HuntAmerica.com: What's your best homemade 'Snap Cap' assembly?

HuntAmerica.com: What's your best homemade 'Snap Cap' assembly?

Some snippets:

Question posed by Ed:

What did you use in place of the primer? Silicone cauking? An eraser tip? What?

How has it held up?

Posted by 41fan:

Buy a stick of 1/4" nylon or delrin (hobby shop) rod.

Run a 1/4x28 die down it.

Drill and tap the case for 1/4x28 and screw the rod in and face it off.

Even if you count the price of tools, a twenty dollar bill will supply snap caps for a lifetime in all calibers bigger than a 32 ACP.

Posted later by 41fan:

Now I have a little more time to explain.

I specified 1/4x28 for the thread. I tried 1/4x20 first but it seemed like it didn't hold up near as long and loosened too easy. (Teflon tape or silicone sealant will hold it in.)

Once you see how the material last you might want to make some really good ones by seating a bullet in the drilled case and squirting in a gob of silicone sealant then screwing in the rod all the way to the bullet or shoulder. They weigh close enough to be feeding dummies and even look good.

I found a translucent nylon at an Army Surplus store about 1970 that lasted better than anything else I’ve seen since. There was only a foot of it…..:(

You’ll know if its really good if its hard to thread in a die. The best material is too hard to dent with a thumbnail and seems to “heal-up” when cut by the die.

Ed:

Sounds good. So I guess the thing to do is to thread the entire rod at once (shouldn't be a big deal, I wouldn't think), seat a bullet, squirt in the silicone caulking (through the drilled/tapped hole), thread in the rod, and snip it off flush with tin snips or whatever. I don't have a drill press or a lathe, but I could probably do a fair job of slightly recessing the rod/primer by carefully using my RCBS Case Prep Center's primer-pocket uniformer. I could probably get pretty exact, actually, by getting some small washers and setting them over the uniformer's cutter.

BW piped in:

I've used old tire sidewalls and taken a hole punch to them. You can trim the plugs to fit for length and just glue them in with emblem cement. When and if they go to pot just punch em out with the decapper and replace them.

booger had a thought:

Russ, another trick, not as sophisticated as Jack's, is to put a dab of AcraGlas gel or, for that matter, epoxy in the primer pocket. This lasts a couple hundred snaps and is easy to replace and repair. Might work as a stopgap while you assemble the Belk's Super-duper Snap Caps (patent pending).