Snap-Cap question

Why are snap caps packaged in fives? I could almost understand it for calibers that traditionally in auto-loaders, by why in the name of John Browning are .38 Special snap caps in packages of FIVE?

For the record, I get that it’s probably a money thing. If you want to practice realistic reloads with snap caps and a six shot revolver, you have to buy 2 packs instead of one. Smart decision, but annoying for me.

14 Comments

  1. I suspect it part of the long standing policy of favortism toward base ten number systems. Five is factor of 10 and results in “round numbers” for such elitists.

    I was taught base 6 number systems in grade school which is, obviously, the proper number system for people with six-shooters.

    I frequently use base 16 at work and would consider base 18 when shooting my STI Eagle except some of my magazines only hold 17 rounds.

    In other news, there are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don’t.

  2. Same reason hot dogs and buns come in the counts they do. Conspiracy! 😀

  3. Must be your brand. When I bought .38 snap caps a few months ago there were six in the package. I don’t remember the brand but they are solid maroon.

  4. What is “because they make five shot revolvers” Alex. Seriously, if you had a seven shot 686+, you’d need them packed in sevens. Are six shot revolvers really more common than five shooters at this point?

  5. I would say that yes, six shot revolvers are in fact more common than 5 shooters. Besides, packaging them in sixes makes more sense even by that logic, because then the 5 shot guys have a spare.

    Screw those gamerfags with their 7 and 8 shot wheelguns!

    😀

  6. My ex-FIL and I made up our own snap caps using fired shells. We would put a lead round ball into the case mouth and after drilling out the primer pocket we would use a hot glue gun to fill the primer cavity, On rifle cartridges we would also fill the case with hot glue to give us an idea of extraction/ejection patterns as well

    Our cost? 99 cent hot glue gun, with about 3. bux worth of glue sticks, and some lead round balls we already had in the shop as we specialized in BP weapons. So we had round balls from .24 up to .79 and everything in between. We also used ordinary toy caps to check firing pin protrusion on some rather old H&R’s, Iver Johnsons and S&W top break revolvers. We take one of our dummy shells use hot glue to put a cap over the primer area, if the cap fired we know we had proper protrusion.

  7. ‘Cause you are, by tradition, supposed to leave an empty chamber under the hammer? (I haven’t checked, but snap caps are probably illegal in the PRNJ anyway…)

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