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The percussion cap, percussion primer, or caplock, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. Its invention gave rise to the caplock mechanism or percussion lock system which used percussion caps struck by the hammer to set off the gunpowder charge in rifles and cap and ball . Any firearm using a caplock mechanism is a percussion gun. Any long gun with a cap-lock mechanism and Rifling Gun barrel is a percussion rifle. Cap and ball describes cap-lock firearms discharging a single bore-diameter spherical bullet with each shot.
The caplock mechanism consists of a hammer and a nipple (sometimes referred to as a cone). The nipple contains a hollow conduit which goes into the rearmost part of the gun barrel, and the percussion cap is placed over the nipple hole. Pulling the trigger releases the hammer, which strikes the percussion cap against the nipple (which serves as an anvil), crushes it and detonates the mercury fulminate inside, which releases sparks that travel through the hollow nipple into the barrel and ignite the main powder charge.
Percussion caps have been made in small sizes for pistols and larger sizes for rifles and muskets.
The discovery of was made by Edward Charles Howard (1774–1816) in 1800.Howard, Edward (1800) "On a New Fulminating Mercury," Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London 90 (1): 204–238. Edward Charles Howard at National Portrait Gallery The invention that made the percussion cap possible using the recently discovered fulminates was patented by the Reverend Alexander John Forsyth of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in 1807. The rudimentary percussion system was invented by Forsyth as a solution to the problem that birds would startle when smoke puffed from the powder pan of his flintlock shotgun, giving them sufficient warning to escape the shot. This early percussion lock system operated in a nearly identical fashion to flintlock firearms and used a fulminating primer made of fulminate of mercury, chlorate of potash, sulfur and charcoal, ignited by concussion. Percussion lockSamuel Parkes, The chemical catechism : with notes, illustrations, and experiments, New York : Collins and Co., 1818, page 494 (page 494 online, see "LVI. A New Kind of Gunpowder.") His invention of a fulminate-primed firing mechanism deprived the birds of their early warning system, both by avoiding the initial puff of smoke from the flintlock powder pan, as well as shortening the interval between the trigger pull and the shot leaving the muzzle. Forsyth patented his "scent bottle" ignition system in 1807. However, it was not until after Forsyth's patents expired that the conventional percussion cap system was developed. Joseph Manton invented a precursor to the percussion cap in 1814, comprising a copper tube that detonated when crushed. This was further developed in 1822 by the English-born American artist Joshua Shaw, as a copper cup filled with fulminates.
The first purpose-built caplock guns were commissioned by sportsmen in Regency era England. Due to the mechanism's compactness and superior reliability compared to the flintlock, gunsmiths were able to manufacture pistols and long guns with two barrels. Early caplock handguns with two or more barrels and a single lock are known as turn-over or , due to the need to manually rotate the second barrel to align with the hammer. With the addition of a third barrel, and a ratchet to mechanically turn the barrels while cocking the hammer, these caplock pistols evolved into the pepper-box revolver during the 1830s.
The caplock offered many improvements over the flintlock. The caplock was easier and quicker to load, more resilient to weather conditions, and far more reliable than the flintlock. Many of the older flintlock weapons were later converted to the caplock, so that they could take advantage of these features.
The earliest known patent anywhere in the world which specifically mentions a percussion cap and nipple was granted in France on 29 July 1818 to François Prélat, four years before Shaw's patent. Prelat made a habit of copying English patents and inventions and the mode of operation he describes is flawed. Secondly a French patent of a percussion cap and nipple had been granted in 1820 to Deboubert. However predating both of these French claims, the most likely inventor of the percussion cap, according to historian Sidney James Gooding, was (nephew of Durs Egg), around 1817, .
There were other earlier claims. Col. Peter Hawker in 1830 simultaneously claimed and denied being the inventor. "I do not wish to say I was the inventor of it - very probably not" but then immediately recounts that he came up with the idea of simplifying a Manton patch-lock, which could be troublesome, by designing a cap and nipple arrangement around 1816 when the patch lock was patented. He says he then presented a drawing to a reluctant Joseph Manton to make a few copper cap guns which were then sold. Hawker, seems to give Joseph Manton more of the glory eight years later in the 1838 edition of his 'Instructions to young Sportsmen', by stating categorically that "copper tubes and primers were decidedly invented by Joe Manton". By the 1850s Hawker was again claiming the invention for himself in his press advertisements.
Despite many years of research by Winant, Gooding and De Witt Bailey, the jury is still out as the competing claims are based on personal accounts and have little or no independently verifiable evidence.
While the metal percussion cap was the most popular and widely used type of primer, their small size made them difficult to handle under the stress of combat or while riding a horse. Accordingly, several manufacturers developed alternative, "auto-priming" systems. The "Maynard tape primer", for example, used a roll of paper "caps" much like today's toy cap gun. The Maynard tape primer was fitted to some firearms used in the mid-nineteenth century and a few saw brief use in the American Civil War. Other disc or pellet-type primers held a supply of tiny fulminate detonator discs in a small magazine. Cocking the hammer automatically advanced a disc into position. However, these automatic feed systems were difficult to make with the manufacturing systems in the early and mid-nineteenth century and generated more problems than they solved. They were quickly shelved in favor of a single percussion cap that, while unwieldy in some conditions, could be carried in sufficient quantities to make up for occasionally dropping one, while a jammed tape primer system would instead reduce the rifle to an awkward club.
The Austrians instead used a variant of Manton's tube lock in their Augustin musket until the conventional caplock Lorenz rifle was introduced in 1855. The first practical solution for the problem of handling percussion caps in battle was the Prussian 1841 (Dreyse needle gun), which used a long needle to penetrate a paper cartridge filled with black powder and strike the percussion cap that was fastened to the base of the bullet. While it had a number of problems, it was widely used by the Prussians and other German states in the mid-nineteenth century and was a major factor in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War. The needle gun originally fired paper cartridges containing a bullet, powder charge and percussion cap, but by the time of the Franco-Prussian War this had evolved into modern brass ammunition.
Caplock revolvers such as the Colt Navy and Remington Arms were also widely converted during the late 19th century, by replacing the existing cylinder with one designed for modern ammunition. These were used extensively by the Turks in the Russo-Turkish War, the US Cavalry during the Indian Wars, and also by , lawmen, and outlaws in the old west.
In the 1840s and 1850s, the percussion cap was first integrated into a metallic cartridge, where the bullet is held in by the casing, the casing is filled with gunpowder, and a primer is placed on the end. By the 1860s and 1870s, breech-loading metallic cartridges had made the percussion cap system obsolete.
Today, reproduction percussion firearms are popular for recreational shooters and percussion caps are still available (though some modern muzzleloaders use shotshell primers instead of caps). Most percussion caps now use non-corrosive compounds such as lead styphnate.
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