You can get a hell of a lot of current from a capacitor too - quite enough to give you the initial bang you need. Been there, done that.
We have a saying in Arabic:
asking a guy who tried it is better than asking a wise man
So I guess you have to put a diode in series with tha capacitor to the solenoid so that the battery only activates the solenoid and only charge the capacitor through the resistor.
Is this correct?