynard's tape primer used on the M1855 rifle-musket, rifle and pistol adopted by the US. Maynard's primer was made of percussion (detonating) powder inserted between 2 slips of paper cemented together and varnished to protect it from moisture. It worked quite well in good weather but the varnish didn't protect it well enough from rain. I'm quite sure that this powder is readily available in China.

 

[Zonie]

I think the author of the article saw some black or dark colored powder being used and assumed it was regular black powder.
Now, I won't say that pounding on black powder on an anvil with a hammer won't set it off, but if it does, you can bet there was some non-metallic there that made a spark when the hammer hit it.

zonie

 

[TANSTAAFL]

Alexander Forsyth's original percussion system used only a powder, which was dispensed from his scent bottle magazine.

Below excerpted from: http://pec.on.ca/armscollecting/files/ResearchReptNo11-web4.pdf

The mechanical means by which these powders have been applied to fire-arms remain to be de-scribed. The original patent was first produced magazine turning on a roller or tube screwed into the breeching of the gun: a small portion of the ful-minating powder being deposited in the roller, the magazine was restored to its firing position, and thecock struck on a pin with a spiral spring attached toit, which inflamed the gunpowder.

 

[Norskie]

The white stuff on the heads of strike anywhere matches will detonate when struck with a hammer. Probably corrosive, though.

 

[Slamfire]

The white stuff on the heads of strike anywhere matches will detonate when struck with a hammer. Probably corrosive, though.

Can you git them matches on yore side of the hill? They ain't been available over here for nigh onto 10 years. I thought maybe the Feds outlawed 'em.

 

[Tumblernotch]

I'd say that feller was using the same detonating powder used in cap pistol caps. It's made of some kind of fulminate like Forsyth used as TANSTAAFL mentioned. The powder in the tape caps we used when kids is real dark gray, almost black and could be mistaken for BP bu someone not familiar with it.

I sure wouldn't want to fool with large quantities of it.

 

[Tumblernotch]

We can still get 'em up here in WV. But not too many stores carry 'em. You can't beat them barnburners!

 

[Norskie]

Yah, come on over to Madison County, we got strike anywhere matches an ever'thang! :grin: