Now here’s a subject dear to my heart! If you enjoy shooting but haven’t tried black powder, you’re in for a treat (especially if you’re into getting greasy, grimy, and downright dirty as quickly as is humanly possible! Black powder shooting is not considered one of our cleaner pastimes.)
But it is fun! When you shoot a modern rifle or pistol with factory loads, basically the only variable you have to worry about is your own skill as a marksman. Muzzleloaders are a different thing entirely. For really accurate shooting, you have to consider:
And a bunch of other things.
What’s more, each weapon seems to have different requirements. The perfect load for one rifle, for example, is likely to be a poor load for another, even if both are the same caliber!
Modern manufactured weapons have much more predictable bores, so that a load good for one is good for another. And the factory load takes care of the other problems. But the serious muzzleloader is constantly searching for the perfect load; a different one for each of his/her weapons.
And the perfect load for target shooting is often quite different from the perfect load for hunting, even with the same weapon.
This seemingly endless list of variables is one of the things that make muzzleloading so fascinating. Once you have mastered one weapon, you can start the process all over again with another.
The sound, feel and smell of a muzzleloader in operation are entirely different from its modern counterpart. The modern rifle with its smokeless powder makes (to my ears) a cracking sound; the muzzleloader gives out more of a deep-throated boom. The modern rifle generally is lighter than a muzzleloader in the same caliber, and its balance point is farther forward. And in comparison, the modern rifle has almost no odor; the muzzleloader smells of burning sulpher - a lot of burning sulpher.
Another facet of muzzleloading is "rolling your own." I’ve built a number of muzzleloading weapons. My favorite for building is flintlock pistols. Not that I’m particularly good at it. My woodworking skills are lukewarm at best, so usually I buy a kit. The major woodworking is already done. The barrel fits the stock with just a little bit of work, and so does the lock. Some of my friends do it from the ground up, even boring and rifling the barrel, with tools they build themselves. They’ve even built the lock mechanism. I can’t get that dedicated. I just don’t have the time - or, probably, the skill.
There are certain caveats to working with black powder. It's much more volatile than the modern, smokeless powder. For example, if you were to drop a match into an open can of smokeless powder, probably you would come away unhurt. The powder would burn brightly, but probably would not explode.
Black powder is another matter. Black powder burns so fast that any containment, even an open can, would cause an explosion.
Smoking while loading a black powder weapon is a lethal hazard. Several years ago a careless smoker ignited a 5-lb can of black powder on the tailgate of a truck whose owner was putting it into 1-lb cans for sale at a black powder shoot. The smoker, the merchant and one other were killed in the explosion.
But except for the hazard of fire, black powder is pretty safe. I've used it for years (even made some, once - not recommended by the way - that is dangerous without "commercial" manufacturing conditions.)
How I got into Black Powder Shooting
A friend of mine belonged to a muzzle-loading club (Cascade Mountain Men) that met at the Issaquah Gun Club near Seattle, Washington. Around 1960, he invited me to attend a rendezvous with him. This was a two-day outing in the Cascade mountains, where 50 or so families pitched camp in a meadow, dressed in costume and held shooting matches, and knife- and axe-throwing contests. Craftsmen in the group sold their wares as well -- leather goods, homespun clothing, powder horns, etc. It was great fun.
One of the members -- an old man without family -- was putting up a collection of muzzle-loading rifles as prizes in shooting matches. His health was such that he could no longer shoot. This was, I imagine, his way of making sure that his weapons got into the hands of people who would appreciate them.
I used a borrowed cap-and-ball revolver in a pistol match. I had never fired this weapon before. In fact, I had never fired a black-powder weapon. The targets were playing cards -- those cards with the suit symbol in the center of the card. Range was 50 feet, more or less.
When it was my turn to shoot I cocked the pistol and slowly brought it to bear on the target. It had a very sensitive trigger, and it discharged before I was ready -- and blew the suit marker right out of the card! Under normal circumstances, probably I'd have missed the card entirely, for I was not that good a shot. As it was, I won the match. The prize was a .58 caliber replica of a Civil War "Zouave" rifled musket. This was an accurate weapon that hit like a ton of bricks. I still have it, and have used it for deer hunting for 40 years.
Incidentally, to keep the record straight, I have never won (or even placed) in another match.
Here are some of my favorite handguns.
