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How Do I Get Rid of Old Percussion Caps?
- Thread starter joliver
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I just clear my revolver nipples with a nipple pick then visual inspection before putting in the powder. I usually load ball on the powder valley loader.
If I had old caps I would just try shooting them to get rid of them.
If I had old caps I would just try shooting them to get rid of them.
Why not just throw them in the spent brass bucket at the range. Let the RO deal with hem.
As a contemporary of RUDYARDS Iv'e used many Victorian caps as when we started lots of older gunmakers and gun shops had vintage stock as they didn't live in todays throw away culture. I still use F4 21's and F3 16's(same size as Musket,without the skirt) made by Joyce & Co. Can't remember any misfires with those in 60 odd years. Plenty with modern No.11's apart from FIOCCHI brass ones. Easy ways to be rid of bad ones is soak 'em in old engine oil.. or Diesel..
LOTS of early caps used Fulminate of Mercury as the as the detinator. It's the mercury wats corosive and highly Toxic. Can't even get Mercury batteries these days .O.D.
You do realize that now, someone here, after reading the above will accept that it is a way to test caps will go and do it don't you?
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Ever been sitting around a log fire outside at night in the company of Gun aficionados while theyre sipping ?
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Sadly I wonder if your right, in the last few years I served the small square cardboard boxes containing 2 Hexamine tablets (cooking fuel) we carried, had a warning "Do Not Eat".
JUST got back from the dentist, i think my caps are good. ha ha.
Just don't go shooting your mouth off! 
Woody Morgan
62 Cal.
Gee thanks. As if ROs don't have enough stupidity to deal with every time we're on the range.
wm
59sharps
40 Cal.
I got some old caps musket caps on one times.,they had a cardboard disc in them. Don’t remember the brand . They where in a plastic container. A lot of the filament was in the container. Some of the cardboard also. I used them for snapimg caps before I loading
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Just don't go shooting your mouth off!
I would just toss them in the wood stove in the shop pop pop they be gone.
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I've used the "dig a hole" thing for stuff; actually in today's world, you could probably put them in with some (no ID) trash and drop in a dumpster behind a bar! (The dive bar I frequent has everything in it but a body, and that wouldn't almost surprise me! Think of the spray cans, solvent cans, crap that gets hauled off in those things! Caps would be the least of their worries at the dump!
Natural Selection works!
Sometimes we just have to apply some critical thinking with respect to the quality of these answers.
William Sublette
45 Cal.
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I would bet that they still work...and with the election year coming next year..., they might get hard to find again. I'd recommend just keeping them.
Yep.
Yep.
If someone really, really wants to get rid of old caps, he could just take them to the local range and put them on a table with a "FREE CAPS" sign. They would go pretty fast.
I just can't see throwing them away.
Really, really old caps, like the very earliest ones and the cheaper ones from later in the 19th century, were not waterproof and could be ruined by wetting. If you had some that old that had gotten wet, they might not be good. However, at some point, ammunition makers learned to waterproof percussion caps and the tins would have "Waterproof" or even "Double Waterproofed" someplace on the label. Those ought to still be shootable. They might be corrosive, but we clean our guns after shooting anyway.
I've been shooting some 55-year-old Alcan caps that were as good as new, and likely better than some of what's being produced now. @Rudyard and some of the other international forum members reported shooting some very old caps with good results. If the caps which are the subject of this thread were made any time in the last century, chances are they will still detonate.
If I were determined to get rid of them, I would find a new home for them. They are too valuable to waste, especially in this time of recurrent shortages.
Just one old duffer's opinion, respectfully submitted.
Notchy Bob
this is going to get more action than a Pdex vs. Holy Black thread!
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