Capping the Ruger Old Army

Z

zippy13

New member
I dusted off the ROA this afternoon and shot a few wheels of 200-Gr Lee R.E.A.L.s over a lubed wad and 1.7-cc of Pyro-P (seated with an external press). CCI 11s applied with my new T/C capper. Reasonable groups; but, each time I had to call a timeout to clear a split/jammed cap. Any ideas about what I can do to avoid future captastrophes?
Many thanks, Z13
 
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If your caps are splitting off and causing jams you can try several things.

1. Try tighter fitting #10 caps instead of # 11's. Not sure if # 10's will be too tight to properly fit your Ruger or not, but you could try it. It has been my experience that caps fitting the nipples tighter have less tendency to split as badly as loose caps. I'm not exactly sure why. One would think that tighter fitting caps would hold in more pressure and therefore split even more violently (than loose fitting caps which might allow some pressure to go out the sides of the caps) when the thin walls of the caps failed against the back pressure. But in my experience it has been just the opposite. Again, not exactly sure why.

2. Try getting some Treso nipples to replace your Ruger factory ones. It is possible that your nipples have either too large of touch hole openings going in to the chamber (or are eroded too large) and are allowing too much force from the chamber explosion to come back through the nipple and that can contribute to splitting your caps badly. (In extreme cases it can even put enough force out the back of the nipple to recock your hammer, especially if the caps are loose allowing them to easily blow off back against your hammer, which would be easier to happen on a Colt than a Ruger or Remy) The Treso nipples have less large touch hole openings and hence will allow less back pressure to come back through that opening against the cap from the chamber explosion.

3. You could put on some of those little plastic rings that go on over the caps to help hold their sides in from splitting. They act like the reinforcement ring on early cannon barrels that help to reinforce the metal to keep it from splitting from pressure and they also help to keep moisture from getting into your caps when they are on the nipples since they fit tightly over and cover the front rim edge of your caps.


4. You could also try reducing your powder load which would lessen blowback pressure through the nipple and therefore hopefully lessen splitting your caps. But you may not be using too much of a load, nor want to lessen the powder load. In that case default back to 1., 2., and 3. for solutions.

Anyway....that's what I recommend and what I'd try to reduce cap splitting.



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+ 1 for Remington #10's...at least in my stainless ROA. No problems with them whatsoever. I typically have to pull them off the nipples after shooting.
 
#10's don't fit on my ROA. They have to get hit twice with the hammer to go off.
Click to expand...

You're not seating them far enough and the first blow of the hammer is seating them.
 
Use a small diameter wooden dowel to seat them all the way down. Sometimes you just can't get them on far enough with your fingers or a straight line capper.



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I've got CCI 10s and 11s; but, with so many of you recommending the Remington 10s, it looks like I be swapping some CCI blue tins for Remmy green.

The rifler, did you use Remington 10s? I tried the CCI's 10s with little luck in my ROA.
 
CCI #10's are too small and #11's are too large, but Remington #10's fit every nipple on every revolver I have, including 10 ROA's and 16 Italian 1847's, 1849's, 1851's, 1860's and 1861's.
 
The reason that loose caps split more readily than tight caps is because loose caps allow some of the gas pressure to flow around the outside of the nipple, and rupture the unsupported cap. Tight caps keep all of the gas pressure directed down the flash hole, where it's supposed to go.

I am currently in percussion cap hell myself. I have a Remington .44 NMA that I replaced the nipples on, and it seems happiest with CCI #10's. I have most of a box of 1000 of them, too. But I just got another 1860 Army, and it will only accept Remington #11's (never tried Remington #10's, though). Unfortunately I only had part of a tin of Remington #11's, and went to three stores yesterday to try to get another tin for a range trip. No joy!

I have an extra set of nipples - I think they're the ones off of the Remington - and I'm thinking about chucking them in my drill press and using a Swiss file to dress the tube down so as to accept the CCI #10's, then swap those on to my 1860. Both pistols are Piettas, so they should fit. I don't know why, but it seems like the majority of on-line vendors handle the CCI caps, but the Remingtons are always out of stock. Eventually, I suppose, the answer is to have two sets of nipples for each revolver, one set up for CCI's and the other set up for Remingtons.

I hate to pay that Haz-Mat fee. One of the on-line vendors whose page I was on yesterday evening charges a $20.00 Haz-Mat fee PER TIN, not per shipment. I put 10 tins (1000 caps) in my shopping cart and the Haz-Mat fee was $200! I believe it was either Gander Mountain or Bass Pro Shops. Needless to say I didn't complete that order.
 
tpelle,

It was Gander Mountain. I just checked, and they want a $20 haz-mat fee PER TIN! They are out of the friggin' minds!!!
 
I don't like Remington caps and I can find CCI #11's almost anywhere but the only #10's I can find are Remington. Go figure.:rolleyes:
 
You know what? I decided I'd fool around with converting my extra set of nipples to take the CCI #10's. I first checked them to make sure they were correctly threaded to fit the Colt 1860 Army cylinder, then, just to get an idea how much I had to mill off, I got out a tin of CCI #10's and tried one. Guess what! The CCI #10 fit perfectly on the spare nipples!

I eyeballed them in comparison with the nipples the came on the 1860 Army, and the originals have a lot more taper, being wider at the bottom. This extra width prevented the longer CCI #10 from seating all the way.

Funny thing is, all of these nipples came as originals on one or the other of a Pietta revolver! You'd think they'd be the same, but I guess Pietta's quality control tolerances are a little loose, huh?

Anyway, it looks like I lucked out!
 
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