That’s me on top. Don’t even need the pistol, just a rock or hammer and the sidewalk.
36
Paper tape caps here.
9
Top one. We did have the pistol that fed and “shot” the paper rolls but usually it was a rock or a hammer. Good times.
11
Even if I would have had a cap gun, it’s unlikely I would have had the money for caps.
Times were tough but it shaped who I am today. Good, bad or otherwise.
12
paper, I was old school.
11
Both!
21
Primarily paper. Raised on six-shooters. Remember the bomb/darts to throw in the air going bang when you hit the street? More caps, more bang. You could scratch them with your thumbnail an somethimes get a “pop” but usually just that fine aroma of burnt powder… never could fool the teachers about where that came from.
11
Paper caps and a hammer. Good memories, loved the aroma.
16
Both. I still have my plastic cap wheel gun. The paper cap guns fell apart decades ago.
7
I always preferred paper because, at first, that was the only choice. An entire roll at a time in Dad’s bench vise was my preferred method. No more Dad but I still have that vise on my bench.
11
That smell was like a gateway drug.
28
Strips.
More versatile too.
Use one or multiple rolls with a big rock!
7
Paper.
Put the whole pack in Uncle Hanks vise and start cranking.
5
Rolled paper caps for me.
But what all kids (i.e., boys) really liked was firecrackers. They were imported from Hong Kong and came in various sizes and prices starting at 5 cents a package for the smallest ones. The biggest we called Cannons and I think they would do serious damage to anyone dumb enough to hold them while they exploded. But I never heard of any kid actually doing that.
5
@aircubed
Ah, the smell of exploding gunpowder in the morning. Nothing better.
7
The original paper or plastic?
7
Roll caps.
My goal in life through about the age of seven was to alter my rifle with a wooden bullet to shoot live ammunition. That is a damnable thing to give a kid. A never ending source of frustration and disappointment. At about the age of eight we home built fire cracker pistols and rifles using black iron plumbing pipe and caps with a fuse hole drilled in them for a breach plug. They were altered to use an Estes rocket igniter with a switch for a trigger and battery carried in a belt pouch. We rode our stingrays to the training areas on Ft Lewis and gleaned I fired munitions from which we obtained various propellants which were much too fast burning in most cases having come from .762 and 50 cal blanks. Signal flares had propellant and a phosphorus so they were a twofer. We were under constant surveillance and had sisters who ratted us out to the authorities and the parents confiscated the contraband fairly regularly frustrating our efforts to have modern ordnance commensurate with our needs.
Red blooded American boys cannot be expected to satisfy their needs with air guns, bows and arrows and sling shots. We had a Winchester break barrel 22 caliber air rifle that was plumb worn out. We drilled a hole in the breach and into the piston and soldered a piece of drill rod into the piston. Selected the proper number drill and chambered it for 22 LR and it made a pretty good 22 that from cursory examination was a pellet gun. It worked really well.
My buddy used to like to set off a whole roll of caps by pounding them between rocks. He progressed to setting off an entire box by putting them on the anvil and hitting them with a drilling hammer to set them off. His hearing has been nonexistent above fairly low frequency since we were kids. I attribute it to setting off boxes of roll cups in his face with no hearing protection.
11
Paper caps, took a pin and punched hole in each gunpowder pocket of the whole role. Wrapped them up with strike anywhere kitchen matches and put white gauze tape around the whole bundle. They went off with a really large bang.
Also had the Greeny Stick-M-Caps
10
When I was a little kid I went every where with a dual rig Fanner Fifty set of guns strapped on with the plastic Mattel holsters. I can still remember the smell. I wonder what the reaction would be today if a young lad walked into a grocery store wearing toy guns? They’d probably prosecute the parents. Just so yo know, not much has changed. Every where go I’m still strapped. LOL. It’s my parents fault.
12
Roll caps were all there were when I sported my Gene Autry cap guns in their fancy leather gun belt with leather and metal holsters. Yep, the holsters were metal, making for a very quick draw.
By the time the New! Improved! strips and plastics came out, I was already into Ashcans and M-80s.
