Does anyone have any idea when percussion caps will be available ?

[1911tex]

Dove hunting season arrives in 30 days......my 20ga double is naked.
Every dealer, internet and local has been repeating the same song for over a year.  I just have a dozen or so #11 Remmingtons left in a tin I bought several years ago...sticker priced $2.39 per hundred on the tin.  I guess those days are loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong gone!

[Dogshirt]

I haven't seen any place that DOESN'T have them. But then I only live 125 miles or so from CCI.
They have been $4.99 for the last 3 years or so, but I have not seen a shortage of caps.

[Don Steele]

$ 7.49 / 100 in Melbourne, FL last week.
Plenty available.
How many ya want... 

[1911tex]

Thank you everyone.......I really appreciate you going the extra yard!  Wow what a great bunch of folks.  I have my caps.........

[heelerau]

 $10.50 here in Perth  Western Australia for Remington 10 and 11 caps, just enquired today.

[Hungry Horse]

 I toadja they was jist a passin' phase, that wouldn't catch on. Flintlocks rock!!

                      Hungry Horse

[Dogshirt]

Ain't no fad. The whole rock thing is the biggest joke ever perpetrated on humanity. Some where , someone is looking and laughing himself sick.

[okawbow]

I've been trying to buy #11 caps in Illinois for 6 months. No one has them. There are none available online. Gander Mountain says they won't have them until next year.

[Kermit]

So I'm kinda wondering about the shelf life of the caps the fearful are hoarding. Bet my flints have 'em beat by some.

[Dogshirt]

I have some #12 caps from the 70s that still go off just fine. Since I don't plan on living 40 more years I figure
they have a lifetime shelf life.

[JTR]

Ain't no fad. The whole rock thing is the biggest joke ever perpetrated on humanity. Some where , someone is looking and laughing himself sick.

Dogshirt,
I wonder why you’re so adamantly adverse to flintlocks?
If you just don’t like them that’s fine, but I’m curious why you seem to feel the need to blast them so often?
John

[Dogshirt]

As if others here don't bash percussion? Had one, it sucked. Watch them at shoots try over and over to get them to fire. ABSOLUTRLY nothing will ever convince me to try another one. They just plain suck!

[Standing Bear]

Look, we flint shooters aren't the ones trying to buy something to make our rifles go off. 

Maybe you were watching the wrong folks trying to shoot flinters.  Maybe the one you were working with was in need of something or you were taught wrong how to load and fire one.  IE There is not a thing in the world that will cure a soft frizzen except correct tempering.  I asked before what knid of flinter and load you were shooting that got you so riled up but you didn't answer.  Seems you have your mind made up and facts won't change it.  That's OK but know this, well tuned and properly handled flinters are quite reliable.

I have both and enjoy the flinters the most.  Now if I could just afford a good flint shotgun.
TC

[axelp]

I used to hate flintlocks too. But when you get one with a decent lock, and the touch hole is in the right location, they are quite reliable and fun to shoot. Mine goes off when I want it to and hits what I point it at most of the time---

I hunt with my flinters, brought home plenty of pheasant and tree rats even in the rain...  and even went wild hawg hunting with a flintlock---ok I admit, I sat by a tree with low hanging limbs.... But at the end of the day when I touched her off she spoke up just fine.

[Dogshirt]

Look, we flint shooters aren't the ones trying to buy something to make our rifles go off. 

Maybe you were watching the wrong folks trying to shoot flinters.  Maybe the one you were working with was in need of something or you were taught wrong how to load and fire one.  IE There is not a thing in the world that will cure a soft frizzen except correct tempering.  I asked before what knid of flinter and load you were shooting that got you so riled up but you didn't answer.  Seems you have your mind made up and facts won't change it.  That's OK but know this, well tuned and properly handled flinters are quite reliable.

I have both and enjoy the flinters the most.  Now if I could just afford a good flint shotgun.
TC

Yes you are, you have to buy flints. I've heard the old "I can get a rock anywhere!" Well, NO you can't. Not every rock
will spark, and you can't just pick one up and expect it to work, even if it IS the right kind. So flint shooters aren't any better off than cap shooters.

[1911tex]

Just had to go dove hunting with my double 20 percussion...needed caps which you great folks provided in this thread.  Don't want to get off subject, but>>>

Flinters have been my joy since a teenager for hunting deer, hogs and turkey.  In fact I still shoot that old 42", 50 cal. flinter and would not trade it for the finest modern made.

I look at it this way, flint has been around for 400 years successfully, and provided us with the greatest country in the world.  Percussion only about 30 more or less years and centerfire only since the civil war; however it was black powder for 30 years and smokeless since.......never catch up with flint in a dozen more lifetimes!

Flint is like riding a fine horse......knowing that has been the standard method of travel for a thousand years.  Until you ride in the saddle or walk carrying your flinter.........you can't begin to appreciate our heritage.  It is a mindset....an experience, and it is very effective.   Sure there are hunters with 300H&H magnums...but

So much for off subject and thanks again folks for a great forum!

