Any idea why percussion caps are.."Out of Stock  No Back Order" also?

They are low demand items. Hunting season is long past. Good luck finding any for the next many months. I would be surprised if the manufacturers gear up to make them any time soon.
I had to search last week for the .50 caliber bullets I prefer,  and the Pyrodex/Triple Seven powders I use were nowhere be found locally. Shipping on them is brutal.

Fortunately, I bought a thousand number 11 caps, and several hundred musket and 209 caps a couple years ago.

New gun owners in states that you have to get a license before you can buy a gun and they shut the process down, or slowed it way down, and/or the line is really long.  BUT you can still buy black powder front stuffers and cap and ball revolvers straight up cash and carry no license.

I am NOT sh*ting you.  I know of two cases personally of people who literally bought front stuffers and cap and ball and powder, caps, patches, ball, etc. to load and shoot them as being the best they could get without breaking the law in their "behind enemy lines" states.  Heck previously I figured they were both part of the enemy on 2A but they got "red pilled" too late to get real modern guns.

On of them that I know the best I went to college with and hadn't heard from her for decades until I got an email from her at an old, old, email address that was from back when I was in college and the internet was something no one but geeks even knew about and you had to manually dile the number and put the phone mouth/ear piece on to the strap down thing and you could hear all the beeps and clicks of the data audibly if you listened.  The screens were all green dot matrix and the disks we're 5-1/4" floppies !!!

Anyway, she has an engineering/geek/nerd mind and I was the "gun guy" she knew and trusted enough to talk with I also having been in some of those classes way back then.  And it wasn't my suggestion.  She did the research of her states laws.  She found the loop hole and figured that all out herself.

Her first two questions for me in that initial email were:

----- "Is the extra power of the Walker which will take a heavier load worth it over the better design of the Remington on reproduction cap and ball revolvers if you actually had to use one to shoot people with who were trying to hurt you?"

----- "With Muzzle loading double barrel black powder shotguns how short can you cut them down before you start to get too wide of a pattern and/or loose too much velocity with buckshot for home defense?"

My response was like, "Uh, why you using antiques for home defense. Can't you get a real gun?". So she explained the difficulty of legally getting a real gun in her state and this legal "loop hole" she figured out.

She got money and she ended up buying up a whole bunch of such guns and stuff to make them shoot under the concept of "New York reloads" as in shoot the gun empty and then drop it and grap another preloaded and ready gun and then use it and repeat as necessary. And she married up and they got money so they just bought stuff up like it was pocket change.

Since then I have heard from another party in a similar situation doing the same thing and using the same loop hole for the same reason!

And they don't know each other !!!

I mean holy bleep, when people are buying up the antiques for actual defensive use things are getting real man !!!

Buddy with plenty of guns just bought a 1851 Navy for the hell of it. Can’t find any caps at all

Probably because they're basically primers, and right now lines to make primers (and the materials to supply such!) are going full-tilt just trying to keep up with the factory ammo production.

And it's easy to economize effort for high-demand things like 9mm and 223 by dropping low-demand stuff like #11 caps.

Long ago I was hike some Federal property.  Could only carry firearms during the gun hunting season.  However, Federal police of that area suggest blackpowder wasn't a firearm.  So I used to hike those trails with either a 1851 Navy or 1862 Pocket Police both in .36 cal.  Got another used TC .50 cal Hawken that I'll have do work up.

CD

Ive got caps. Ive got powder. The caps are RWS (hottest, most dependable), powder is goex. Now the question is, what are they worth?

RWS flanged muzzle caps are the best.

So yes, how much are they worth?

I’ve been fortunate I’ve been able to buy up a lot of caps.  I’ve got enough for a few years probably.


Are ready for the real crazy thing?


Everyone is out of flints right now at least common sizes!  Flints we have moved past primers, past percussion caps,  to low quantities of suitable flints!!!!

Track of the Wolf, Muzzloader and More,  October Country are all out!

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I picked up a Howdah 20 ga, 500 caps, and 5 lbs of Goex before everything went stupid. Been shooting a mix of ball bearings and AA batteries. Its impressive. Caps are nowhere to be found around here either.

I think percussion caps are one of those items that have such low demand that the manufacturer just runs batches a few times each year.  So when demand goes up, they sell out quickly, and the shelves don't get re-stocked until the production line runs again.  I believe .380 falls into this category, or at least used to.

