Wondering what your routine is with your ML during hunting season.  Here in Michigan, and in the area I hunt, the designated ML deer season is open from December 2nd-18th.  Once loaded for hunting, I usually leave the gun outside in the garage to keep a constant temperature to try and prevent moisture (with primer removed).  It would be quite costly, and kind of a pain to discharge the gun after each hunt...  My worry though is that at the moment of truth, I'm going to hear the primer go snap, and no big bang.  Even though it is left outside, it is cased and transported to my hunting spots in my vehicle, which could cause some ups and downs in temperature (even though I try and keep the heat off).  

During my last hunt it was only about 45 degrees out, and my breath steamed up my pop up blind pretty good.  My barrel had some condensation of the outside, and my scope fogged up a bit.  The barrel was still cold to the touch... but that doesn't necessarily mean anything I guess.

I shoot a CVA Wolf with 2 50 gr. pyrodex pellets behind a 250 gr. shockwave. 

How long do you guys leave your ML loaded for between hunts?  Any advice on this issue besides tape/bag etc. over the end of the barrel?  What is your routine and/or experience?

Thanks!

I have been shooting these things for over 20 yrs now and found that I have occasionally had a hang fire or a missfire with a gun that had been left loaded for a while.  But, the norm has always been a quick ignition when the gun was left in a constant environment.  I have my Hawken loaded in my garage right now and it has been loaded for 3 wks now.  This coming Saturday I hope to discharge it into a deer but if not it will sit in its rack again until the following week.  So long as temperature variations do not happen quickly, the metal will not sweat enough to matter.  Metal only sweats as it warms so keep it away from sunlight and if the garage or storage unit does warm a lot during the day then you can minimize the effects by insullating the gun in blankets or keep it away from a window where sunlight would hit it. 

Also, think about it this way, do you think that Daniel Boone or John Colter discharged theirs before bed every night?  Of course not.  In reality, leaving it loaded is more 'traditional' than the modern notion that we have to discharge and clean and reload daily. 

I'm also a southern Michigan hunter.  As you may have experienced, we had a wet snow on Friday (Dec. 2nd).  I loaded my CVA Firestorm Ultra Magnum rifle, using Thompson/Center TPX hollowpoints and 100 grains of Goex black powder, prior to leaving home and then primed it when I got to my destination less than 10 miles away.  I didn't have a deer come in close enough to take a shot.  At the end of the day I pulled the primer.  I then left the gun in my truck, parked in an un-heated garage, until I was able to go out again on Sunday.

We woke up to rain on Sunday morning (which was on and off most of the day).  This left me sitting in the rain, with a black powder rifle in my lap, in my ground blind.  At 8 o'clock, I had a doe walk in front of me at about 40 yards.  While I did have some concern that my powder may have gotten wet between the wet snow and the rain, my shot went off without a hitch (I did not hear any delay) and the deer ran about 140 yards before dying.  My third deer of the season but my first with a muzzle loader!

The gun is unloaded right now, and in the house, but I might move it to the garage before going out again this Saturday, as I expect the temperatures to drop as each day goes by.  If I don't get another deer this weekend, it will remain loaded to hunt with next weekend.  If I still don't get another deer,  I have no problems with leaving it loaded for the late doe hunt if I choose the ML instead of a shotgun.

Brian

I always leave mine loaded with the exception of my flint lock if I hunt in the rain that day . Never a problem .

Mine went two weeks and when i unloaded it it went off without any problem and the gun was left in my truck back seat .I always leave it loaded during the saeson .

Thanks guys, that makes me feel a little better! OldAmmoGuy, my sauna of a ground blind that I was talking about was on Sunday night, in that rainy mess. I did manage to kill a doe on Friday evening in the snow with my bow, as I hadn't had a chance to shoot my muzzleloader yet! Congrats on your first with your ML! I haven't killed one with a ML yet either... Now that my gun is shooting good, I hope to get one before the end of the season with mine! I keep mine in a padded hard case in my detached garage, so the temperature shouldn't have varied much. My only worry was from the steam and condensation that was on the exterior of the gun from Sunday night. I think I should be ok though from the sounds of it. I'll be able to hunt tomorrow night, so I am keeping my fingers crossed! I need a little more meat in the freezer, and would love to do it with my muzzleloader! I'll keep you posted... In the mean time, good luck out there!

I too have left my rifles loaded for up to a week in constant weather conditions. I would suspect your rifle if condensation formed on it. Yes it can cost a little to shoot clean and reload but if it were mine I would fire it off and clean up and reload. If it bothered you enough to post about it then for peace of mind shoot it.

