CVA’s Mark Hendricks Recommends You Always Take Your Unloaded Muzzleloader Rifle Inside
Question: Mark, one nagging problem that all muzzleloader hunters have to deal with is what to do with their rifles on a multi-day hunt after rain or high humidity. If they want to leave their guns loaded to hunt the next day, do they take-off the caps and the nipples and bring the loaded guns into camp? Or, do they leave their guns with the nipples off outside the camp or in the truck?
Hendricks: I always take my gun inside. I realize a number of people recommend leaving a gun in a rack outside the camp house. In extremely-cold weather, there may be some merit to this line of thinking. But personally I prefer to take my gun inside at camp. In old times, when scope technology wasn’t what it is today, if you were using a scope on your muzzleloader rifle and you took the rifle inside the warm camp house and then took the rifle outside to hunt, the scope would fog-up on the inside. However, with the modern scopes of today, scope manufacturers are filling those scopes with nitrogen, so they don’t fog-up on the inside like they once did in the past.
Question: Okay, I’ve hunted the first day, and the gun’s still loaded. Do you suggest that I take the cap off the end of the nipple, so the gun won’t fire, and then take the loaded gun inside the camp house?
Hendricks: No, not at all. You should always unload your blackpowder rifle before you take it inside the camp house. Unloading now, with the break-open rifles on the market, is easier than ever in the past. So, today all you have to do is to break-open your rifle, take-out the breech plug from the back of the barrel, and, use your ramrod or field rod, to push the load out of the back of the barrel. If you’re careful, you can reuse the pellets or the powder and the bullet, once you’ve pushed it out of the barrel. But always remember: YOU NEVER TAKE A LOADED GUN INSIDE YOUR CAMP HOUSE OR YOUR HOME, AND YOU NEVER LEAVE A LOADED GUN OUTSIDE THE CAMP HOUSE OR YOUR HOME. A loaded gun has no place in a camp house or a home. To push the load out of the back of the gun, you’re only talking about less than a minute to unload the gun before you reach camp and reload the gun, once you get back into the woods and are ready to hunt. Loading and unloading muzzleloader rifles is far-more simple and easy today than it ever has been. The loading and unloading process takes far-less time than it’s ever taken. As with every-other form of hunting, safety should be the primary concern of all of us who go into the woods to hunt.