+1

Percussion caps use barium nitrate and lead styphnate as ingredients which are also used to make pistol/rifle/shotgun primers.

https://winchester.com/-/media/PDFs/Safety-Data-Sheets/PERCUSSION-CAPS/PERCUSSION-CAPS.ashx

There are deals still, go join a local black powder club.  I’ve done NRA High Power and two gun and black powder has been the most fun.  Anyway,  my local club has stockpiled caps and powder and sales to members for cheap and the club shares in hazmat fees.  

I just got them a local deal, I found. 2600 caps for something like $120 dollars.  Check out local NMLRA clubs they can help you get Muzzleloading supplies.

OP you been living under a rock?

In my AO not only has every pistol, rifle, and shotgun been sold out at times, but the muzzle loaders, paintball guns, pellet/bb guns, and airsoft has too, along with al the “ammo” for all of it. At one point, most all of the knives were sold out.

The pandemic, riots, and election caused everyone to arm themselves to the teeth. Throw in supply chain problems across the board, closed factories, the fact that muzzleloader caps are made with the same materials as primers.....

Oh yeah nearly every bow and crossbow is out of stock lowly as well. Yes we just came out of hunting season but usually they arent completely sold out each year like that.

Nothing wrong with a Walker. I guarantee you the bad won’t walk away.

Sounds like some are late for the party.

Everyone needs a "Confederate Front Stuffer".

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Nice!

I need one of those.

Listen, some might sniffle, kerfluffle and noseair, but if you stuff a powder revolver in some black hats guts and yank the trigger,  you will get results.

I bought about 600 several months ago... enough to last me a long, long time, since I hardly ever shoot muzzle loaders.

Now I wish I would have bought them all.

Cap-n-ball revolvers are almost sold out everywhere.

I can't believe I was dumb enough to not double my primer stockpile. Right now I don't think I even have enough to reload all my brass.

Low production, higher demand, muzzle loader hunting season all together.

Plus, when regular primers went OOS, I bought 1k caps to keep plinking - I know I'm not the only one.

holy shit, wait till flint rocks are sold out also!

I'm not joking.

fortunately I know how to knap arrowheads, hopefully I can use that skill to make flints.

I don't have a flintlock, but I think I should get to looking.

Maybe online, but all of my local shops are stocked on 5/8 and 3/4 flints as much as they typically were.

But why wouldn't you have 5 flints and know how to knap them to begin with, plus know how to keep using them to a nub.

Ohh I was also going to add, for WY peeps,  Rocky Mountain Discount Sports has n10 and n11 caps in two of their locations.

People don't think substitute goods be like it is, but they do.

Love the shooting, hate the cleanup. I have a couple hundred caps that will keep me going for now.

I just consider cleanup time as part of range time, it's not something I have to do - it's something I get to do.

I always block out 4 hrs for a casual range trip, when shooting BP I just make cleanup part of the 4hrs.

Covid shut down production lines.  Those of us who shoot blackpowder and many new to the hobby bought up the stock that retailers had.  

I am mostly a flint shooter, I had a few hundred #11 caps to support my a Hawken gun and Revolvers, and a case of #10's that I fell into.  I only have one revolver that takes 10's.  Im going to be trading most of those away for 11's to support the 2 English double barrels I picked up last year.  


My local dedicated Muzzleloading dealer told me Remington is not planning on doing a production run of percussion caps till late 2021 or early 2022.  

All of a sudden that back burner project to convert my Hawken back to flint is front and center.  


Remember that old guy with the T shirt that said "Nipples belong on women, not on muzzleloaders"  He predicted this!  

Nipples belong on a woman,  not a man's rifle.

Caps are one reason the hivernants eschewed percussion guns in favor of flintlocks for years after caplock guns were available.

Which T shirt?

Hell you can still get 1" Brit black flints that supposedly came from sunken ships.

I was going to buy a LeMat for shits and giggles, and then all of the panic started.

Not worth currently buying if it's impossible to shoot them.

No one else remembers the Tap A Cap sold from Dixie Gun Works?

Beer can and a roll of toy gun caps and you're set!

My brother had one, have to check.

Seems others still making them..

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65 buckets per thousand. Normal price. Those and black powder are not too bad. The rest of the caps are all gone though

Does anything other than brown bess replicas use 1" flints any more?

I've always been curious what levels of reliability they were after (conscript proof, I know); I've done 100 rounds in a day on a 5/8 flint and a siler lock without touching the flint.

