Leaving a powder and bullet charge in the barrel

Hi Guys,
I am hunting in Pa. in the Flintlock season. Using a TC Firestorm 50 cal loaded with 3f powder and patched roundball. Here's my question. Gonna be hunting for 2 or 3 weeks. The initial load in the rifle...can you keep it in the barrel with no danger of corrosion day after day? Or should you shoot it out of the barrel at the end of each day? With the Firestorm I can also remove the barrel, unscrew the breech plug, and push out the charge with a ramrod. If everything is kept dry do I still need to unload the rifle every day? I also have the muzzle end of the bore covered with tape. And at the end of the day I store the rifle in my cold garage, so the rifle doesn't get sweated by coming into a heated space.
Thanks!
John M. from Pa.

I use a pa pellett rifle made by traditions and bring it in and put barrel down in gun cabinet , and havent had any trouble with it going off. :grin:

Thats how I store mine while loaded! :thumbsup:

I leave mine loaded and keep it in my Shed. I`ll dump the Pan Powder and stick a Piece of Cloth in the Pan and close the Hammer on it. As a precaution I write on a Styrofoam Plate " This Gun is loaded" and stick it on the end of the Ramrod....just in case I forget.

During our 9-day muzzleloader season in NH, I leave my guns loaded (with cap removed of course) and tape over the muzzle, locked in my truck. I've never had it missfire after the season, and havn't noticed any corosion in the barrel after several seasons of this. I think you only should have to worry if you shot the gun and reloaded without cleaning, then you will have some corosion...but clean loaded gun shouldn't have an issue.

No worries about corrosion, there. However, if you have some damp days, it may be prudent to pull the load and start with a fresh one the next day. I lost an opportunity one season after leaving my rifle in a cold, but damp garage over night one winter. Prime went off four times before the deer decided to move on, but the main charge never caught.

I leave mine loaded for extended periods during hunting season with no problems. As long as the arm doesn't get wet it should be fine. Black powder, itself, is not hygroscopic; only the fouling is.

A toothpick to plug the vent is helpful to keep moisture from your charge plus it serves as a reminder that the gun is loaded.

I have always assumed ( yeah, we all know what usually comes of that ) the opposite. But, being on the west coast, everyone is so bloody safety conscious that EVERYONE assumes the worst possible outcome is what's GONNA happen if you "break that rule" never mind that our ancestors wld have never made it this far by following such advice.
Just good to know/hear/read this article and people confirming through yrs of exp that the paranoia that has become such the standard in this country is still full of... yeah, that stuff.

IMO, if it is for a few days storage, no harm will be done.

A few weeks...probably no harm done.

Black powder is rather like a loaf of bread. Over time it will absorb and release moisture from the humidity in the air if it is exposed to it.
(A open vent hole exposes it.)

Several years ago the Bevel Brothers in the NMLRA's magazine Muzzle Blasts did a test.

They made several short lengths of vented barrels with breech plugs and loaded them with several different powders under patched roundballs.

Then, they placed these barrels into their basement where the humidity was always high.

After a year, they tried pulling the balls. No go.

They then unbreached the barrels and tried to shove the patched balls along with the powder charge out. No go.

The finally resorted to using a steel rod and a big hammer to pound the balls out.

They found that the area where the powder was had become heavily damaged with rust.
The area where the roundballs patches were was totally rusted to such an extent that the patch was permanently bonded to the wall of the barrel.

That explained why it took a hell of a lot of pounding with a big hammer to finally knock the balls out.

I know people keep mentioning that unfired black powder doesn't absorb moisture but like bread, leather, wood and most other soft things it does.

How much damage can be caused by this is only a matter of time.

