How often to reload on a muzzleloader trip?

[TheWanderer]

Question/Poll for this group. I'm looking at multiple hunts in the years to come that could mean carrying a muzzleloader instead of a rifle or bow.

So the question is... "How often do you reload when on a trip?" Some of these trips may be backpack trips so it'd be a little less convenient to reload and light clean. Every day, every other?

Does it differ in inline and 209 ignition vs the NW open ignition systems?

I frequently hunt in PA and DE with a flintlock and a hang fire cost me a nice buck last fall despite changing pan powder. Granted its often more humid here than out west, but I'm sure the culprit was laziness for not emptying and reloading the rifle from one evening to the next.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

Are you using traditional black powder? Or something good like Triple7? Flintlock? Cap lock? Inline? Are you permanently outside on a camping trip? Or coming home at the end of the day?

All factors worth considering, but my gut tells me that inside the rifle is at least as dry as anywhere else. Now, if the rifle got drenched by rain or falling in a creek, that’s another matter. If there is a significant chance the charge got wet inside the rifle, then I would pull it (or fire it and load a new one if using Triple7).

Growing up in Virginia, we used traditional black powder in cap locks and left it loaded until the rifle was fired or the end of muzzleloader season (about two weeks). We took the cap off at the end of every hunt and put it back into the film canister. The rifle got put in a dry corner or hung back on the wall. None of us ever had a misfire that I can recall, but there were occasional dud caps.

With the TC inline I was given, I use Triple7. I loaded it for late black powder season last year, carried it for ten days, meant to go out again, but got called away. Put it in the safe loaded with the primer sitting in the shelf. Realized it two months later. Took the charge out and put it back into the tube. I used that same charge eight months later to take a buck. I really don’t see how sitting in the plastic tube is significantly better than in the chamber.

For a flintlock, I would keep a close eye on the priming pan and powder, but I would otherwise treat it the same as a cap lock.

 

[CMF]

I can only think of one time on a hunt that I reloaded and it was because it was a rainy day. We're usually hunting early season, mostly dry hunts, so I'm not reloading the entire hunt.

 

[mikkel318]

I hunted Nevada Deer which was about the driest conditions possible and loaded day 1 and it fired perfectly on the morning of day 3. I wasn't planning on reloading unless it got wet. We were camping and I made sure that it stayed outside the tent the whole time to avoid quick changes in temps.

I looked this up quite a bit before that hunt and it's moisture dependent.