I am from the other school of thought. I have left them loaded. And here in Northern Wisconsin we can get some nasty cold humid days. I too, have sat in my dog house blind and watched the insides of it freeze with frost from my breath as I sat there looking out the window of it. But getting back to the rifle... A few years back, I left mine loaded and placed them in the garage, primer removed, cotton cloth over the breech plug and the barrel resting muzzle end down on cotton. So any condensation would drift away from the powder charge and not to it. The next day, hunted all morning, and wondered.. would this Black Diamond XR have gone off? Back at the house for lunch, aimed at the steel trap, squeezed the trigger and SNAP! the primer fired fine, but no main charge. Then all the what if's started happening in my head. Another primer, aim, squeeze... BOOM! Well boom #2 just don't cut it when I hunt. I need to know that boom #1 is there.

I decided, I hunt too hard, and see two few deer to risk a misfire for any reason. With an inline, at the end of the day, I remove the breech plug and push the whole works out the breech end of the rifle. Clean the area real good, swab the bore with dry patches until it shines, and reload again the next day. Now I am not cleaning the breech plug or anything with solvents.. just removed the old load for a day on the range in the future, and swabbed it clean, then reloaded the next day. This has served me well. I always get #1 BOOM! and that to me is worth the effort. Plus my rifle is not sitting somewhere out of my sight loaded. That peace of mind is also of value. Instead it is in the house with me, waiting to be loaded in the morning for when I head back out. I also know it is not sitting there wanting to rust on me.

With traditional rifles.. I shoot them into my steel trap when I come out of the woods.. I then swab the bore clean and dry and reload in the morning. I have had three NO BOOMS! with a traditional rifle, leaving them loaded in the garage or wood working shop. I just will not risk it. I even experimented all winter with different rifles, loading them, leaving them outdoors, and then storing them to see if they would fire.. 90% of the time I got ignition the next day. But that dropped if I went two days. Like I said, I have to have faith in my rifle, and for that I am willing to clean them each day if necessary. But I am 99% certain that when I do have to shoot the next day, I will hear that beautiful BOOM!.

most generally i don't have any problems with mine.this year during ohios gun season the first day was rainy and about 50 degrees.i took a shot at a coyote that was trailing 8 does.i reloaded and never took another shot till sunday to unlaod it.it had the primer removed each day after hunting and kept in the garage that is unheated.when i went to shoot it the primer just made a pop and nothing.put a new primer on and it went off with a slight delay.this is the first time my in-line has failed to preform.it was either a bad primer or it did draw some moisture from all the rain we had.gun is now cleaned and waiting for the next 2 day season and i'll do everything the way i have in the past.just one of those things that happen.

I have left my stainless steel inline loaded with American Pioneer "Shockey Gold " sticks for as long as 3 months!
Our season starts in mid November,and I have waited until late January to get to the range to unload it!
I did leave it in my truck the whole time,(I never use much heat) so temp was basically similar to outside!
Went off fine!That was with 209 primers by the way! #11 caps might have been a different story!

This year was an exception!
I fired my encore 209x50 6 times in the first 5 days of the season!
1-Very good 8 pointer @ 151 yards on opening day ! (2 shots as I shot a tad high on the first shot and spined him)
The rest where 1 shot kills on does to fill crop damage tags for a farmer friend!( 15 to 130 yards )
Then I switched over to the 30.06 Pistol version and anchored a doe at 191 yards (from a rock solid rest!
3 or 4 more days of regular gun season left,then 10 more days of muzzle loader season!
I live in a shotgun zone,and a muzzle loader or handgun is ok during the regular season,just no centerfire rifles!
I use my muzzle loader or Encore and Contender handguns 98% of the time!
The only time I get the old Ithica 37 out is if we do drives and I might want multiple shots!

I left my St. Lewis Hawkins, 54 cal. in a truck tool box I had sitting in the back yard. It was a test to see how leaving it loaded without a cap would affect the firearm. I was using 3 FFF Prodex behind a 425 Buffalo hollow point, hollow base. The first test was in Nov. and Dec. of 1997 for 41 days. The second was Dec. 1997 to Jan. 98. It was loaded 58 day. Both times the firearm fired without mishap. And achieved an acceptable grouping at 100 yards. However on the second test I had significant surface rust on the hammer, trigger guard and other exterior metal parts. When I first saw this rust I was alarmed but the it turned out to be only surface rust so the problem was easy to correct. The barrel did not show rusting. I had feared the worst. Of course the gun had been given a good cleaning prior to the loading for the test. Between the test I had taken the rifle to KY and head shot a doe with it. The key was that the rifle was kept outside and out of the rain. There were no abrupt change of temperatures.

