Greetings all. I am brand new to ML shooting. As a gift I recieved a TC Hawken 50 calthat is about 20yrs old. Gun looks to be in excellent shape on the exterior but I dont know about the interior of the weapon. Its been hanging on the wall for the past 2yrs but I decided this year I am going to shoot and hunt with it. So I got a few questions.

1. What do I first need to do with the weapon?
I am very sure it is not loaded but how can I verify. I know I should have verified this when I received. Feel pretty stupid on that. The ramrod will go into the barrel leaving about a half inch of the ramrod sticking out of the barrel.

2. What powder? load amount? cap? bullet?
3. Is there a 209 conversion kit for a side hammer?
4. What other ML supplies do I need to get?

So any help you guys can provide is great appericated. Nice forum here too.

Thanks
Tony