[Candle Snuffer]

Don't know when caps will be available?  I expect in some areas they are available, and in others, they're not.  I own both cap and flint rifles.  I like them both, but enjoy my flintlocks the most.  Flintlocks are reliable if one is willing to learn the firearm they are shooting.  It's really no different then learning the operation of a cap lock.  The key to both is quality locks, and not junk locks.  I've gotta give a plug to, Chamber's and those Siler locks, both flint and cap.  This is quality.

In the last 60+ days I've taken around 80 or so shots with my favorite flinter and haven't experience any misfires/hang fires, and we've had uncommonly "humid" weather conditions over this time period.  High humidity and moisture just about every day.  This is also with a Black English Flint that now probably has close to 120+ shots fired off it.  It's been in my rifle since last winter, only because the last flint with about 80 to 100 shots on it finally gave up the ghost.

So yes, I really like flintlocks over cap locks, and that's directly related to installing quality locks on my builds.

Just my two cents worth.

[Standing Bear]

Yes we are better off.  There is no shortage of flints from TOW and others.  And I live on a huge amount of suitable chert from which flints can be knapped.  Also, one can break a small file like a 6" MB and set her off.

Now when the control freaks start limiting or outlawing black powder, flinters will be in more trouble as the pseudo BP stuff ignites at way too high a temperature to work well if at all as a prime charge or a main charge.  Right now they are going after cartridge ammo which affects availability of caps - flint availability has only been hampered by Rich Pierce's retirement not by acts of the bureaucrats.

Don't let your blindness get in the way of good thinking.

[Dogshirt]

I'm not, which is why I will never own another flintlock.

[Dennis Glazener]

I used to hate flintlocks too. But when you get one with a decent lock, and the touch hole is in the right location, they are quite reliable and fun to shoot. Mine goes off when I want it to and hits what I point it at most of the time---

My hunting buddy uses one of those modern, state of the art Rem 700ML that constantly fails to fire. He covets my Dickert 54 caliber with its Jim Chambers Siler flintlock. It has embarrassed him in wet weather as well as dry. He is amazed at its reliability.
Dennis

[Frizzen]

If I could have only one, it would be a Flint. I have shot both for over 50 years.

[Old Bob]

As if others here don't bash percussion? Had one, it sucked. Watch them at shoots try over and over to get them to fire. ABSOLUTRLY nothing will ever convince me to try another one. They just plain suck!

Those guys must be somewhat lacking in basic skills. I've had much less trouble getting a flintlock to fire than a percussion. In fact, I was so fed up with a cap gun I made a new flint lock for it.

[okawbow]

Earlier this year, I converted my percussion Bedford Co. to flint, because I cannot get percussion caps. I make my own flints from local Burlington chert, and they spark great. As I said earlier; there are no caps available locally, and the one supplier I found online, wanted $20.00 per tin of 100 caps for hazardous shipping.

As far as I'm concerned; caps are no longer available.

[Jerry V Lape]

What flintlock did you own that failed you so badly.  Please tell us so we may avoid that one as well? 

By the way, if blackpowder should no longer be produced we will still have other options such as the sugar based powder or homemade blackpowder.  May not be as good as what is now available but it will shoot. 

If your argument is extended just a bit there is no reason for you to be shooting percussions either as smokeless modern cartridge rifles have been available for more than a century and they are highly reliable. 

I had problems learning to get reliable performance from my first flintlock.  Now it is not perceptibly slower than any percussion (I know the percussions are usually faster by couple thousandths of a second but I can't tell the difference.) 

[SCLoyalist]

  Flinters can be more picky to work with - more springs to be in balance, more surfaces that have to be properly tempered,  and even for a properly tuned lock the ignition system continually changes as the flint edge is altered with every strike against the frizzen.  My main reason for shooting flint is flintlocks were predominant during the historical periods I'm interested in and that's what the hobby is all about.   That still didn't stop me from buying 3000 CCI no. 11's when I found them at 80 percent off in a hardware store going out
of business.

Rock suitable for flintknapping is available from several commercial sources, at a cost of around $1 per pound (and no Hazmat charge).   A friend who knaps gave me a box of rocks (various chert, flint, agate, fire coral as I recall) and I tried making gunflints.   What I produced is at best gun spalls, and wouldn't ever be mistaken for Tom Fuller's products, but they do throw sparks and fit it the lock jaws better because they don't have the characteristic 'hump' back.   I know my yield of usable spalls per raw rock is low (but will get better with practice). The thing is, it's just a piece of rock.   When I paid $1.75 per 'black English gun flint' I felt bad if for any reason it only lasted 25 shots.  But, for a spall I knapped myself, heck, if it only last 10 shots, it's no big deal.   It's just a  piece of a rock.