Silver nose cap

[Barefootinwv]

Hello everyone, I just joined and need help / Ideas. Building my first long rifle, everything in German silver. All my research says you have to pin the nose cap with brass nails. I understand and it makes sense but I can’t find German silver nails. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[tenngun]

Brass Brad wouldn’t look bad.
Maybe a stainless steel Brad from the hardware store
Some silver jewelry wire, got at a local store that does repair or custom making
Silver solder tapped in to a rivet?
Epoxy glue

 

[Col. Batguano]

The advantage of using copper rivets is that copper itself (I just use 8 ga or 10 ga bare wire and cut off a short piece to make them) is very soft and malleable. Fine .999 silver is similarly soft and malleable. Sterling is only 93% silver and annealed with copper, so is a little harder. Try Rio Grande Jewelry Supply for their dead soft silver wire. Here's a link for 8 gauge.

https://www.riogrande.com/product/sterling-silver-crazy-8-half-round-wire-8-ga-dead-soft/100444
It looks like you might have to buy a whole ounce, and silver has doubled in price this last year. For silver nails try using silver earring studs. You can't pound them in like nails, but if you use a pin vice you can drill a small hole and then super glue them in place. If you use them to hold wedge estrucheons in place you can push them all the way through and then bend them over in the barrel channel, (make a slight trench so they go below the surface of the wood and then super-glue again) so they WILL provide some actual holding power, not just provide decorative accent.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

If it were me I would purchase something like this and cut a "square nail" from it, then either file it into a round nail to suit your purposes or file a square tapered hole in the nose cap.