Thinking about a Black Powder Rifle

A black powder firearm has crossed my mine many times but now I have a need or one. My hunting lease is still void of wild hogs after more than 2 months. Decided to check out a nearby Florida Wildlife Management Area .
While we didn't actually see a hog we did see some fresh major rutting so that is evidence the hogs are in there.
What amazes me is the WMA is only 2 miles from my leased property.

Several problems with this WMA, first baiting is not allowed and we can't hunt at night and we cannot use center fire rifles (no AR-15). We can hunt with pistols, shotguns, bows and black powder firearms. Hence, my interest in black powder. So where do I start. This would be a great project in my machine shop. Are these rifles available in kits? I have seen them a number of times at the gun range. Not interested in an antique looking rifle. Would like to find something with a removable breach for better cleaning and unloading if available.

You can pick up used inlines dirt cheap that shoot the 209 primers.

Well, I'm a new member and just saw this thread so I apologize for being late. There are three questions you ask yourself when buying a black powder firearm. First is primitive or modern firearm (Old fashioned or Inline.) Second is black powder, Pyrodex, or a black powder substitute like Triple Seven. Third is patch and ball or conical bullet.

If you want primitive then you have to decide flintlock or percussion but it sounds like you want a modern black powder rifle, like an inline.

Inlines are better off with Pyrodex or substitutes. Black powder is considered an explosive. It's storage requirements are pretty rigid and not every sporting goods store will carry it. Pyrodex has sulfer in it (so does black powder) so every shot coats the inside of your barrel with battery acid. You have to clean your fire arm the same day you shoot it or you will have rust. Do not use smokeless powder, I've seen multiple videos where smokeless powder was used in a black powder rifle, on purpose for a demonstration, and the gun blew up. It blows up next to your face and eyes.

To determine what type of projectile to use check the rifling twist. If it is slower than 1:48, say 1:54 or 1:66 then use a patch and ball. If it's faster than 1:48, say 1:32 or 1:28 then use a conical, or sabot. Each rifle responds to loads and bullets different and maybe your rifle the break point will be 1:46, or 1:52 but 1:48 is pretty close and shoots both conical and ball good enough for hunting. I don't know of a modern black powder rifle with a twist slower than 1:48.

The rules covering black powder firearms are intricate and vary from state to state. I'll use Oregon as an example - 209 primers, sabots, and pelletized powder are not legal for the muzzleloader seasons but if you want to challenge of using a muzzleloader you can use 209 primers, pelletized powder, and sabots during the centerfire season. The ignition has to be exposed but many inlines the bolt is open at the nipple so they are legal if you use Nos 11 caps.

Misfires are a way of life with blackpowder. Flintlocks are worse than percussion which are worse than inlines but all will have a misfire sooner or later. Black powder is easier to ignite than Pyrodex which is easier to ignite that Triple Seven. All things being equal black powder will have fewer misfires. A modern inline with Triple Seven will still have fewer misfires than a flintlock with black powder. Powder has coarseness designations, 4X is very fine, like flour and is used for flashpans on flintlocks. 3X is slightly coarser and used for handguns or small caliber rifles. The transition caliber is smaller than 40 or 45, I just don't remember off the top of my head. 2X is coarser and used for larger calibers. 4X is used for cannons. The finer the grind the faster the burn and too much powder can result in excess pressure.

No matter what you choose muzzleloading is dirty and you have to clean your rifle frequently. There is a lot of residue after each shot and swabbing with a dry patch every 2 or 3 or 4 shots will be needed. Don't think of the efficiencies that you have with centerfire and smokeless powder. Think of reloading as a ceremony and all the rituals have to be observed.

50 caliber is the most common and there will be more supplies for 50 caliber than all other calibers combined.

Last just because the gun looks "cool" and it doesn't have the zip of a centerfire you still need to follow every safety rule you do with a centerfire. It is capable of lethal force and needs to be treated as such.

A couple years ago I got a cva optima v2 pistol in 50 cal. Great trigger, accurate and a whoot too shoot.

Thanks for the informative post Mr Brooks. I'm definitely interested in the inline type muzzle loader. A buddy has a Remington 700 muzzle loader he would sell to me for $250. I want a muzzle loader that I can bore sight some night vision scopes that I have. My hunting lease has been sold so the emphasis next year will be WMA so the need for a muzzle loader is gaining strength. Then again I could also use
a Winchester X2 12 gage shot that I already have.

