BLACK POWDER: WHAT’S IN THE MUZZLELOADER’S POUCH?

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

When 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

Patches and bullets are needed in the pouch, in addition to shooting tools. The author stores his patches in empty percussion cap tins.

A pile of pouches as you might find for sale on traders’ row. emptying a cap tin.

A powder horn isn’t usually carried inside the pouch, but some small “pocket” horns certainly could be. While hunting, I usually don’t wear a powder horn, but I do use the pocket horn. For more bullets, my haversack, which is often left back at camp, will have some bar lead and a ladle along with a bag mould for making more bullets. Likewise, I often have a powder “storage horn” back at camp too, which is simply a powder horn that is bigger than what I like to carry. Such a storage horn, however, is very fine for refilling the pocket horn. Sometimes the smaller horns are called “day horns” because they hold just enough powder that a hunter might use in a day.

Let’s get back to what we should have in our pouches. For describing the next batch of plunder, I’m going to divide the necessary shooting accessories into flintlock and percussion items. We’ll consider the flintlock items first.

EVERY FLINTLOCK SHOOTER should carry some extra flints. That might seem like a given, but too many times extra flints are forgotten. One of the best ways to carry extra flints is in a flint wallet. This protects the flints from hitting other tools in the pouch that might chip them, as well as protects the shooter from cutting their fingertips when they reach into their pouch. While I recognize that flint wallets are the way to go, I have never really appreciated carrying one of them in my shooting pouch. Even so, I do carry extra flints, at least a couple of them, often in the bottom of my pouch’s ball pocket.

Also, because the flints are held in the jaws of the cock with pieces of leather, it’s wise to carry a couple extra flint leathers, already cut to shape. Too many times when a flint is lost out of the lock, the flint leather is missing too. Extra flint leathers will keep you shooting.

In order to change or just maintain that flint in the jaws of the cock, we need “flinter’s tools” in our pouches.

Shooting accessories include (foreground, left to right): short-starter, flint knapper/screwdriver, flash-hole pick, and a “primitive” pair of pliers.

This tool is a combination flint knapper, resembling a small hammer, and a T-handled screwdriver. Both aspects of this tool get used a great deal; basically, a flintlock shooter without a knapper or a screwdriver will not be shooting for long.

A flash-hole pick is also an absolute necessity. I don’t pick the flash-hole on my flintlocks every shot, but I do pick them every time I feel there is a question. And when you pick a flashhole, if the gun is already loaded, don’t just jam the pick through the hole and consider that good. You must feel dry powder crumbling as the pick is pushed into it. If you don’t feel powder, it isn’t there. Maybe the gun was dryballed (loaded without the powder) or something in the barrel won’t allow the powder to fall back to the breech. And if that powder feels mushy instead of dry and crumbling, then the powder is wet from either water or oils and that can lead to other problems.

If picking the flash-hole discovers problems, the best solution is to pull the ball, so ball-pulling gear is needed too. Always have that in the pouch.

One more item I will mention, because I won’t leave home without one, is an auxiliary priming tool. For my flintlock shooting, I usually carry a priming horn on a necklace, but sometimes that doesn’t get refilled as often as it should. When that happens, I fall back on my reserve priming in the small brass spring-valve priming tool deep in the pouch. At least it is deep inside the pouch by the time I need it, as other tools and items get used much more and are closer to the top, but that extra priming is there and it has saved me from embarrassment more than once.

SHOOTING PERCUSSIONS, WE might say, is a whole different ball game because some different tools are needed. The first of these tools is a nipple wrench. A percussion shooter simply must be able to remove that nipple for a variety of reasons. The nipple might be plugged and the best way to find out is to remove it and look. And if the shooter is having trouble getting the gun to fire, the problem might be in the breech of the gun and not in the nipple. Either way, the nipple needs to be removed so corrective action can

be taken.

Along with that nipple wrench, the percussion shooter needs a nipple pick that can be passed all the way through the small hole in the nipple. That’s simply the best way to clear a plugged nipple. If the nipple pick is too big to go all the way through, as most of them are, that will often result in making the plugged nipple worse. Finding a nipple pick that can go all the way through the nipple can be difficult – you might need to make one – but having that small nipple pick will pay off nicely.

And be sure your pouch is carrying an extra nipple. One big problem almost all percussion shooters encounter, sooner or later, is when two hammer blows or more are needed to fire the cap. That happens when the nipple gets battered down just a little, but enough to make it wider than it originally was so that the percussion caps can’t be put all the way down. Then the hammer’s first blow simply seats the cap on the fat nipple so the second blow should be able to fire it. This, at best, is a terrible irritation to the shooter, and the quickest way to solve the problem is to replace the nipple.

By the same token, it’s important to carry extra percussion caps in the pouch as well. When I shoot my percussion rifles, I carry caps in a Cash capper that is hung around my neck. That usually carries enough caps, but extra caps are always in my pouch.

There are some items needed to equip both flintlocks and percussions, foremost of which is a powder measure. None of us should ever try shooting our muzzleloading arms without a powder measure. Use the powder measure of your choice, be it one you made out of bone or antler, or a storebought fixed or adjustable measure. Guessing at a powder charge is not a good idea. It is far better to use a powder measure for every shot, just like it’s far better to be properly equipped with the things you might need right there in your pouch. 

Nesbitt prefers to carry his flint knapper, flash-hole pick and short starter outside of the pouch where they can be grabbed quickly when needed.