ORIGINAL: Stainless
After sitting in the house all day Sunday and wasting the second day of black powder due to the rain, I was curious if anyone had any secrets to rain proofing their muzzle loaders. I had a bad experience a few years ago while hunting in the rain and a nice deer lived another day because of it it. There is nothing worse than having your sights on a nice deer and pulling the trigger only to hear a click. I have upgraded this year to the CVA Stainless breakover, I figure this will be a little better in the rain since it shoots the 209 and the cap is sealed and covered unlike the no 11's. I have heard of people putting balloons or condoms over their barrel but that wasn't the problem I had, it was the cap getting wet. Even after I reloaded and the deer had run off, I noticed that night when cleaning the gun that it would have never fired anyways because the cap had pushed up in the nipple and stopped it up. Anyone care to share any of their secrets to fighting the rain durring black powder?
Take a piece of clear plastic wrap, double it, and cover the muzzle with it, folding the ends back to an inch or sopast the muzzle, but short of the front sight so you don't obscure the sight. Then use a rubber band or strip of electrician's tape to hold it in place. After loading up and capping (or priming the flash pan), wrap a 6" long section of that same plastic wrap stuff around the lock section.
The strip around the lock will have to be moved out of the way when you cock and fire the piece, but you can shoot right through the membrane that's covinging the muzzle (don't put anything IN the muzzle, just over it. The buildup of air pressure in front of the bullet will blow the muzzle covering off before the bullet gets to the muzzle. For covering the muzzle, you can use electrician's tape, a condom, or a baloon instead of plastic wrap.....)
In addition, some ML suppliers sell a powder that, when mixed with BP, waterproofs it. (
Dry Pan, by RMC, waterproofs blackpowder, makes dry flys float. #ML002 14oz Price $3.95) I use this stuff in my FFFFg flintlock priming powder. Seems to work OK.
Not too long ago, I hunted for a week in the rain in the Adirondacks, and at the end of the week (no deer!), I shot my gun (caplock) at a target at 100 yards and it was dead on the target - 120 grains of FFg CleanShot and a 295-grain Power Belt. The gun had a muzzle and lock wrap on it all week, which obviously prevented any moisture from gettinmg in.....