Thompson center makes a nice looking muzzle loader, I saw a couple of those for sale at flea markets in Florida. One had a rusty bore and a bullet still in the bore all from neglect. The fool wanted $250 for it. I would have got a kick out of cleaning up the rifle so I offered him $75 for it, he turned it down. Buddy I was with at the time said it wasn't worth $75, it was junk.

I was rather shocked to learn muzzle loaders are not cheap to shoot.

Perhaps you have not checked on the correct pistol Jim!

https://palmettostatearmory.com/psa-...165449175.html

Buy yourself a $50 stripped frame and you have a fast firing and very accurate pistol that will use anything you already own, and you are familiar with the workings and have no new learning curve. Just don't get the butt stocks confused. My AR pistols shoot just as accurately as my AR rifles. Louder than Gabrials horn, but accurate. They are made in 300BO also.

I own a dozen or so BP rifles in both traditional and modern trim. I love my BP rifles but if I had a choice between hunting with BP and hunting with a shotgun in the FL brush country I would pick the shotgun!

With a modern shotgun and a riffled slug barrel you will get accuracy just as good as with the BP rifle and much faster follow up shots. If FL allows use of buckshot on hogs I would not even think twice about the choice, shotgun it would be.

Check on the price for a Mossberg Mavrick 88 and then go to Ebay and check the price of a riffled barrel. You will probably find the cost of that combination and a cheap ML rifle to be pretty close to the same.

I have a mossberg set up like that and I have a Pardner Pump set up with a Remington 12 ga riffled barrel and 4x scope and the groups can be amazing!

If they allow buckshot You can skip the riffled barrel part and go with a screw in choke tube in modified or full.

And you can keep shooting until the legal limit of your magazine is reached and then thumb shells in one at a time at a much faster rate than one shot a minute in a ML rifle.

ML stuff does have a learning curve, and individual rifles can be very picky. That is why there are so many modern in-line BP rifles sitting unused in closets and listed at such cheap prices for sale. Modern shooters want to load it and shoot it and hit the first time, then go home and forget about it until the next trip. BP does not allow that approach.

I have thought about an AR pistol for hog hunting on the public property. Researched how Florida defined a pistol but found nothing saying an AR with no stock and a short barrel qualified as a pistol. However, at a gun show and in Florida and a gun seller had an
AR pistol. He said if it has no butt stock and a 9 or 10 inch barrel it's a pistol. I asked the old guy at the Homosassa WMA check station about using an AR pistol and retorted, "can't use center fire pistols on the WMA". I pulled out a copy of the rules and pointed out "pistols can be used for hunting" no stipulation on center fire, rim fire or magazine size. He replied, "OH, well, go ahead and try it". By the way, the only way to hunt public property in Florida is with a hard copy of the rules in your pocket.

I have a nice Winchester X2 semi-auto, 3 1/3" 12 gage that has not seen daylight since my last duck hunt in "2011". I could use it for hog hunting but the shotgun doesn't have scope mountings.

I figured your shotgun did not have scope mounts, which is why I suggested putting your money in an inexpensive pump shotgun.

Check out the Brownels website, they will probably have a "no drill/no tap" scope mount for your Winchester shotgun. You might get away with only having to buy that to mount your NV device, which you can not use on public land.

The Maverick 88 has all kinds of scope mounting devices available. They interchange with the Mossberg 500.

Brownels has a Mossberg no drill/no tap mount for $40.

The Pardner Pump comes drilled and tapped for a scope base.

The Maverick 88 is selling at a hair over $200 right now and the Pardner Pump is going for about $175.

You will be hard pressed to find a ML rifle at that price point and then you will find that powder, primers, sabot bullets, all the cleaning gear (it does not use Hopes *9) and accessories will cost half as much as the rifle.

I personally have a dinosaur rifle cobbled up on a 12 ga 870 action with a cantilevered scope mount, rifled slug barrel, and a folding stock. Got the 10 shot mag-tube on there too. I am ready to go hunting in Jurassic Park!

go with a shotgun instead, so that it's otherwise useful, you dont have the misfiring and corrosive bs to deal with, and you'll have rapidfire if you need it. Black powder is a bad joke. I'd rather have a springbow, any day, which is a xbow powered by a pair of extension coil springs.