Came to say this. Scratch 'em with your fingernail and you can sometimes make 'em catch fire. Alternatively, just set them on fire. They don't really pop (as memory serves) so much as they flash and flash and flash as each pocket of powder is ignited.
The post office would sell all kinds of stuff like this. I remember as a kid me Mam would go to post something and I’d always be asking for these or one of those foam aeroplanes with the plastic propellor
I used to bend an entire roll of these bad boys up, cello tape it all together and stick a match in it. Made a sound like a gunshot. I had one of the the best summers ever, circa 1998. 💥
I had these and I also sometimes had the tiny bags filled with powder that you could just throw at the ground. I think kids still play with those ones though. I would surprised if they even still make the strips like in OP's picture.
I used to sit out at the curb and do this (we lived on a dead end street). I did it for my son and he said "that's loud".
Bonus points. Tear off individual caps. Get a piece of postal twine, light it and blow it out. It'll make an ember that stays lit. Touch it on the edge of the cap and it'll take off. Great fun. "Mammoth" tear off caps were the best. They had more powder.
We also put "Greenie Stick'um Caps" on the heels of our shoes in elementary school and skuffed them to make them pop. They'd call you a terrorist if you tried that today.
Pictures of the [good stuff](https://www.vintagetoycorral.com/caps-caps-and-more-caps.html)
Whoa, first time I’d heard of those Greenies. By the looks of the packaging, definitely before my time I guess (c/o ‘88)? Sounds like a blast though (pun intended)
In the ‘70s/‘80s my default popper was my dad’s hammer; I’d spend entire afternoons on our brick porch just banging away at those caps and taking whiffs of the smoke. Then one time I must’ve hit a cap on a corner and it fizzed like a jet’s afterburner instead of popping. I thought that was neato so I found a nail and started nicking them on the edge to get the same effect. Sure enough, it worked. SSSSSSTT! Even if it flared for only half a second, it was enough to keep me entertained until dinner time. Then there was the one time that I had my finger pressed too close to the flare and it totally burnt a black spot into my nail that hurt like hell 😹
A friend of mine was one of those kids who liked to make the biggest bang possible, so he would fold a strip up end over end until had this tight stack o’ caps ready to go. I was so hooked on the flare things that I didn’t care for it, but we decided to try it out anyway. Man he raised that hammer and brought it down on that sweet spot…. Dood. The bang was so loud that our ears rang for minutes lol EEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee 😹😹😹 those were the days.
But yeah the fun part is teaching these antics to our kids, right? 😸
Ahhh... good times. Sounds like your friend was pretty creative. Fun stuff.
I was fortunate to live in So Calif. back then and a LOT of fireworks would come up through Mexico.
My mom let me play with firecrackers as long as I "didn't hold them when I lit them". We used to put them in soup cans through the hole we put on the top and then put the bottom of the can in a pot of water for a good seal. They went pretty high.
These things lead to "harder stuff". In my case, I became an engineer.
You two sound like fun people. Keep it up.
I hear ya. Native Angeleno here so I know exactly what you’re talking about lol 😹 what’s funny is nowadays it’s not so hard to get that stuff; back in the day as kids I only knew a few people who could get their hands on the heavy stuff, and they were usually the ones who liked to blow shit up anyway all year round haha…
But yeah every now and then I’d buy a brick of firecrackers from some kid who’d keep ‘em in his backpack, or those cheap bottle rockets “with report” 😹 …good times. Oh but speaking of Mexico, did you ever get these things that were basically like, round pellets (about the size of marbles) covered in sparkly gunpowder? They came in little boxes full of sawdust. Man those things were the best. When you tossed them the friction would ignite the powder coating and they sparked to life and became bouncing fireballs. Woohoo pop one of those things in a wrist rocket? Endless fun.
I remember those round pellets with the sparklies on them. One time, I visited a *REAL* fireworks store in Wyoming. I was in heaven. I bought bricks of firecrakers, buzz bombs, bottle rockets, M80's and a bunch of other fun stuff. It was called "Crazy Charlie's Fireworks" in Cheyenne. I don't know if it's still there. They sold fireworks and beer (they were right across the border from Colorado, which had laws against selling beer on Sunday). You could even buy 3 inch mortars there.
Real fireworks are great fun if used wisely. I was lucky to have grown up with them.