8
Tried ’em both. Experimented with the paper version when the cops were sweeping the school, tried plastic one at a track meet. Both times the track coach asked if I wanted to join the sprinting team.
3
We’d smash whole rolls with a sledge hammer. My ears still ring.
5
Imagine a 6 year old boy going to the dime store and buying two handfuls of “explosives” and walking out no questions asked. It happened daily all over the country in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. It’s really sad what a pathetic, fraidy-cat society we have become…
17
Paper caps with a rock on our driveway or the road. And, oh, the smell! All I needed to do was see that picture and I remembered! Ahhhhhhh.
7
Both, depending on price and availability.
2
Paper. I couldn’t afford the plastic.
5
used both, liked paper the best
4
Started with the top one (although I always bought the ones with a hole between each powder load. I had one gun with a sprocket wheel that advanced the caps that way. My other gun just used a flat grabber to move the paper. In my teens, the other came out. The cap guns for the plastic caps were far more realistic, so I liked them too. And as others mentioned, don’t forget about just hitting them with a hammer, or the “bombs” you loaded 1 (or many) caps into and then threw into the air so they would explode upon impact.
4
Mattel Fanner 50
was the ultimate cap gun
4
+1 for Fanner 50 and paper roll caps.
2
My friends and I ran all up and down the street shooting each other with cap pistols, air rifles, Star Trek phasers, and even this one BB gun that looked and felt like a .45, even cocked by pulling an action at the back of the slide backwards, and not one time did any cop or parent worry about any of it, they all knew it was just Boyz having fun.
Simpler times, and less cowardly times too, I suppose, we even packed on school grounds and shot each other at recess without so much as an exaggerated damn from a recess teacher or principal…
6
The pungent aroma of exploded caps takes second place in my fond memories only to the semi-aphrodisiacal perfume of high-test tetraethyl leaded gasoline.
5
Speaking of smells, the older version of Hoppe’s No. 9
Wife hated it.
Kids liked it. But they were started in competitive shooting in grade school.
4
I used to have tons of fun with a BB gun and toy soldiers. I’d set up the soldiers in the basement, then lay prone 10 feet or so in front of them and shoot ’em all down. Then, I’d collect all the BBs off the floor and reload ’em, set up the soldiers and do it all again. I even got my dad, brother, uncle, and cousin taking turns with the BB gun.
Most of the toy soldiers were plastic, but some of the older ones were made of tin. Sometimes we could blow their little heads off. It was all good fun.
5
Back in the very early 1960’s I had a little toy Civil War era cannon. I could actually fire things out of it. It had a lever that I would depress and a spring trigger mechanism would eject whatever was in the barrel. So, to make it seem more realistic, I got some big wooden matches, shoved them into the barrel with the match head out. Then I’d light them, fire, and they would fly across the room like tiny rockets. I’m damned lucky I didn’t set the house on fire.
5
My brother and I discovered you could pull the bullet from a 30 cal M-1 carbine cartridge, dump the powder, replace the bullet, and fire it out if the rifle using only the primer. Did this in the backyard in suburbia, but only when my parents were gone. We had a secrecy pact that still holds.
3
When I was a kid, I received a Mattel Auto-burst M-1 sub machinegun for Christmas. It used the roll caps with the perforations. Pull back on the bolt and pull the trigger and 25 rounds went off in automatic fire. It would smoke like a hippy during a sit-in. I must have killed thousands of Japs and Krauts in my time. They had it coming.
9
A – All of the Above
B – Both of the Above
C – Both A and B
D – D is the Winner
E – MC squared
V – A, B, C, D are all right
Z – A past C through D to V and Z
Do not forget to show your work
Good Luck
All the Best
LYA55
2
@ Jethro SUNDAY, 14 JANUARY 2024, 20:50 AT 8:50 PM
By the time they were out of three cornered pants a kid could go into the mercantile or any gas station that was worth a shit in rural Montana and but 22 rimfire ammo by the round, usually out of a goldfish bowl. We got bounty money for our gopher feet, but it took a lot of gophers to buy a whole box of ammo. Kids almost always picked their favorites out of the goldfish bowls. We trapped the gophers, shooting them was akin to any government “investment” boondoggle of your choice. The returns were never even close to the investment in ammo. 22 shells were for big game like rabbits and raccoons.
