Some people use thundermugs and some use....sledegehammers?

[Cornbelt]

Do any of you guys remember those "T" handled contraptions they had in the '50's & '60's, (before Ralph Nader and his dangerous-toys-dogma) that had friction fit caps on each end of the T, one of which had a place for a cap and the other end having feathers? You were supposed to use only one cap on only one end, wack the cap end on the ground, and watch as the feathered end came twirling down from ten feet or so. But nobody used just one cap. And the feathers didn't last too long, either.

[Cannoneer]

I liked the "magnum" stikum caps that we used in those pot metal cap grenades.

Like these, Victor?





We didn't use the stick-ons, we used these single square caps that had like a double dose of powder under the round dot. We'd throw these up into the sky as far as we could manage, and when they hit the concrete they'd make a pretty good snap. Unfortunately (at least in the midwest here) when the weather was a little more than cool, or it had recently rained and there were puddles on the ground, the caps going off would heat up the cheesy pot metal, and when the metal cooled quickly it would crack (oh, I can still remember the heartache).

[Victor3]

 Yup. They still make them very similar.

 The one I got recently for my Son doesn't have the cam like the ones you show (all of mine were that way when I was a kid). My Son's modern one has the round head spring-loaded. You pull it fwd to put the cap in. Works good.

 Another cap-related deal...

 My Dad got me into reloading at a very early age. I had a revolver that used those plastic cup caps, but they were way more spendy that the paper roll caps. Pops gave me a bunch of fired small pistol primers and made me a flat punch. He showed me how to remove the anvil from the primer cup, flatten out the firing pin dent and cut out paper caps from roll caps with a hole punch. I would press the caps into the primer cups, creating cheap reloadable caps. I could even make magnum ones by loading three or four paper caps into the cup.