our hunting season is 9 days and they stay loaded until we fire at an animal or our rifles get wet. I'd rather fire it off in wet weather just to be sure. Another thing we do is make sure the drums are filled with powder. I sometimes take just a tiny bit of 4f goex and put it into my dads and brothers drums just to be sure. All of the bouncing around on the atv's can sometimes mess with the powder in the drum. My dads cabelas hawken has been the worse rifle yet as hes missed 2 deer in a row because his drum was empty. I hate that rifle of his.