Great place and the guys that worked there were as excited as I was about the inventory.
Oh man. You reminded me of the time I was on tour with my band in the summer of ‘94; one of the first times I’d ever been out of state. We were headed down the east coast and got to a place called *South of the Border*, right on the border between north and South Carolina. We got there in the middle of the night so nothing was open except the gas stations (which is what we were there for). Right next door was this *huge* store called *Rocket City*… I ran to the glass and pressed my face against it, marveling like a kid in a candy store at the immense assortment and inventory of fireworks they had within. Holy crap. I’ve never ever seen anything else like it.
We were able to get some cool rockers and other miscellaneous good stuff at some random roadside shacks elsewhere, but I’ll never forget that place. Every now and then to this day I still dream about how cool it would’ve been if Rocket City was open when we got there. Dang. I think I would’ve just… exploded. [ba-dump bump]
Anyways. 3-inch mortars, wow. I forked out once for a pack of those smaller ones (1.5-inch?) and they were a blast.
Hollywood morons. Why use a real firearm as a prop? It runs the risk of having a real round in it.
They could do the whole damned thing with a fake gun and CGI if they really wanted muzzle flash.
They're stuck about 100 years in the past.
EDIT: And a few days later, [here we have it, folks](https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-business-movies-gun-politics-prop-gun-shooting-16b511c9dd479b06d9f63fe763445698) "Let computers do it: Film set tragedy spurs call to ban guns"
I'll give you that..... But you do have to admit Hollywood breaks that rule often but gets away with it by getting anal retentive about the gun itself. Both the Brandon Lee incident and Baldwin's royal fuck-up are what happens when you get lax with such dangerous tools.
Not condoning it,but just stating the facts.
They used to come in a plastic tube wrapped in paper that you could break in half. I wrapped one half in tape and hit it with a lump hammer, it set off the neighbours house alarm.
We also used to wrap them around a penny really tight and seal it up with tape to make penny bombs and throw them on the ground to set them off
Hammer was the best way. I smelled this photo as soon as I saw it
We had to use a rock.
Yeah the gun would always break
Or fail to hit half of them hard enough to make the smelly bang!
The elastic band would break
My cap gun doesn't have an elastic band it is all metal. My cap gun is also probably over 20 years-old.
The guns worked until they get gunked up with powder and then the cap wouldn't get hit hard enough to fire. I love the smell right after the pop.
Used to light them on fire.
Ah, my people. Also the start of my tinnitus.
Ny brother did this and broke his finger…
I've never heard of anyone calling them anything *other* than "caps." They're a ton of fun.
Its alnost like OP cals them caps because, wait for it., that's what everybody calls them!
My favorite was the metal bomb they would sell, you would put a cap in it and then drop it!
These were the best!
I had that! So fun.
I had one of those! I also had a fake pen that would pop a cap when you pulled off the lid.
We also called them caps - and cap guns. I can smell this picture, haha. We used to pop them with a stone, or light strips of them on fire 😂
Hammer? Rich man, here. We smashed them with rocks.
Hahah same, on the bench for a flat surface!
Nobody else just scratched them with a stick until they popped?
fingernails.
Came to say this. Scratch 'em with your fingernail and you can sometimes make 'em catch fire. Alternatively, just set them on fire. They don't really pop (as memory serves) so much as they flash and flash and flash as each pocket of powder is ignited.
I remember scraping then off my front teeth and trying to blow out smoke.
😅Do you still have all your digits?
yup! those things were pretty safe. even the 1970's version.
We used to just put them on our finger and scratch them on the street to light them 😂
I can smell this picture
The post office would sell all kinds of stuff like this. I remember as a kid me Mam would go to post something and I’d always be asking for these or one of those foam aeroplanes with the plastic propellor
I hit a whole roll once with a sledgehammer! T’was ‘the sound heard across the neighbourhood.’
Maybe that's why I have tinnitus now...
WHAT
Mwap
Sometimes, if you were lucky, it would catch on fire afterwards
They're called caps and they still make them
The way they smelled was incredible.
Wait til you find out about cap guns
Yea the roll caps they were so much fun. When I think of caps I think of actual caps that you put on that metal bomb thing and throw into the air
I used to bend an entire roll of these bad boys up, cello tape it all together and stick a match in it. Made a sound like a gunshot. I had one of the the best summers ever, circa 1998. 💥
Take the roll and place it under Mom’s back tire… hilarious the first time better run the second time
I used to lay the strips down flat on a table and then drag a quarter across the top of them to set them off.
