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Last night, a friend and I were talking about cap and ball revolvers, specifically the old Army and Navy Colts. When we got to the topic of percussion caps, and the ability to fabricate them at home, we hit a road block. In the latter half of the 1800s, were the caps loaded with a fulminate of mercury concoction, or stuffed with Maynard style tape caps?

In using an Internet search, I have had little success in finding an answer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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There is a good Wikipedia article on percussion cap technology. Note that by the late 1800s the technology was obsolete:

Percussion cap - Wikipedia

I would guess that more than a few cap and ball revolvers did duty as the only handgun for quite a few families until at least the late 1930's, possibly 1940's. My dad used a pin fire 16 gauge shotgun that belonged to one of his uncles until 1938(?)when he went into the US Army. Poor ways for poor people....very few families needed a modern handgun... cartridge .22 rifles & a deer rifle & shotgun were needed by more folks.

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Ed,
I'm certainly no expert on percussion caps, but I have a few old tins and these photos may provide some insight.

First up is tin of United States Army Caps manufactured by the Union Metallic Cartridge Company. It's my understanding that these are Civil War era caps. You can see the priming compound inside.





The next two tins were manufactured by Winchester and are "foil lined". The Hick's caps date to the 1880's and are simply marked "Winchester Repeating Arms Company". The Goldmark's caps are obviously later, since they're labeled "Division of Olin Industries Inc." Both are sealed and I'm not opening them.





This last tin has long since lost its label, so I don't know who manufactured it. It's about the same diameter as the Winchester tins, but it's about 50% deeper. These caps are also foil lined. The single cap next to the foil disc (bottom photo) still has the foil in place. The two caps above them are missing the foil, which allows you to see the yellow priming compound. I looked at the compound under a loupe and it slightly extends up the inside of the caps and was almost certainly applied as a liquid solution. No sign of paper here.





The last photo shows Italian ring caps for toy/theatrical guns and dates from the 1990's. You can see the compound in the plastic caps and the package lists the ingredients.

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The Italian ring caps with potassium chlorate are thus corrosive. I've never heard of having to clean cap pistols.