Chapter 7: Advanced Hunting Techniques
Know Your Muzzleloader

Primitive hunting arms include the muzzleloader firearm, the bow and arrow, and the crossbow. Today, these hunting arms are both collector's items and used for sporting purposes.

Muzzleloader is the term given to early firearms because they are loaded from the muzzle or open end. Read about the history of muzzleloaders.

• On these early firearms, locks played the role of modern-day actions. Matchlock and wheel lock muzzleloaders are rare and valuable, but they also may be unsafe to use. Flintlocks and percussion caps are the muzzleloaders typically used for shooting competitions and for hunting. They are generally less expensive, lighter, more reliable, and easier to load and maintain than matchlocks or wheel locks.
• Muzzleloaders are most commonly rifles. However, there are also smooth-bored muzzleloaders—shotguns. Shotgun muzzleloaders can have either a single barreled or double barrels joined side-by-side. When loading the double-barreled muzzleloader, it's very important to avoid putting the two loads down the same barrel. Double-barreled guns usually have two locks, one for each barrel. This allows the shooter to fire each barrel separately before the gun is reloaded. Most double-barreled guns were designed with two triggers.
• Muzzleloading handguns come as both pistols and revolvers. Pistols are mainly single-shot. The revolvers contain multiple-shot chambers. Chain firing muzzleloading revolvers can be dangerous. When the chamber round is fired, it produces sparks that could accidentally ignite loads in another cylinder(s). Therefore, be sure to protect each load in the cylinder with a coating of grease to prevent sparks from entering the open end of the other cylinders.