Cap Sucking Colts

[Yolla Bolly Brad]

  We'll get those cap guns 100% reliable one of these centuries!      So what have you got there Mike, some brass sheet attached to the hammer.  ???

[45 Dragoon]

More importantly, the installation of preventative mechanisms is exactly that. Regardless of the history of a particular open top revolver, prevention is the goal. All open top revolvers and even Colt pattern S.A.s have an open path into the action when the hammer is at half or full cock. The possibility of a cap or fragments of caps finding its/their way into the action is always present.  For competition guns, half way through a stage is a bad time for your "favorite" O.T. to have its first cap jam. This shield works exactly as intended plus, it gives the grease in the action some protection from fouling.

I've never had a wreck in my car but that doesn't keep me from wearing my seat belt .  .  .  .  .  .

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @ goonsgunworks   (you would have already seen this!! Lol!)


PS. Their isn't any argument regarding cap posts (rakes)working or not. The competition shooters settled that  a long time ago.

[Yolla Bolly Brad]

  That shield is a simple and effective idea that I would have never thought of. It's a feature that Sam Colt should have designed into the hammer.

[Captainkirk]

I never fired it before the work. It was unshootable due to other issues.
However, its twin would (and will) suck a cap maybe once every 10-12 shots...very annoying, to say the least. I shot the cap rake gun maybe 50-75 rounds without a single issue.

[ssb73q]

Hi Brad, I never had a Colt cap suck where the edges of the safety notch were broken and smoothed. I also shoot most of my BP revolvers with conversion cylinders were a slightly wider safety slot would be a serious issue.

Other than competition, cap sucking isn't a serious issue. An occasional cap suck just returns me to yesteryear, not a bad thing at all.

BTW, I never ever had a cap jamming issue using the Remington 1858 shooting thousands of BP rounds, If I was doing competition I would use an 1858. Those doing competition with ears should hear.

Regards,
Richard

[Yolla Bolly Brad]

Hello Richard,
         I'll have to admit that I've done very little shooting with my Colt replicas but it would seem as though breaking those sharp edges on the hammer slot would be the very first thing to do before firing the gun. If I have any issues after that and changing nipples won't solve the problem, it looks like the rake would be the next step.
  As far as cartridge conversions go, having a separate hammer to go with the conversion would seem feasible to me. I have a Uberti 1860 with the 5 shot Kirst conversion that required a lot of adjustment to the lock work. I've planned on getting another set of internals for it when I want to convert it back to a 6 shot percussion gun. I always pull the gun all apart anyway for cleaning after shooting black powder or a substitute, so changing out the parts wouldn't bother me.

[Len]

Ok,  here ya go.
  You can drop any type of cap fragment,  whole hull, whatever.   .  .   and pull the trigger.  You may (probably will) get a failure to fire but you wont get anything down in the action. Cocking the hammer again, the shield will present the " foreign material" to be discarded. A nice mod that works perfectly and is a great compliment for the cap post.

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @goonsgunworks

Tell us about the small radial holes in the nipples, please

[mike116]

Those are SliXshot nipples Len.    https://www.badmanbullets.com/OnlineStore/proddetail.php?prod=SliXshot-Black-Powder-Nipples

[45 Dragoon]

1st, Thanks Cap.!! That's a good report (and familiar!!  )

2nd, Breaking the edges on the hammer face and slot is a good start but it does absolutely nothing to keep an errant spent cap from falling into the action. It's virtually a perfect slide right into the action!  Of course, some folks never have this happen and I guess it is presumed that it never happens.  (Of course, this post is in a dedicated thread about this particular subject which is why I posted it here .  .  .  .  strange , I know .  .  .  .  ) .  So, a physical barrier (such as a cap post (rake) seems to be a reliable device to keep the "breakaway" cap from sliding down to the action.

    - as a side note here, the cap post is fitted to the notch in the hammer face so, there's no need or reason to "slightly widen" the slot. No sense in starting any rumors .  .  .  . 

  Now, there is another barrier (Goons Action Shield) which will prevent the "one that got away" (from the cap post (rake)) from entering the action and will be held until discarded.

3rd,  I would say more than most would rather NOT have a cap issue while shooting and more than that would rather their "pride and joy" open top be as reliable a shooter as a cartridge revolver. That can be achieved .  .  .  .  .  ( )

4th,  Many competition shooters would love to shoot Remies but the biggest drawback is the rather stiff action, heavy main spring and flat handspring (guess that's really 3 drawbacks!) they inherently have. Many folks don't know what and or how to set them up and apparently, not many tuners/smith's do as well.

  I spent the better part of 2 years trying to figure a way to replace the flat action springs in the Remington but space is so tight in them I pretty much "threw in the towel"!! A couple of weeks later, it dawned on me how to replace the hand spring!! That was the key!! The trigger and bolt were easier and it allowed me to completely coil spring the action of the Remie!! As such, now the Remington can have the life span of a Ruger and even more durability than its bigger/heavier Ruger brother!!  The first pair done this way have been in the competition world for a couple of months and in some pretty big matches. So far, I understand they are working " flawlessly "  (their adjective, not mine!!)

  The best thing about this is, the '58, the '75 and '90 Remies are all the same as far as the springs go so, they can all be fixed!! So, they may start showing up in the "winners circle" some day soon!!

Len, Mike beat me to it!! Lol!! Thanks Mike!