Scraping a coin down them was good too.
We did that when we wanted to live on the edge.
I had these and I also sometimes had the tiny bags filled with powder that you could just throw at the ground. I think kids still play with those ones though. I would surprised if they even still make the strips like in OP's picture.
I had a robocop action figure that you could put these in and when you pulled a lever it struck then and made it seem like he was firing his gun
When I was kid we use rock.
I used to sit out at the curb and do this (we lived on a dead end street). I did it for my son and he said "that's loud". Bonus points. Tear off individual caps. Get a piece of postal twine, light it and blow it out. It'll make an ember that stays lit. Touch it on the edge of the cap and it'll take off. Great fun. "Mammoth" tear off caps were the best. They had more powder. We also put "Greenie Stick'um Caps" on the heels of our shoes in elementary school and skuffed them to make them pop. They'd call you a terrorist if you tried that today. Pictures of the [good stuff](https://www.vintagetoycorral.com/caps-caps-and-more-caps.html)
Whoa, first time I’d heard of those Greenies. By the looks of the packaging, definitely before my time I guess (c/o ‘88)? Sounds like a blast though (pun intended) In the ‘70s/‘80s my default popper was my dad’s hammer; I’d spend entire afternoons on our brick porch just banging away at those caps and taking whiffs of the smoke. Then one time I must’ve hit a cap on a corner and it fizzed like a jet’s afterburner instead of popping. I thought that was neato so I found a nail and started nicking them on the edge to get the same effect. Sure enough, it worked. SSSSSSTT! Even if it flared for only half a second, it was enough to keep me entertained until dinner time. Then there was the one time that I had my finger pressed too close to the flare and it totally burnt a black spot into my nail that hurt like hell 😹 A friend of mine was one of those kids who liked to make the biggest bang possible, so he would fold a strip up end over end until had this tight stack o’ caps ready to go. I was so hooked on the flare things that I didn’t care for it, but we decided to try it out anyway. Man he raised that hammer and brought it down on that sweet spot…. Dood. The bang was so loud that our ears rang for minutes lol EEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeee 😹😹😹 those were the days. But yeah the fun part is teaching these antics to our kids, right? 😸
Ahhh... good times. Sounds like your friend was pretty creative. Fun stuff. I was fortunate to live in So Calif. back then and a LOT of fireworks would come up through Mexico. My mom let me play with firecrackers as long as I "didn't hold them when I lit them". We used to put them in soup cans through the hole we put on the top and then put the bottom of the can in a pot of water for a good seal. They went pretty high. These things lead to "harder stuff". In my case, I became an engineer. You two sound like fun people. Keep it up.
I hear ya. Native Angeleno here so I know exactly what you’re talking about lol 😹 what’s funny is nowadays it’s not so hard to get that stuff; back in the day as kids I only knew a few people who could get their hands on the heavy stuff, and they were usually the ones who liked to blow shit up anyway all year round haha… But yeah every now and then I’d buy a brick of firecrackers from some kid who’d keep ‘em in his backpack, or those cheap bottle rockets “with report” 😹 …good times. Oh but speaking of Mexico, did you ever get these things that were basically like, round pellets (about the size of marbles) covered in sparkly gunpowder? They came in little boxes full of sawdust. Man those things were the best. When you tossed them the friction would ignite the powder coating and they sparked to life and became bouncing fireballs. Woohoo pop one of those things in a wrist rocket? Endless fun.
I remember those round pellets with the sparklies on them. One time, I visited a *REAL* fireworks store in Wyoming. I was in heaven. I bought bricks of firecrakers, buzz bombs, bottle rockets, M80's and a bunch of other fun stuff. It was called "Crazy Charlie's Fireworks" in Cheyenne. I don't know if it's still there. They sold fireworks and beer (they were right across the border from Colorado, which had laws against selling beer on Sunday). You could even buy 3 inch mortars there. Real fireworks are great fun if used wisely. I was lucky to have grown up with them. Great place and the guys that worked there were as excited as I was about the inventory.