3
My Brother and I use to blow the heads off of snowmen with a Stevens 12 gauge. Until I found a box of paper 12 gauges. I pulled the trigger and the shotgun went, “FSSSSSSSSSS, fsssssss!”
I was like, ‘Oh shit!’
3
Carbide and water and a spark plug, a Ford ignition coal, some wire, a car battery and heavy wall gas pipe and an end cap is what we fashioned our howitzers from. The projectile was a pop can full of gravel held in by water pump grease patched with a piece of greased inner tube and rammed down from the muzzle for anti personnel action. A pop can full of concrete if we were expecting to have to lay siege to a fortified position. A hell of a lot of planning for the war that never came on our part. I don’t know that we ever formally identified who exactly we were preparing to face off with, but we were making damn sure we weren’t outgunned by a bunch of Goddamned communists.
The other kids could hide under the desks, but we were preparing to meet the enemy on our terms.
4
How were these ever banned? Considering that now you’ve got kids with lithium batteries. One smack with a hammer and you have an uncontrollable burn that takes the entire freakin house down since kids don’t have cap guns to shoot outside anymore.
3
Paper caps, of course. Cheap and more available. Hardly ever used the metal cap gun to set them off. A hammer on cement seemed to make a louder noise. Only drawback I think was the fun was over if they got wet. Got to keep that powder dry!
Didn’t use the plastic caps. Didn’t like them. They cost more and a cap gun was necessary.
4
Top, the only way.
2
Top, the only way.
Paper caps, light them with a match.
1
Unfortunately, I started out on the paper caps and then graduated to the BB gun and shot my eye out.
1
The Fanner 50 had shoot-em shells. There was a recess in the handle to load them. With greenie stick-em caps they made a nice toy gun.
1
Never even knew about the plastic ones.
2
Paper… couldn’t afford the plastic ones or the guns that shot them
Paper.
That’s me on top. Don’t even need the pistol, just a rock or hammer and the sidewalk.
Paper tape caps here.
Top one. We did have the pistol that fed and “shot” the paper rolls but usually it was a rock or a hammer. Good times.
Even if I would have had a cap gun, it’s unlikely I would have had the money for caps.
Times were tough but it shaped who I am today. Good, bad or otherwise.
paper, I was old school.
Both!
Primarily paper. Raised on six-shooters. Remember the bomb/darts to throw in the air going bang when you hit the street? More caps, more bang. You could scratch them with your thumbnail an somethimes get a “pop” but usually just that fine aroma of burnt powder… never could fool the teachers about where that came from.
Paper caps and a hammer. Good memories, loved the aroma.
Both. I still have my plastic cap wheel gun. The paper cap guns fell apart decades ago.
I always preferred paper because, at first, that was the only choice. An entire roll at a time in Dad’s bench vise was my preferred method. No more Dad but I still have that vise on my bench.
That smell was like a gateway drug.
Strips.
More versatile too.
Use one or multiple rolls with a big rock!
Paper.
Put the whole pack in Uncle Hanks vise and start cranking.
Rolled paper caps for me.
But what all kids (i.e., boys) really liked was firecrackers. They were imported from Hong Kong and came in various sizes and prices starting at 5 cents a package for the smallest ones. The biggest we called Cannons and I think they would do serious damage to anyone dumb enough to hold them while they exploded. But I never heard of any kid actually doing that.
@aircubed
Ah, the smell of exploding gunpowder in the morning. Nothing better.
The original paper or plastic?
Roll caps.
