.32 caliber muzzleloader

Anyone on here have one or use one? I just traded for one any tips or tricks on them? I’ve got the inline .50 muzzle loaders haven’t shot one that uses a #11 cap in forever tho

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Lots of fun to squirrel hunt with! Get in the habit of running a damp, and then a dry swab down the barrel after each shot; as those " small caliber for muzzleloader’s " foul the bore quick, and if you don’t keep them clean, you run the risk of a snapped ramrod, or a stuck ball. Keep it clean and oiled up good and it should do okay for you!

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Damp as in like the bore cleaner for just a regular muzzle loader? Only reason I’m asking all of this is the guy I traded for it from said these ain’t like a .50 they need a little more TLC sorry for the ignorance :joy: I’ve always wanted one of these little squirrel guns but never run across one till today

It was a pretty good setup got the possibles bag , a ladle , bullet mold , 4 sticks of led and a can of primers

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Make sure your nipples clear before each load. I hammer on the side opposite the drum with the drum he’d towards the ground before I load the patch and ball. I run a spot patch then a dry patch between each load even at that after a few shots youll have to clean a little harder you’ll be able to tell by how hard it starts to load a 45 is after about 8 shots 40 is about 6 I’d say a 36 would be about ever 3 or 4.
Fun shooting and hunting for sure.

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Yeah, bore cleaner lightly applied to a cleaning patch; just enough to soften the fouling. Not dripping wet, or you will be running a bunch of dry patches to get all the moisture out before it will shoot again! If in doubt , and you think you may have moister in the breach/nipple area, you can pop 2-3 caps and blow out any wet crud if you don’t want to take the nipple out and poke out any fouling . Some guys just pop a patch in their mouth and dampen the patch with saliva/ spit. then follow up with a couple of dry patches before reloading. Of course you will want to give it a GOOD CLEANING once you are done shooting for the day, and plan on putting it up for a while.

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I’d use 3 F Black Powder
Maybe you know this already

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I did not lol thank you for the tip tho , I figured it would be a different kind of powder my pyro pellets won’t work in this one :joy:

It came with a powder horn and some powder in it but idk what type it is , but I just looked what you said up and I’ll buy some

Thumb catcher mentioned using 3 F Black powder, and I second that! 2-F would really foul badly I think! If you can’t find 3F, Pistol Pyrodex might work , and then again it may tend to hang fire a little. You will just have to try it and see. Friendship, Indiana use to have a couple of shoots a year, but I don’t know if they still do or not. They always had 3 F black powder there.

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This powder correct?

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Looks good! I can’t remember how much of a load to shoot in a .32, but I think 20 grains on a powder gauge would be a good starting point. If in doubt, they say the old timers would place a ball in their palm, and however much powder it took to barely cover the ball would work they said. Seems like a messy, and uncertain way to work up a load to me.

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Thank you guys for the tips! I figured if anyone would know you all would on here lol I’m excited to take it squirrel hunting

If you have never shot loose powder before
Make sure you buy a powder measure

Without an accurate consistent amount
You’d be all over the place

Speaking of Friendship my cousin still shoots a lot over there and I just talk to him a couple weeks back
He said it’s the Spring Meet is the big meet now
About only thing left is a few booths for stuff

Fall is nothing like it use to be
Fall use to be huge
All that across the creek is no more

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So what did the long hunters do with a small caliber gun? I thought Daniel Boone had a small caliber a lot of times.

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It came with a small deer horn drilled out on the inside, could that be what that is?

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Good question

Allot of the older guns that are still in existence are 39 40 44 caliber,they started small and as they shot them out they had them rerifled that’s how the wound up with some of the bigger calibers and I’m sure latter on they started building them bigger to begin with especially when they headed west of the Mississippi.
Small bore rifles will kill dead and if you’ve ever messed with them you can load a big charge with two patched balls and they’ll hit withing a couple inches of each other it’s called “loading for bear” I’ve heard all kinds of flack over the years about how you can’t shoot 90 grains In a 45 cal and a 45 round ball is no good on whitetails at 100 yards but I’ve got several deer that will tell you a different story.
I’ve heard they was allot of original long hunter guns in the 42 and 44 caliber range.
Colt

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Did some research lol
But it looked like colt already knew it and didn’t have to google it :joy:

I always wondered where that term loaded for bear came from lol