My thoughts/opinions on cap making

[NorthFork]

We all know #10/#11 caps are near impossible to find. And will be for the near future. Much has been said about the 22Reloader dies and primer compound. In my opinion if you are not making caps you are in a tough spot.

I have have had both the #10 and #11 cap dies and primer compound for over 1 year now. I have had many struggles and disappointments. Here are my OPINIONS on making caps.

Read the darn instructions!

1. If you do not have an arbor press or a reloading press you will have a lot of cap cup rejects. Any sideways pressure on the die results in very poorly made cap cups or flat out failures in either single thickness aluminum pop cans, doubled up pop cans, or .005" thickness brass stock. I use my reloading press. I am able to get 9 out of 10 perfect caps. If I use hand pressure or a hammer, I'm lucky if I get 5 out of 10 acceptable cap cups.

2. Mix the ingredients EXACTLY as described. NOT heaping scoopfuls, but level scoopfuls.

3. Use exactly 1/3 scoop (small end!!) of mixed compound to fill cap cups. I use a 3" by 2" piece of paper folded longwise as a funnel to get the primer mixture from the scoop to the cap cup.

4. I use acetone as the solvent. 1 drop per cap cup.

5. I then use a special binder. I got this from the cast boolits forum. Dissolve a single base (NOT a double base) smokeless powder (does not matter which) in acetone in a sealed pint mason jar. It will form a viscous goo after a few days wait. Put one drop via a toothpick on the primer compound.

6. Wait 24hrs. This makes for a nearly waterproof, very hot and powerful cap that will result in a 100% success rate. The single base smokeless powder dissolved in acetone makes a hard tough highly flammable binder/glue,

I have no intentions of ever buying percussion caps again, at any price, no matter how cheap, after a few months of making and using these caps. Hope this helps someone.














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[n.h.schmidt]

Most of the problems with the dies come from a too sloppy fit of the punch to the die. Mine was .005 off. It is easily possible to expand the cutting teeth outward to close the gap and get a good result. I have my die in a reloading press too. How did you do yours?

 

[n.h.schmidt]

I would have thought that a few would have added to this besides me. It's all good too. I also use the pistol powder as a binder. Mine is 700X You may have gotten a especially trouble prone die. Some are better than others. Since I expanded my punch for a better fit ,no rejects at all. Many thousands made too. I have not bought any caps for the last four years. I now use the priming powders and gave up on the toy cap gun stuff .That wasn't any cheaper and didn't work as well.

 

[NorthFork]

@n.h.schmidt I have a typical Lee 'O' press. I just stick a 'loaded with aluminum strip' die into press Slowly pull down lever and viola, a cap. On my press, the die will not pass the breech lock feature. I've tried hand pressure, hammer punch, and drill press pressure to no avail. Too many ill formed caps.

 

[Trapper-Jack]

If you guys don't mind sharing, how much of your single base smokeless do you use in the acetone? Is there a preferred ratio or are you just using a saturated solution of powder/acetone?

 

[Muzzle57]

How did you go about expanding the die?

 

[n.h.schmidt]

For the smokeless powder binder. One tablespoon of acetone and a pinch of powder. I happen to use 700x. You have to cover it and come back to stir in an hour. It works nicely not critical at all. As to expanding the punch. I bought a couple of hardened and ground steel ball bearings from the hardware store. I will get the sizes for you. Dropped the bigger one into the inside of the cutters and taped the ball gently with a hammer. You have to be careful as you can go too far. Afterwards I used the smaller ball the same way to expand the punch a little farther down. . I think most of these dies have this problem.

 

[Muzzle57]

For the smokeless powder binder. One tablespoon of acetone and a pinch of powder. I happen to use 700x. You have to cover it and come back to stir in an hour. It works nicely not critical at all. As to expanding the punch. I bought a couple of hardened and ground steel ball bearings from the hardware store. I will get the sizes for you. Dropped the bigger one into the inside of the cutters and taped the ball gently with a hammer. You have to be careful as you can go too far. Afterwards I used the smaller ball the same way to expand the punch a little farther down. . I think most of these dies have this problem.

Thanks much for the info.

 

[Trapper-Jack]

Thanks for the insight. My daughter has made caps from the 22 reloader but the binder they supply doesn't work that well. We'll give this a try.

 

[Stantheman86]

I love that you guys have that American Ingenuity and are making caps, the idea of playing with this stuff would scare the --- out of me , but I enjoy following along with you guys that make caps and powder

The best I can do is I converted a pair of revolvers to successfully use red toy caps , but ironically the toy caps are harder to find than real caps

 

[TDM]

Great information @NorthFork, thanks.

