Here is a cap tin for the pill primers that I have with my Billinghurst Cylinder Rifle. It is about the diameter of a quarter and shows some of the pills that are in it. The entire label reads: “WATERPROOF PILL/PERCUSSION PRIMING./Made by W. Billinghurst, Rochester, N.Y.” I cannot imagine the danger of this tin of primers banging around in someone’s pocket and what might have, or did, happen.
The add to what was said in the previous comment was something that I found while researching William Billinghurst for a piece that I did for Man At Arms magazine in 2011.
“Seth Green, the best shot in New York State, and an ardent sportsman, prefers a rifle made by Billinghurst, of Rochester on Millar’s patient. It is a seven-shooter, having a cylinder similar to Colt’s, patch ball, round or long, and pill-lock. In loading, the powder is put into the cylinder, and the ball patched and pushed down the barrel to the cylinder, turning the cylinder every time a ball is put down, until the cylinder is loaded, then drop a pill in the prime-hole, and tallow it over, and you are alright for 7 shots. With this kind of rifle, Green has shot for many years, and always found it answer well; in his own words, “When you are in the woods, with one of the above guns, you feel that you are monarch of all you survey, and do not fear anything that wears hair”.”
From “Notes on William Billinghurst, Rochester, N.Y. and Edward C. Barber, a contemporary” by Eric. C. Stone Rochester Public Library, 1868.