Hi, a couple of weeks ago I had my son-in-law out shooting his Pietta 1851 using a number of precharged cylinders loaded with the sub Black MZ. The cylinders were also capped with the new high flame temperature Remington #10 caps. Those cylinders were loaded and capped a number of months ago and stored in my gun safe. When a loaded cylinder was loaded in the revolver, none of the caps would fire. We tried a couple more cylinders with the same result. Somehow the caps became useless. I recapped the all the remaining cylinders and chambers and then the 1851 fired all chambers with no issue. I had thought that maybe the problem was the lubed wad somehow contaminated the cap until today. Today I went out back with a dozen precharded and capped 1860 cylinders loaded about the same time as the .36 caliber chambers. The .44 caliber cylinders behaved like the .36 caliber, no cap ignition. The old caps were replaced with fresh Remington #10 caps and there were no fail to fire for the remaining shooting of the 1860.
How the Remington #10 caps became inert is a mystery to me. I have had cylinders precapped with Black MZ and CCI caps for many months without ever a fail to fire. I can only surmise that the Remington caps are affected somehow by chemicals in the Black MZ. In the past I have seen that Black MZ is brutally corrosive to brass, maybe it is also to the Remington copper cap?
BTW, each chamber has the powder separated from the ball with a lubed wad and grease sealing wad. I'm pretty sure that the lube isn't creating the problem.
A future test may consist of using straight BP and the Remington #10 caps to see if the problem is the Remington cap or the Black MZ.
I still have a dozen 1858 cylinders loaded at the same time to test, but I am saving them for when my son-in-law comes out with his 1858.
Have you ever experienced cap failures when your cylinders have been loaded for a long time and capped?
Regards,
Richard