Encore50

Need a simple answer. What is the best thing to do after a day hunting and not firing a shot? Is it ok to leave the powder and bullet in the rifle? I don't see where this hurts and have been leaving the powder and bullet loaded. Also I have stored my ML outside in garage when loaded so the temps remain relatively the same and there is no chance of condensation in the barrel that would effect the powder.

Of course I always remove the primer, thats pure common sense gun safety.

cayugad

There are two schools of thought on that. One says fine, leave them loaded. So I tested that theory with two different rifles this modern rifle season.. an inline and a traditional. I loaded them took them out hunting, and then stored them in the wood shed which is not heated. I tried them yesterday. The inline did fire and I expected it to. It was a Knight Disc Rifle and seals up pretty good. The Traditional was a Renegade. The cap popped and it DID NOT FIRE. I then put a second #11 cap on and it fired.

The rifle I depended on to hunt with was unloaded every night, cleaned and reloaded in the morning for the next day. I never had a problem with that... so you be the judge. You can guess what would have been said had the only deer I seen during season came through with that traditional rifle that popped but did not fire. I will say that on the second cap, it fired fine and the accuracy was fine....

Chasam60

I leave the Omega loaded and in a cold room.I do remove the primer and replace it with a spent primer and close the breech.Never had a missfire.I have had my sidelock fail,and shoot,clean and reload every time out.

Charlie

Indiana Dude

I will hunt w/the same load for a weekend, but will reload it before I go out the following
week.
The past 2 seasons I have forgot to unload the gun after the season ended. So this season, since I hadnt shot that gun all year I took it out
about a month ago and it fired on the first try, but it was slow to ignite and about
10" low at 50yds.

Tahquamenon

If the temperature remains at or below freezing, I will leave a rifle charged and unprimed for several days. However, if the temperaturerises significantly above 32 deg F along with a rise in humidity, then I will always either fire the charge or pull the charge. Then detail cleanthe rifle.

Tahquamenon

Sharp Shooter

I think when I start I will shoot it out every night. That is what my grandpa did when he hunted black powder. I will be using the same gun he used.

eldeguello

I hunted once in the Adirondacks for 7 days. It rained every day, and I had a piece of plastic wrap over the lock/breech section and muzzle of my caplock rifle. Every evening I took it into an unheated woodshed, and removed the cap. Then re-wrapped the breech. Next day, I recapped it and rewrapped it. At the end of the seven days, it shot fine, and hit the target where it should have. It had remained loaded all week, with Clean Shot, no less.

If you keep moisture outof the muzzleand the breech section, there is no need to reload every day - as long as there is no way moisture can get into the powder charge. I think even a flintlock would work OK if it is wrapped correctly.

sabotloader

Encore50

This topic comes up ever so often, and it really becomes a personal preference thing. I think experiance is the best teacher here... The more you know about your ML the more valid your decisions will be, not in just whether to leave loaded but a ton of ather things you will need to make decisions about.

The best thing might be to drop the charge each day, heck there a couple of guys that really go to what I think might be the extreme and drop charges after a few hours and reload. Again experiance will be your guide the more you shoot... I personally often leave the charge in for long periods of time - if I am confident the charge did not get contaminated. The biggest thing I try to avoid isDRASTIC and RAPID changes in temperature, especially going from warm to really cold. Slow changes are not as important as things will balance out.

I wrote this several weeks back and I feel this is a good measure for me...

setter77

Thanks for the info guys. New to BP and was wondering how long to let it loaded before firing. Bear season left it loaded for 3 days and fired right on.