My goal in life through about the age of seven was to alter my rifle with a wooden bullet to shoot live ammunition. That is a damnable thing to give a kid. A never ending source of frustration and disappointment. At about the age of eight we home built fire cracker pistols and rifles using black iron plumbing pipe and caps with a fuse hole drilled in them for a breach plug. They were altered to use an Estes rocket igniter with a switch for a trigger and battery carried in a belt pouch. We rode our stingrays to the training areas on Ft Lewis and gleaned I fired munitions from which we obtained various propellants which were much too fast burning in most cases having come from .762 and 50 cal blanks. Signal flares had propellant and a phosphorus so they were a twofer. We were under constant surveillance and had sisters who ratted us out to the authorities and the parents confiscated the contraband fairly regularly frustrating our efforts to have modern ordnance commensurate with our needs.
Red blooded American boys cannot be expected to satisfy their needs with air guns, bows and arrows and sling shots. We had a Winchester break barrel 22 caliber air rifle that was plumb worn out. We drilled a hole in the breach and into the piston and soldered a piece of drill rod into the piston. Selected the proper number drill and chambered it for 22 LR and it made a pretty good 22 that from cursory examination was a pellet gun. It worked really well.
My buddy used to like to set off a whole roll of caps by pounding them between rocks. He progressed to setting off an entire box by putting them on the anvil and hitting them with a drilling hammer to set them off. His hearing has been nonexistent above fairly low frequency since we were kids. I attribute it to setting off boxes of roll cups in his face with no hearing protection.
Paper caps, took a pin and punched hole in each gunpowder pocket of the whole role. Wrapped them up with strike anywhere kitchen matches and put white gauze tape around the whole bundle. They went off with a really large bang.
Also had the Greeny Stick-M-Caps
When I was a little kid I went every where with a dual rig Fanner Fifty set of guns strapped on with the plastic Mattel holsters. I can still remember the smell. I wonder what the reaction would be today if a young lad walked into a grocery store wearing toy guns? They’d probably prosecute the parents. Just so yo know, not much has changed. Every where go I’m still strapped. LOL. It’s my parents fault.
Roll caps were all there were when I sported my Gene Autry cap guns in their fancy leather gun belt with leather and metal holsters. Yep, the holsters were metal, making for a very quick draw.
By the time the New! Improved! strips and plastics came out, I was already into Ashcans and M-80s.
Tried ’em both. Experimented with the paper version when the cops were sweeping the school, tried plastic one at a track meet. Both times the track coach asked if I wanted to join the sprinting team.
We’d smash whole rolls with a sledge hammer. My ears still ring.
Imagine a 6 year old boy going to the dime store and buying two handfuls of “explosives” and walking out no questions asked. It happened daily all over the country in the 50’s, 60’s and early 70’s. It’s really sad what a pathetic, fraidy-cat society we have become…
Paper caps with a rock on our driveway or the road. And, oh, the smell! All I needed to do was see that picture and I remembered! Ahhhhhhh.
Both, depending on price and availability.
Paper. I couldn’t afford the plastic.
used both, liked paper the best
Started with the top one (although I always bought the ones with a hole between each powder load. I had one gun with a sprocket wheel that advanced the caps that way. My other gun just used a flat grabber to move the paper. In my teens, the other came out. The cap guns for the plastic caps were far more realistic, so I liked them too. And as others mentioned, don’t forget about just hitting them with a hammer, or the “bombs” you loaded 1 (or many) caps into and then threw into the air so they would explode upon impact.
Mattel Fanner 50
was the ultimate cap gun
+1 for Fanner 50 and paper roll caps.
My friends and I ran all up and down the street shooting each other with cap pistols, air rifles, Star Trek phasers, and even this one BB gun that looked and felt like a .45, even cocked by pulling an action at the back of the slide backwards, and not one time did any cop or parent worry about any of it, they all knew it was just Boyz having fun.
Simpler times, and less cowardly times too, I suppose, we even packed on school grounds and shot each other at recess without so much as an exaggerated damn from a recess teacher or principal…
The pungent aroma of exploded caps takes second place in my fond memories only to the semi-aphrodisiacal perfume of high-test tetraethyl leaded gasoline.
Speaking of smells, the older version of Hoppe’s No. 9
Wife hated it.
Kids liked it. But they were started in competitive shooting in grade school.