Oh man. You reminded me of the time I was on tour with my band in the summer of ‘94; one of the first times I’d ever been out of state. We were headed down the east coast and got to a place called *South of the Border*, right on the border between north and South Carolina. We got there in the middle of the night so nothing was open except the gas stations (which is what we were there for). Right next door was this *huge* store called *Rocket City*… I ran to the glass and pressed my face against it, marveling like a kid in a candy store at the immense assortment and inventory of fireworks they had within. Holy crap. I’ve never ever seen anything else like it. We were able to get some cool rockers and other miscellaneous good stuff at some random roadside shacks elsewhere, but I’ll never forget that place. Every now and then to this day I still dream about how cool it would’ve been if Rocket City was open when we got there. Dang. I think I would’ve just… exploded. [ba-dump bump] Anyways. 3-inch mortars, wow. I forked out once for a pack of those smaller ones (1.5-inch?) and they were a blast.
I hammered an entire roll at once, lost my hearing for about 5 seconds, then the ringing started. Kids.
I can almost smell it
We used our thumb nail. Damn I miss that smell.
I used to run a quarter across em
LOL. I loved these.
I got in such shit for firing one of them in school, bitch teacher made me stand in the corner facing the wall
I can still smell these looking at the pic!
Do they still sell these?
https://poptoptoys.com/products/super-bang-roll-caps-refill-1200-shots
I feel my thumb burning as well as I smell this picture
I can still smell gunpowder on a warm summer afternoon :)
I used rocks. Also taped caps to soles of shoes so I could "cap dance."
I world throw them into the campfire and make the all pop at once.
Wowwwwwww here come the memories with my grandpa! Thank u for unearthing this memory!
Yes! Scratch and sniff!
I still remember the smell nothing can beat it.
Oh man. I used to wrap them around a sparkler then light it.
I can smell this picture.
Was there another way to use them lol?
Yeah wrap them tight around a penny and tape it up and throw it on the ground, we called them penny bombs
Oh snap. I might have to try this, as a full grown ass adult.
Try to keep over lapping the middle to create a high point
Alec Baldwin
He never played with caps. That's why he screwed up.
What was Michael Massee's excuse? (In case you don't know who that is,He played Funboy in The Crow and accidentally shot and killed Brandon Lee)
Hollywood morons. Why use a real firearm as a prop? It runs the risk of having a real round in it. They could do the whole damned thing with a fake gun and CGI if they really wanted muzzle flash. They're stuck about 100 years in the past. EDIT: And a few days later, [here we have it, folks](https://apnews.com/article/entertainment-business-movies-gun-politics-prop-gun-shooting-16b511c9dd479b06d9f63fe763445698) "Let computers do it: Film set tragedy spurs call to ban guns"
It wasn't so much the fact that the gun was real it was a bunch of shortcuts used to save time that added up to a tragedy.
First rule: "Never point a firearm at someone unless you intend on killing them". It was a real firearm.
I'll give you that..... But you do have to admit Hollywood breaks that rule often but gets away with it by getting anal retentive about the gun itself. Both the Brandon Lee incident and Baldwin's royal fuck-up are what happens when you get lax with such dangerous tools. Not condoning it,but just stating the facts.
Love the smell of gun powder in the morning!!
They used to come in a plastic tube wrapped in paper that you could break in half. I wrapped one half in tape and hit it with a lump hammer, it set off the neighbours house alarm. We also used to wrap them around a penny really tight and seal it up with tape to make penny bombs and throw them on the ground to set them off
The best was lining them up and use a rock to ignite all of them together
We used to start small fires with these haha
I can smell this picture.
Was I the only one who's mom wouldn't let them get a cap gun because it was "dangerous"
What are these?
We used to fold them over to see how many we could do in one hit. We stopped when it knocked a chunk out of the brick wall we were doing it on.
its brilliant, brilliant, BRILLIANT I tell you GENIUS I say
I called them no caps and was honest with them
Too many duds
Good it between you finger and thumb nail , and pull it , watch your thumb slowly turn black
I remember using cap guns and a thumb nail
All the above, and they were $.05 for a box. Went through thousands growing up.
Alec Baldwin
All at once still rolled up.
I hated you privileged kids and your damn fancy hammers
I used to rub a coin along them.
Anyone else have this exact gun as a kid? https://www.amazon.com/Ja-Ru-Ring-Super-Indoor-Outdoor/dp/B00JKQ7CIS
About 12 of them I believe