My father played around with this back in the early 1960s.
YOu have to use some rubber cement( or any other glue that is not water based) to glue the caps in the cup, and you have to trim the paper away from the sides of the powder in the cap to fit properly in the caps. He used Aluminum cans, for his source of percussion cap material. He also tried steel cans. They work, but are much harder to cut and form than aluminum. Conversely, The Aluminum caps sometimes tear when formed, and also tend to stick to the nipple when fired. His best caps where made from some sheet brass he scrounged at work, altho the steel cans worked as advertised.
After finding out what worked with this, he stopped making his caps. He just could not justify the time involved in making them this way compared to buying an adequate supply at a gun show, or store, or on a trip to Friendship.
The time was most involved in trimming the paper from around the powder in the cap rolls. He did find a punch( a large diameter punch on his multi-holed leather punch, of all things) that would do this easier( and faster), but then putting the caps into the cups required a lot of concentration, and skill to get them down to the glue and situated just right.
He also found using more than one cap, and staggering them worked better. You just have to be very careful when you put the caps on the nipples, that you don't use too much force and fire off the cap on a loaded chamber! :shocked2:
Certainly the Tap-O-Cap is a useful tool and a necessary one if you plan to survive a major world crisis using a percussion rifle. I would not wait for the " event " whatever it is, to be making my caps, however. And, you probably could buy 10,000 caps and store them much cheaper than spending all the time and effort to make your own, and store cap gun caps( which are very hard to find anymore.)
Just my $ .02 worth of advice after working with Dad to make and try those caps( using an empty gun and just firing the caps off in the back yard.)