I used to have tons of fun with a BB gun and toy soldiers. I’d set up the soldiers in the basement, then lay prone 10 feet or so in front of them and shoot ’em all down. Then, I’d collect all the BBs off the floor and reload ’em, set up the soldiers and do it all again. I even got my dad, brother, uncle, and cousin taking turns with the BB gun.
Most of the toy soldiers were plastic, but some of the older ones were made of tin. Sometimes we could blow their little heads off. It was all good fun.
Back in the very early 1960’s I had a little toy Civil War era cannon. I could actually fire things out of it. It had a lever that I would depress and a spring trigger mechanism would eject whatever was in the barrel. So, to make it seem more realistic, I got some big wooden matches, shoved them into the barrel with the match head out. Then I’d light them, fire, and they would fly across the room like tiny rockets. I’m damned lucky I didn’t set the house on fire.
My brother and I discovered you could pull the bullet from a 30 cal M-1 carbine cartridge, dump the powder, replace the bullet, and fire it out if the rifle using only the primer. Did this in the backyard in suburbia, but only when my parents were gone. We had a secrecy pact that still holds.
When I was a kid, I received a Mattel Auto-burst M-1 sub machinegun for Christmas. It used the roll caps with the perforations. Pull back on the bolt and pull the trigger and 25 rounds went off in automatic fire. It would smoke like a hippy during a sit-in. I must have killed thousands of Japs and Krauts in my time. They had it coming.
A – All of the Above
B – Both of the Above
C – Both A and B
D – D is the Winner
E – MC squared
V – A, B, C, D are all right
Z – A past C through D to V and Z
Do not forget to show your work
Good Luck
All the Best
LYA55
@ Jethro SUNDAY, 14 JANUARY 2024, 20:50 AT 8:50 PM
By the time they were out of three cornered pants a kid could go into the mercantile or any gas station that was worth a shit in rural Montana and but 22 rimfire ammo by the round, usually out of a goldfish bowl. We got bounty money for our gopher feet, but it took a lot of gophers to buy a whole box of ammo. Kids almost always picked their favorites out of the goldfish bowls. We trapped the gophers, shooting them was akin to any government “investment” boondoggle of your choice. The returns were never even close to the investment in ammo. 22 shells were for big game like rabbits and raccoons.
My Brother and I use to blow the heads off of snowmen with a Stevens 12 gauge. Until I found a box of paper 12 gauges. I pulled the trigger and the shotgun went, “FSSSSSSSSSS, fsssssss!”
I was like, ‘Oh shit!’
Carbide and water and a spark plug, a Ford ignition coal, some wire, a car battery and heavy wall gas pipe and an end cap is what we fashioned our howitzers from. The projectile was a pop can full of gravel held in by water pump grease patched with a piece of greased inner tube and rammed down from the muzzle for anti personnel action. A pop can full of concrete if we were expecting to have to lay siege to a fortified position. A hell of a lot of planning for the war that never came on our part. I don’t know that we ever formally identified who exactly we were preparing to face off with, but we were making damn sure we weren’t outgunned by a bunch of Goddamned communists.
The other kids could hide under the desks, but we were preparing to meet the enemy on our terms.
How were these ever banned? Considering that now you’ve got kids with lithium batteries. One smack with a hammer and you have an uncontrollable burn that takes the entire freakin house down since kids don’t have cap guns to shoot outside anymore.
Paper caps, of course. Cheap and more available. Hardly ever used the metal cap gun to set them off. A hammer on cement seemed to make a louder noise. Only drawback I think was the fun was over if they got wet. Got to keep that powder dry!
Didn’t use the plastic caps. Didn’t like them. They cost more and a cap gun was necessary.
Top, the only way.
Top, the only way.
Paper caps, light them with a match.
Unfortunately, I started out on the paper caps and then graduated to the BB gun and shot my eye out.
The Fanner 50 had shoot-em shells. There was a recess in the handle to load them. With greenie stick-em caps they made a nice toy gun.
Never even knew about the plastic ones.
Paper… couldn’t afford the plastic ones or the guns that shot them