Goodness, now you have done it.....There will be a raft of "it's unsafe" posts like the time during the last panic I posted a DIY .22 hollow point maker.

Not that I really needed them but I've made some awesome sub-sonic .22 HPs out of CCI standards with it.

Muzzleloader flints

The French used a 1" flint on their .mil muskets too.

Don't know where in PA you are but Cabela's had loads of triple seven all week

@londo

Mark my words: Stock up on BB gun supplies. IT IS COMING.

Yeah, my point is guns being shot regularly today.

1" flints are WAY less demand than 5/8 or 3/4, which was your initial point.

Though I guess you could put a 1" flint on a small lock gun, you'd just have a helluva lot of overhang on one side!

We are at a point where anybody will buy whatever “scraps” are left. CO2 cartridges and BBs, pellets, Airsoft and paintballs are getting harder to find as well.

Like others have said, magazines are still the sleeper. If you need/want some, BUY NOW before the inevitable magazine panic.

I'm old enough to remember when half of
" amateur gunsmithing" was experimental, and no internet around to tell me I'd die!

I used to drill out .22s, X cut for fragmentation, flat nose them.
Actually, I LOVE CCI SGBs. ( Truncated cone) When they stopped producing them some years back, I called to bitch.
The guy who designed them called me back, and encouraged me to get as many people as I could to bitch! Also told meabout a cheap fixture to consistently blunt then. But I'm too cheap!

When they restarted production, I bought a lot!

As far as the tap a cap, it mostly worked.

But as soon as one of us set a roll of caps down, the other would slam the whole roll with a hammer!
Then we'd giggle and repeat.
Til all the caps were gone!

LOL, we might gotten older, but never grew up!

Glued a lot of 7 1/2 shot field loads together too.

people aren't buying mags b/c no BOOlets to put in said mags.

If and when you can find a blunderbuss or other large caliber piece in a flintlock it often takes a 1" Flint.  At least in my pawn shop browsing over the years that is what I have found to use to 1" Flint's besides the brown bess.

And of course if all else fails you can also build an improvised wheel lock out of a $1 gas station bic lighter with some DIY skills.  Did it myself several times back in my youth combined with some heavy wall steel tubing with an end welded shit you can make a decent smooth bore muzzleloader that way.

And of course there is the match lock the simplest of all.  Heck, you can even do a play on words and build a DIY lock that uses matches, again something I did in my youth long ago.

As someone new to flintlocks I finally found some 5/8th flints

EBay

Track of the Wolf is out
October Country is Out
Muzzle Loader and More is out

At least Over the weekend.


As a new flint guy,  long time cap guy.  I’m hooked.

I may be sale a cap gun or two so that I can get more flint guns

I was at Dixon's Muzzleloading Shop in Kempton, PA last Saturday. This is one of the major BP shops in the country.

They were virtually cleaned out of current production BP guns other than custom stuff. Caps were limited to 1 tin per customer per day. They were low on powder but supposed to get a shipment on Monday. powder prices are $28/lb. for Goex and $36/lb. for Swiss. I was told they got hit really hard over the fall with a lot of new BP shooters.

From what I've read, Dixie Gun Works has been slammed with orders and taking a couple weeks to ship. It didn't help that COVID went through their staff so they were short handed.

A week and a half ago I put in an order with Track of the Wolf for 5 boxes of Hornady .454 balls. I got only 1 with the rest cancelled. Midway was out of Hornady .454s with no back order, but I was able to place an order for 10 boxes of Speer .454s. Most of the online vendors have been out of percussion revolvers for some time. I was able to order 2 Pietta Dance & Bros. revolvers last night from Jeddidiah Starr, and got a shipping number this morning.

CCI caps have been OOS pretty much everywhere for awhile. I was able to order a 2,500 round box of RWS 1075+ caps from Midway a couple weeks ago, but those are now OOS.

On revolvers you may be able to use toy plastic ring caps instead of percussion caps. I've done so and they work, although they aren't as strong as purpose-made caps. They may not work in a side lock without using a nipple primer to add some 4Fg to the nipple.

I ordered one of those cap makers from 22lrreloader.com back on the 1st. Still waiting on a shipping number. Going to raise a stink soon.

The Mountain Men and Indians had the same problem, which is why they preferred flintlock long past the time Percussion came onto the scene.