Remember these?

[True Dough]

If you scraped a rock or another sharp object across a bunch of them, you'd get a little flame. Oh, and that smell...



And then there were these:

[Bozvotros]

1. I remember them well.

I also remember that if you hit a whole roll of those caps with a hammer they made a very satisfying loud POP that sounded like a gunshot.

[Traildogbob]

2. Yes!

I got a gap pistol and holster multiple years in a row for Christmas. Once with a lone ranger mask. I had so many quick draw gun fights in the yard. I loved the smell.

[2naSalit]

10. My brother...

Always got those for every birthday and holiday so we had those and it was a treat to get new caps. After a while, when we could ride bikes, those became part of the loot that we bought along with penny candy at the corner store. They were all corner stores back then, city or rural.

When we didn't have a working cap gun, we would use rocks to amuse ourselves with them. Our parents never saw them as a danger somehow.

[Traildogbob]

11. Wow!

The memories. The corner store, bicycle distance (1 gear then) grape soda and nabs. Or Cheerwine, home brewed right in Salisbury. And popping caps with pieces of bricks from where dad built the house with a few cousins after work.2 channels of black and white, so being outside with a few bricks and caps, paradise.

[2naSalit]

13. Absolutely!

Throw in swamp wading to catch tadpoles and there's nuthin' better on a summery day!

Although we bought devil dogs and licorice strings and those button things on a strip of paper.

And orange crush.

[Shellback Squid]

3. Exciting to get real gunpowder, lol

[Marthe48]

4. I have some of each

got them in boxes at sales. We have an antique lighter called a Little Gem that holds a roll of caps. You roll a wheel, spark a cap and light the flame. Not sure I have anything that uses the wheel caps.

Back we we were kids, my brothers would set a roll of caps on concrete and hit a whole roll of caps with a hammer. Pretty good pop! My Mom caught them and made them stop. My husband and his brothers would lay them on a railroad tie. When the train wheel hit the caps, they exploded pretty good. He said the train crew didn't think it was funny

[marked50]

20. The reason the train crews reacted the way they did

was because they used small explosives with tie-downs to put on tracks to warn other trains that there was an issue ahead and they needed to stop immediately.

[Marthe48]

22. I didn't know that

When he told me the story, I didn't get past the idea that he and his brothers were playing on the train tracks. Where were his parents!!!

[AllaN01Bear]

27. those were called track detonators

friend of mine one time brought one home for the fourth of july. dropped a big rock from his rooof and that brought the police rather quickly. he also set of a railroad flare and that did said same . i have a neighbor who is a retired sp enginner and rrs havent used the track detonators in years .

[wendyb-NC]

5. Yes, indeed

[Dear_Prudence]

6. Stone age girl

You all seem to have Iron Age memories, wielding metal hammers. I have Stone Age memories, sitting on the pavement with a fist-sized pointed rock, unrolling that strip of caps, and pop-pop-popping the caps, one by one, with my rock. Call me 'Wilma'.

[OldBaldy1701E]

7. At one time, I had a machine gun that used the rolls.

It was slow... more like a "pap...pap...pap...pap..." as opposed to "papapapapapapapapapapapap". But, it looked cool when it worked.

[cachukis]

8. Our first exposure to the power of gunpowder.

When we moved to fireworks, we learned more.

[dai13sy]

9. I recognized the caps

but I had no idea they sold ammo that way.

[NBachers]

12. My brother & I would lean out the rear windows of our car and yell "The Bank's Been Robbed!" while blowing off our cap

guns as we drove through the downtown section of our little Erie Canal village. No cops ever caught the little desperadoes.

Remember these? We decided to go one better, where we could take a rag, put a rock in it, and fill it with dirt, and throw it up in the air. As the weight of the rock plummeted it back to earth, the dirt would fly out the rear of the rag and leave a satisfying rocket trail. It was all fun & games until one of them clonked me on the top of the head in its downward trajectory.

[rsdsharp]

14. I shot a lot of roll caps, but I preferred Geenie Stickums.

[AverageOldGuy]

15. Cherry bombs

Growing up in rural South Mississippi, granddaddy had a grocery store. Around Christmas, New Years, and Fourth we sold fireworks of all kinds. Granddad always brought home a bunch of fireworks for us grandchildren -- cherry bombs, sparklers, Roman candles, strings of firecrackers.