Length of time loaded does nto matter at all so long as it is dry and the gun is kept at a fairly constant temperature. I have left muzzleloaders loaded and fired them without problem for over a year before. I keep a cap-n-ball revolver loaded in my shop and occasionally, about one per year will fire it off and have only occasionally had a chamber fail to fire instantly using "P" Pyrodex and CCI caps. I have literally fired off muzzleloaders that had been loaded perhaps 100 years before and had them fire instantly. I had a man bring in an ancient 1/2 stock 'southern iron rifle' of about .36" once. He was telling us and some customers standing there how it had been on his mantle for his whole life (he was in his 60s+) and said it had been hanging there for as long as his father had remembered as well. When it came to my hands I dropped the rammer in and sure enough, it stopped short by about an inch, so I told him it was probably loaded. He argued that nobody had ever loaded it. I took a cap and him out back, capped it, pointed it at the ground and blew a divot in the dirt. Feeling rather humored I hanedd it back to him and remarked wrly "now it is unloaded" as I passed him headed back inside. He was astonished of course as were all the others but I used the incident to show them how to check a muzzleloader to see if it is loaded or not, and to explain that black powder, if dry, is always the same power as the day it was made. I showed him how to clean it and ran a couple of patches through it myself to start the process. So, the lesson is, a 100 year old load of black powder kept inside a climate controlled house on the mantle will fire just the same as were it loaded yesterday. Substitutes however will break-down with age because they are chemical compounds and not natural compounds. I have no idea how long they may take to break down, but be warned that most smoke-less powders actually gain in power and become less stable with age.

This is awesome advice everybody! PA RIDGE RUNNER I did fire it off before my hunt yesterday for peace of mind, and it fired without a hitch! The peace of mind was worth it though... After a wet and dry patch, I reloaded and headed out to the woods. It will remain loaded until the end of the season here, unless I am able to use it before then! Shiloh, that is a great story... I really enjoyed it! It's kind of neat hearing everyone's experiences with this... Keep em' coming!

I snap 2 primers, load Blackhorn 209 and bullet, place a finger cot (looks like a prophylactic for fingers available at drug stores or Walmart) over the muzzle. I also have a fired primer which I have painted the end red with nail polish inserted.
This system is safe and allows no moisture laden air into the bore.
When ready to hunt just insert a new primer. You can also leave the cot over the muzzle if raining as firing through it does not affect accuracy as the air in front of the bullet ruptures the cot before the bullet gets to it.
If not fired, insert red primer and cot BEFORE entering a warm area.

Just what I do

leave mine loaded for the season and jsut give it 1 heck of a good clean before it goes away for good till the next season

Firing off a cap or primer in my mind fouls the bore slightly but not with the corrosive fouling of black powder or its substitutes. This assures the fire channel is open and I would not be concerned about corrosion happening as I hunt. On the other hand firing off a flintlock will put corrosive residue into the barrel as the ignition source and main charge are all black powder. In that case when I hunt with one of these I do not fire off a pan of powder but after loading the main charge I do make sure that the flash hole is clear with a small dental brush only inserted just past the pinch point of the flash hole. Keeping the flash pan powder dry is a whole nother ball game as it is outside the barrel and much more subject to weather conditions. About all you can actually do is keep a check on the powder and if it starts to clump, dump, dry and recharge. And you guys thought it was a problem keeping your powder dry in a more modern form of ignition.

Firing off a cap or primer in my mind fouls the bore slightly but not with the corrosive fouling of black powder or its substitutes. This assures the fire channel is open and I would not be concerned about corrosion happening as I hunt. On the other hand firing off a flintlock will put corrosive residue into the barrel as the ignition source and main charge are all black powder. In that case when I hunt with one of these I do not fire off a pan of powder but after loading the main charge I do make sure that the flash hole is clear with a small dental brush only inserted just past the pinch point of the flash hole. Keeping the flash pan powder dry is a whole nother ball game as it is outside the barrel and much more subject to weather conditions. About all you can actually do is keep a check on the powder and if it starts to clump, dump, dry and recharge. And you guys thought it was a problem keeping your powder dry in a more modern form of ignition.

Firing off a cap or primer in my mind fouls the bore slightly but not with the corrosive fouling of black powder or its substitutes. This assures the fire channel is open and I would not be concerned about corrosion happening as I hunt. On the other hand firing off a flintlock will put corrosive residue into the barrel as the ignition source and main charge are all black powder. In that case when I hunt with one of these I do not fire off a pan of powder but after loading the main charge I do make sure that the flash hole is clear with a small dental brush only inserted just past the pinch point of the flash hole. Keeping the flash pan powder dry is a whole nother ball game as it is outside the barrel and much more subject to weather conditions. About all you can actually do is keep a check on the powder and if it starts to clump, dump, dry and recharge. And you guys thought it was a problem keeping your powder dry in a more modern form of ignition.

Yea aren't those fun ! Shot mine off once after a day of snow on the ground but rising temps. and clouds that made it very damp out . Pan fired (that I changed a half dozen times during the day) but the main charge sounded like a fuse for about 2 sec. and then went off . Glad I was shooting at a stump instead of a deer .

I live and hunt in Virginia, and our black powder season is the first two weeks of November, so I don't get the cold temps that most of you get. Although it generally rains at least two days during this two week period. I generally leave my T/C Omega loaded (209 removed) and in mt truck. As for hunting in the rain. I learned a neat trick from an old timer who puts some electrical tape over the muzzel in rainy weather to keep his load dry. It works, and it dosen't damage the accuracy as I shot a doe while it was on and she droped in her tracks, the shot was about 80 yards