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @ goonsgunworks

[Len]

Ok,  here ya go.
  You can drop any type of cap fragment,  whole hull, whatever.   .  .   and pull the trigger.  You may (probably will) get a failure to fire but you wont get anything down in the action. Cocking the hammer again, the shield will present the " foreign material" to be discarded. A nice mod that works perfectly and is a great compliment for the cap post.

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @goonsgunworks

Tell us about the small radial holes in the nipples, please

Ok, so they are Slixes, but what is the technical, scientifical purpose of those radial holes? The cap ignition produces a pressure and the flame goes down into the bp-load. Why letting some of that pressure go sideways? To loosen the cap? To get it down into the mechanism? There surely must be some ingenious purpose. Did they have those holes back in the days?

[Yolla Bolly Brad]

Ok,  here ya go.
  You can drop any type of cap fragment,  whole hull, whatever.   .  .   and pull the trigger.  You may (probably will) get a failure to fire but you wont get anything down in the action. Cocking the hammer again, the shield will present the " foreign material" to be discarded. A nice mod that works perfectly and is a great compliment for the cap post.

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @goonsgunworks

Tell us about the small radial holes in the nipples, please

Ok, so they are Slixes, but what is the technical, scientifical purpose of those radial holes? The cap ignition produces a pressure and the flame goes down into the bp-load. Why letting some of that pressure go sideways? To loosen the cap? To get it down into the mechanism? There surely must be some ingenious purpose. Did they have those holes back in the days?

  I believe it's to relieve some pressure upon firing so the hammer won't be blown back and hence drag the cap off the nipple, or allow the cap to be blown back off the nipple. Other brand nipples use a small orifice to accomplish the same thing. I've also heard it said that splitting the cap is a good thing and that the groove in the hammer of Colts is designed to do this, aside from working as a safety that locks the cylinder between firing positions.

[45 Dragoon]

Hey Len,
  You may be a little confused-   I don't make or sell Slix shot nips. The reason for the vents you're talking about is to "supposedly" keep the charge from blowing the cap off the nipple.  Some say they work, some say no difference found .  .  .   The problem with the cap coming off the nipple is that they tend to go to other places ie into the lock work.  So, the vents combined with a heavy main should keep the spent cap in place. 

 Many customers of mine have more or less arthritic thumbs (competitors or not) and like a much lighter mainspring. A 4 pound hammer draw is light enough for most and slightly lighter allows one to EASILY handle a cap gun (Colt or Remi pattern) with ease! The heavy factory installed mainspring isn't conducive to quick follow-up shots, slip-thumbing the hammer, fast draw, even fanning .  .  . ( your technique is yours, not mine)  My job is to give you a tool capable of whatever you want, as reliable and trouble free as possible.

 This being the case, a cap post and now an Action Shield will allow you to have an open top revolver or Remington that will be even more reliable and function as close to a finely tuned cartridge revolver as you can possibly get (as far as I'm concerned!! Lol!!)!!!

 Before folks start in on "I'm fine with my factory springs .  .  .  ", that's all well and good but, heavy springs mask feeling for other things, they batter the frame and or nipples, cause early (sometimes extremely early) action parts failure , and make it impossible to near impossible for some to enjoy shooting cap guns. Folks that never experience a truly fine tuned revolver (of any kind) will never understand what is possible and what an amazing weapon they could have with a little " tweaking" !!

 So, my announcement here about the Action Shield was just to notify you folks that this is something that works  (every bit as well as hoped) very well, easy to install and will at least keep "stuff" out of your action!

  I'll post some more pics to better explain the install soon .  .  .

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @ goonsgunworks

[mike116]

Ok, so they are Slixes, but what is the technical, scientifical purpose of those radial holes? The cap ignition produces a pressure and the flame goes down into the bp-load. Why letting some of that pressure go sideways? To loosen the cap? To get it down into the mechanism? There surely must be some ingenious purpose. Did they have those holes back in the days?

Here's a link to the manufacturer's explanation of the vent holes on SlixShot nipples.   https://www.badmanbullets.com/cowboygunparts.com/cap-&-ball-nipples.html

[Len]

Ok,  here ya go.
  You can drop any type of cap fragment,  whole hull, whatever.   .  .   and pull the trigger.  You may (probably will) get a failure to fire but you wont get anything down in the action. Cocking the hammer again, the shield will present the " foreign material" to be discarded. A nice mod that works perfectly and is a great compliment for the cap post.

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @goonsgunworks

Tell us about the small radial holes in the nipples, please

Ok, so they are Slixes, but what is the technical, scientifical purpose of those radial holes? The cap ignition produces a pressure and the flame goes down into the bp-load. Why letting some of that pressure go sideways? To loosen the cap? To get it down into the mechanism? There surely must be some ingenious purpose. Did they have those holes back in the days?

  I believe it's to relieve some pressure upon firing so the hammer won't be blown back and hence drag the cap off the nipple, or allow the cap to be blown back off the nipple. Other brand nipples use a small orifice to accomplish the same thing. I've also heard it said that splitting the cap is a good thing and that the groove in the hammer of Colts is designed to do this, aside from working as a safety that locks the cylinder between firing positions.

I've also heard it said that there is a certain dance,like a Scottish reel, that if properly performed, will prevent stuff from interfering with the action. Prolly just hearsay.

[45 Dragoon]

Well, the dance would be the cheapest avenue so practice your steps and have at it!

Mike
www.goonsgunworks.com
Follow me on Instagram @ goonsgunworks