Leave at least one loaded, just in case someone uninvited comes in my house. :thumbsup:

99.99 percent of the time mine gets unloaded, usually just pull the load, takes about a minute. On the rare occasion it stays loaded overnight a tag is on the trigger guard LOADED. I do it mainley for safety reasons, allso like to go out with a fresh load in the gun. flinch

Elmer Keith said you could leave BP in a chamber for a long time without rust as long as it was sealed up good. I have to wonder what a long time constitutes though in this regard.
BP has a certain moisture content in it anyway when it is ready to use as far as I know and it would seem to follow that over enough time it should have some corrosive effect on barrel steel.
I have seen pictures and read of BP cartridges that have been loaded a century ago still fire and the case was not destroyed by it although the bullet lead was very oxidized. MD

During hunting season, after loading a clean barrel, I generally leave a loaded charge in the barrel until such time that I shoot at a deer. Most times this may only be a week or two or three at the longest. Using real blackpowder, I have never once had a misfire. I guess there is a first time for everything but so far, so good. On the other hand, if I fire a round and then reload on a dirty barrel, I generally will pull the load at the end of the day and give the gun a good cleaning, then reload again on a clean barrel. In my experience, unfired blackpowder in a clean barrel will stay relative for quite awhile without doing harm to the bore. Having said that, I would never leave one loaded year round. When I am done with a gun for the season, I usually discharge the firearm into a safe place, give the gun a good cleaning and oiling and into storage it goes until needed again.

Jeff

I have hunted the PA "traditional" season, and generally just emptied the pan and inserted a toothpick into the touchhole. Unless it was brutally cold (10 or more degrees below freezing), and I was bringing the gun inside for longer than overnight. Then I discharged and cleaned it, starting fresh the next day I went out. I would also unload if I was out in high humidity or precipitation.

I don't like loaded unattended guns so I am in favor of unloading it. However, I have tested one to see if leaving it loaded affected the way it shoots. It doesn't and mine worked as expected.
Do you think great-great-grand pappy wasted loads every night? I doubt it. :hmm:
Anyway with a Firestorm, you can unload it quickly and easily. So why not err on the side of safety?
BTW, a Firestorm with a GOEX 3f load and 4f prime is a nice flintlock load. It's the fastest flintlock I have shot. :thumbsup:

Like most others, I leave my loaded rifle as is until season is over or I make a harvest. But, before loading I clean completely and degrease. Then I load. After loaded, I run an oiled patch down the barrel to give some moisture protection.
One rifle left three years fired instantly.

A guy I know left a charge in his barrel from last years season, and fired it before the start of this season with no problem. Not that this is a good idea, but it shows that if the charge is kept dry, it will still ignite left in a barrel for extended periods of time.
I leave my rifle loaded until the season is over, unless I hunt in rain. Then I unload at the end of the day.

John M 4688 said:

Hi Guys,
I am hunting in Pa. in the Flintlock season. Using a TC Firestorm 50 cal loaded with 3f powder and patched roundball. Here's my question. Gonna be hunting for 2 or 3 weeks. The initial load in the rifle...can you keep it in the barrel with no danger of corrosion day after day? Or should you shoot it out of the barrel at the end of each day? With the Firestorm I can also remove the barrel, unscrew the breech plug, and push out the charge with a ramrod. If everything is kept dry do I still need to unload the rifle every day? I also have the muzzle end of the bore covered with tape. And at the end of the day I store the rifle in my cold garage, so the rifle doesn't get sweated by coming into a heated space.
Thanks!
John M. from Pa.

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If you are using BP and its kept dry there is no problem with being loaded for months. Substitutes I would not trust.
But for hunting I seldom leave one loaded more than 4-5 days even out here where its dry.
If hunting in the snow or wet I am less trusting and will pull or shoot out the load(s).

Dan

M.D. said:

Elmer Keith said you could leave BP in a chamber for a long time without rust as long as it was sealed up good. I have to wonder what a long time constitutes though in this regard.
BP has a certain moisture content in it anyway when it is ready to use as far as I know and it would seem to follow that over enough time it should have some corrosive effect on barrel steel.
I have seen pictures and read of BP cartridges that have been loaded a century ago still fire and the case was not destroyed by it although the bullet lead was very oxidized. MD

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Properly made BP is not corrosive so long as the ingredients are PURE.
Water, Sulfur, Saltpeter need to be pure.
Contaminate ANY of these and corrosion may result. Back at Moosic when Goex had a bacteria problem in the undistilled water they used the cans would rust internally in some lots of powder due to the bacteria attacking the sulfur and releasing corrosive by products.
If the powder is made properly and properly dried steel cans will not rust in decades.
Nor will properly made BP suck up water from the air to the point of becoming corrosive.

Dan