 

[Gtrubicon]

I appreciate the information. I’m going to dissolve some 700x and give that a try.

 

[Dale Allen Raby]

I dunno why, but I am having no difficulty of late finding #11 caps in local stores and online. I was considering getting the kit and making them myself, but there just hasn't been a need so far. I'll probably buy one of the kits some day for a JIC scenario, but as long as I can obtain them, I see no reason to trouble myself with fiddly little projects I am pretty sure I would not enjoy.

 

[n.h.schmidt]

As to expanding the cutters I used two steel balls one .436 dia and one .375. Either would have worked with the larger being the easy way to go. For a while I setup my die on my drill press. It wasn't that hard to do and the punch -out took little effort. Even when using double layer pop cans. Speed was high too 600 per hour was easy and I'm slow The cups fell right through the punch and through the board it's mounted on. out the bottom and into a plastic container placed below the table. A neater way to hold the die body to the drill chuck needs to be thought of though

 

[Muzzle57]

As to expanding the cutters I used two steel balls one .436 dia and one .375. Either would have worked with the larger being the easy way to go. For a while I setup my die on my drill press. It wasn't that hard to do and the punch -out took little effort. Even when using double layer pop cans. Speed was high too 600 per hour was easy and I'm slow The cups fell right through the punch and through the board it's mounted on. out the bottom and into a plastic container placed below the table. A neater way to hold the die body to the drill chuck needs to be thought of though

Wonder if a good strong rare earth magnet would work to hold it in place?

 

[NorthFork]

If you guys don't mind sharing, how much of your single base smokeless do you use in the acetone? Is there a preferred ratio or are you just using a saturated solution of powder/acetone?

I used IMR 4350. I dumped a good spoonful into a pint mason canning jar. I then slowly added acetone to dissolve the powder. I ended up with a nearly full pint mason jar of acetone. I gave it a day and the end result was a pint of goo. If it gets too gooey from acetone evaporation, just add a bit more fresh acetone. I obviously keep the lid and ring on the mason jar when not using it.

While Duco and acetone does work, I found it more difficult to use in actual practice.

I also do NOT tamp the priming compound into the caps. I found that for me it caused too many problems. The acetone will settle the mixture down into the cap just fine.

Using 1/3 of the small scoop of priming compound, not tamping, and putting one drop of acetone in cap, then one drop of smokeless powder/acetone goo on top equals literally 100% success rate during firing for me.

 

[n.h.schmidt]

Maybe a magnet would work. I was thinking that a 1" threading die holder with a 1/2" shank for use in a lathe would be almost perfect for this Kitts sells this kind of stuff . Low prices too. I guess NorthFork and I have different ways to make things work After putting the powder in I press it down dry. It gets very compact and then I use the binder. Whatever that may be ,there are so many binders that work. I also get 100% success out of the last two years in matches.

 

[Trapper-Jack]

Thank you for the follow up on the powder for binder. I've got a good amount of IMR 4350 and about a tea spoon full left in a bottle of IMR 4064 that would be a good candidate for the project.

 

[NorthFork]

Maybe a magnet would work. I was thinking that a 1" threading die holder with a 1/2" shank for use in a lathe would be almost perfect for this Kitts sells this kind of stuff . Low prices too. I guess NorthFork and I have different ways to make things work After putting the powder in I press it down dry. It gets very compact and then I use the binder. Whatever that may be ,there are so many binders that work. I also get 100% success out of the last two years in matches.

That's the one odd thing about the 22 Reloader kit. What works for one does not work for others. I found that tamping per the instructions left me with a tamper that had a film of priming compound goo (this was when I was NOT using any other binder but what was supplied in the kit) on the end of it and often times pulled the compound completely from the cap cup. I ended up not tamping at all. At that point I had 100% success IF the compound stayed put in the cup. But I found that any vibration or impact would dislodge the compound. I then tried the common Duco/acetone binder with moderate success. But when I tried the smokeless/acetone binder, it was perfect. Easy to dispense, 100% go bang.

 

[Nuthatch]

I use a rubber mallet and almost never have a bad cup. Any bad ones I get are because I'm being too stingy with the aluminum and end up punching 2 holes too close together. Otherwise, they all look the same to me and they all work well.

I use Duco and that has been a major game changer. I mix it about 60/40 acetone/duco in an old nail polish container and give 2 drops per cup.

I recently smacked a CCI cap on the anvil just to compare. Hadn't done that for a while. Sounded like a cute little *snap* compared with the 22RL ones that give a distinct *POW!*