One day after Christmas (1952 ?) we created a mortar. We got a piece of pipe with inside diameter slightly bigger than the cherry bomb. Stuck it in the ground at an angle, one of us held it. Got a pile of black walnuts without the skins. Light a cherry bomb, drop it down the pipe, drop a walnut on top -- BOOM -- walnut came flying out of the pipe, arced high in the sky, and came down 20 - 30 yards away. We got the range on Granddad's garage with a tin roof and rained walnuts down on the roof.

Hmmm. Maybe this Fourth, I can get my grandsons, buy some cherry bombs, there are some old pieces of pipe lying around here somewhere . . . . and watch my son and daughter-in-law lose their minds!!! The boys will love it!!!

[Kali]

16. you can still get the paper ones

and even a metal cap gun too. I found some paper rolls in a gift shop in Gallup NM a month ago. had to buy them since I hadn't seen them in decades. Made in Germany!
When I got home I looked them up on line.



the individual rolls are the same, just packaged in a red plastic tube.

[Marcuse]

17. I had a roll cap gun, but the children of today should abstain. Especially in heavily policed areas.

[Warpy]

18. Never had the pistol for them, unseemly for a little girl

so whenever I got my hands on some, usually liberated friom a friend's brother's bedroom, I'd set them of between a couple of rocks. Then I got a bright idea when a friend snagged some kitchen matches to start a little campfire in the alley and tossed in a whole roll. They sounded just like Chinese firecrackers when they caught. I think we were about nine.

They should have just bought me the damned pistol.

[AllaN01Bear]

25. i had a pistol and i think a rifle . i also had a device that looked like a bomb

[applegrove]

19. I remember the first not the second. By the time i had access to

a corner store as a kid was beyond the age where that was fun. We lived in a suburb that did not allow for businesses of any kind so it was a long walk to buy candy.

[onethatcares]

21. those are all well and good but

I think I was about 10 when my buds and me discovered homemade gunpowder. You could get "salt peter" by the pound at the hardware store . Mix it with sugar and charcoal and the only limit was your imagination. I'm still amazed no one blew their fingers, hands or other body parts off.

[Different Drummer]

23. I remember the roll caps.

I had those and a cap gun. When you shot off the gun, you'd get the smell.

[AllaN01Bear]

24. i have seen them at our local dollar tree for sale

[Upthevibe]

26. I remember them! n/t

[MiHale]

28. So many things we did with those rolls...

Hammers, bricks, setting off the whole roll but my favorite was to unroll and hang in trees then light the end on fire …pop,pop,pop,pop all the way up. We’d hang multiple rolls and do it …closest we got to having fireworks until we were older.

[Arne]

29. I took the cap rolls and gently stuck a pin thru each cap.

Slowly pulled out the pin, wrapped with tape and added a match as a fuse.

[k55f5r]

30. My 8th grade science teacher was an asshat

and every day he would enter the classroom and slam the door hard to get our attention...One day, I had an IDEA .
I taped a full roll of caps to the door jamb and when the teacher slammed the door they exploded violently - the door slammed open and the knob broke the blackboard. Needless to say I was transported to the vice-principle's office and received several corrective swats from a perforated paddle. The next week, another student emptied an alcohol burner around the desks, then lit it on fire as the teacher entered the room. That was that teacher's last day.

[True Dough]

31. Dang!

Wish I attended your class. My was so boring!

[malthaussen]

32. Used to make firecrackers out of them...

... you pushed a pin through the caps, which left a hole you then threaded a fuse through. Light the fuse and you get a small "explosion" and brief fire. Ridiculously dangerous, as you could set off the caps by friction while pushing the pin through them and burn your hand a little. We then used the "firecrackers" to destroy plastic models, usually warships.

Kids just don't have the fun we did these days.

-- Mal

[Emile]

33. Great fun. I remember taking a roll of caps,

Last edited Fri May 10, 2024, 09:42 PM - Edit history (1)

lay them on the sidewalk and smack them hard with a hammer 🔨 to get one loud bang.

[debm55]

34. Ty True Dough. Yes I remember very well until I used a rock and the cap hit me in the eye.

Dod they still make them?

[True Dough]

35. I hope that didn't do any lasting damage, deb!

In post #24, it was mentioned that someone saw the caps available at a local Dollar Tree. So I guess they can still be found if you look hard enough? Someone must be selling them online too, I'd imagine.

[debm55]

37. Naw, Kids are tough. It was easier to lay them on a sidewalk and hit them . One kid I knew put them in a charcoal BBQ.

[NowsTheTime]

36. also remember fake fire crackers with a real fuse....