push stick material and safety

[Noz]

My best "push stick" was a piece of cow horn before I lost it. I now use a deer antler.

[Montana Slim]

I use the capper to seat the cap fully.
IMO, a borderline gun may have a weak or overly-lightened mainspring.
A heavier mainspring is also needed to set-off todays generally lower-quality percussion caps.

Just a few of my thoughts on capping.

BTW, has anyone other than me clamped a cylnder in a drill press & pressed on a cap with a steel rod in teh chuck (not spinning)?
I have been unable to "pop" caps, with just pressure. I am able to successfully crush the priming compound. I will admit I have not wasted more than a dozen caps in the experiment..but so far no pops.

Slim

[hellgate]

Cuts Crooked used his thumbnail to cap & split open his thumb when it went off. I believe they put ground glass to help crush particles together to get detonation. I'm sure he seated hundreds if not thousands of caps that way before he banana pealed his thumb.

[Sacramento Johnson]

Howdy!
I figured a soft tip would be less likely to accidently set off a cap I was seating.
Used the eraser end of small pencil for awhile, till I decided to make a cap seating stick out of an antler tip.  I wanted a soft end so laced a piece of soft leather to the tip to act as a cushion. This has worked well and looks much better than a pencil...

[Noz]

Cuts Crooked used his thumbnail to cap & split open his thumb when it went off. I believe they put ground glass to help crush particles together to get detonation. I'm sure he seated hundreds if not thousands of caps that way before he banana pealed his thumb.

I've seen those pictures and that had to hurt!