BLACK POWDER
“It’s far better to be properly equipped with the things you might need right there in your pouch” than not, writes muzzleloading aficionado Mike Nesbitt. His pouch (right) carries necessary shooting accessories.
WHAT’S IN THE MUZZLELOADER’S POUCH?
What to carry varies for flintlock and percussion firearms, but here's how one shooter packs his pouch. STORY AND PHOTOS BY MIKE NESBITT
W
hen first thinking about writing this story, I wasn’t going to include balls and patches in my list of muzzleloader must-haves. But because there is a good chance that at
least a couple of the folks who read this article have never fired a muzzleloader before, everything that we’d want in our shooting pouches will be discussed, including balls and patches. My favorite method of carrying patches in the pouch, whether my rifle has a patch box or not, is to pack them in empty percussion cap tins. Hey,
those have to be considered primitive and traditional, at least for a person roaming the West after 1825 or so. For my .54-caliber guns, which use .020inch patches, each empty cap tin will hold about 25 lubricated patches. And if my rifle has a patch box, I most often use the patches while I’m shooting out of the patch box. Then I refill it by americanshootingjournal.com 103
