Buying a used muzzleloader -- long but hopefully worth it

[mongrel]

So, you've been bitten by the black powder bug and have decided you need to buy a muzzleloader. For a variety of reasons you've made up your mind that what you'll be buying is probably a used gun. Problem is -- you're not entirely sure what to look for in a used muzzleloader, and if you're like most of us the price of even a relatively inexpensive gun will represent a significant outlay of cash. Obviously you want to be sure you spend your money wisely.

The first thing to make up your mind to -- and in the process acquire a valuable buyer's tool -- is a moderate amount of patience. You might get lucky, but all-too-often it happens that a buyer jumping headlong into a deal involving a type of gun he knows little or nothing about, finds himself the owner of a helping of regret that can sour a person on a newfound interest. I've bought, sold, traded, and built muzzleloaders for many an educational year, and I can promise that very seldom is any deal on any gun so incredibly wonderful that you'll never run across such an opportunity again. The guns you're mostly likely to be looking at are (or were) mass-produced items, and the used gun marketplace has an ever-changing, ever-updated inventory for you to choose from. Before buying, ask questions and wait for an assortment of valid answers, opinions, and advice; don't sign away title to your firstborn because you've decided you simply must own a gun you know absolutely nothing about.

As part of the process of being patient and attempting to learn a few things before actually buying, if at all possible become acquainted with black powder shooters in your area. This will serve several purposes. You might find that one of these folks is interested in selling you exactly the gun you need. If not, you'll still benefit by having the chance to handle and examine the guns they own, and in the process become familiar with what constitutes "good used condition". At the same time you'll get a better idea of what looks and feels right to you. And, when you visit local gun stores, flea markets, and other places where you're likely to find used guns for sale, having someone who knows muzzleloaders and would be willing to come along for the ride can be a huge help.

You need to establish, right at the start, what you want or need this gun for. Do you intend to hunt? If so, for what? What do your state or local game laws have to say so far as minimum caliber or possible ignition type? Even if all you intend is to do some casual target shooting, a realistic consideration of how and where the gun will be used is a major factor in deciding what sort of gun it needs to be. And, along the same lines, once you start shopping -- unless you have an almost unlimited budget, I'd strongly advise against impulse purchases of guns that are completely different from what you set out to buy. I've heard more than once of someone out shopping for a deer rifle coming home with a pair of "pirate pistols" that were "just too cool" to pass up, and finding himself still without a deer rifle and also without any more money. If there was a need for a plan, to start with, stick to it.

Whether you have help or not, when you head out to buy, an extremely important tool to acquire beforehand is a bore light. There are several types of these little devices, for different types of guns, but the one you want is a small light that will simply drop down the muzzle of a gun and illuminate the bore from the breechplug up.The cheapest and easiest way to get one is to visit a well-stocked sporting goods store (or the sporting goods department of your nearest Wal-Mart, Target, or similar outfit) and head for the fishing section. There are tiny, basically disposable lights that are intended to attach to bobbers, for night fishing. One of these in as neutral a color as possible will work very well for casting light on the condition of a barrel's bore.

It shouldn't need to be said, and yet does -- whether you're at a gun store, gun show, flea market, or whatever, before handling someone else's property, ask the owner's permission. Also ask permission to use your bore light. Having asked -- if the owner's answer is, no, you can't have a look at the inside of the barrel, you're well-advised to just walk away. There is no acceptable reason why you shouldn't be allowed to examine a gun, bore included, before buying it. Many used muzzleloaders turn up for sale after having been shot and either never cleaned or cleaned poorly, then left for years before their owners die or lose interest and the guns are disposed of. In other words -- there is always a pretty good chance that a used gun, even one in decent exterior condition, will have a sewer-pipe bore. You need to see for yourself.

Before actually handling any gun, check to see if it's loaded. You'd be surprised at the number of muzzleloaders that turn up on trader's tables or store shelves with powder and ball still seated snugly in the bore. To check a muzzleloader, take the ramrod and drop it down the barrel. Either mark it at the muzzle or hold a thumb firmly at that point while withdrawing the rod. Laying the rod alongside the barrel, with your mark or thumb exactly at the muzzle, check to see how far down the bore the rod had fallen. Guns like the T/C Hawken will have a patent breechplug that adds about an inch to the length of the barrel; you need to check the space from the faint seam between the breechplug and barrel, or from the base of the barrel itself on something like a CVA or Traditions, that doesn't have a breechplug adding length to the barrel. If the rod has come to within about 1/2" to 3/4" of the base of the barrel, you're good to go; the breechplug threads that far into any barrel if it's been correctly installed. If there's something in there occupying much more space than that, though, that "something" is very likely a charge of powder and a ball or bullet. Along with the obvious safety issue at this point, black powder left in a barrel will corrode the metal it comes in contact with.

Bore condition can be a tricky quality to describe and evaluate. It's easy enough if examination shows you either major pitting and rust, or steel so bright and smooth that the reflected light half-blinds you, but usually what you see is going to be somewhere in a huge middle ground between utterly ruined and practically perfect. This is where a knowledgeable friend or having looked at a number of guns in good condition becomes a huge help. A bore can look bad simply due to being dirty from long storage, but actually be in fine shape beneath the grime. A lot of barrels that are still capable of excellent accuracy may have minor pitting, especially in the grooves of the rifling. Whether pitted or not the rifling should be strong and even its full length, with no visibly eroded areas. Bear in mind that rust can be polished out, even in damaged areas, so the sharpness and depth of the rifling are of greater importance than the overall brightness of the bore.

You need to also checked for bulges in the barrel. A bore light might not show a bulge. Run your fingers along the outside flats of the barrel. The steel should be smooth and even. A sudden "lump" feeling means a barrel that is most likely ruined and possibly unsafe to shoot.

With barrel condition meeting approval, move along to the rest of the gun. How does the stock look? We're assuming a wooden stock, now, though damage can be found on synthetic stocks as well. Keep in mind, even a well-cared-for gun can show the wear and tear of years and hard use, particularly if it was a hunting rifle. Many of us keep the bores of our guns in good shape and the mechanical parts in perfect working order, but shrug off scratches, dings, even sometimes actual gouges in the wood, that are ugly but don't affect how the gun shoots. Only the buyer of the gun can decide how much of this is acceptable, and where to draw the line between simple hard use and actual abuse of the gun.

I have to speak, at this point, on behalf of every honest seller out there. A used gun is exactly that. It seldom will be in like-new condition. Especially when the price asked is significantly lower than the cost of a similar new gun, you have no realistic right to expect what's being offered to look brand-new. You also need to know that there is a difference in price between, say, a CVA Bobcat, and a T/C Hawken. Taken to an extreme, the attitude of expecting everything for little or nothing, or of claiming you can buy a new gun "just like this one" for the same money, is not only unrealistic but flat-out insulting. Spending money is a major deal for most of us, an actually painful process for some, but it still doesn't carry with it the right to offend others. Please be fair in your expectations, and if "new" is really the only condition you will accept, regardless of the price paid, then buy a new gun and be done with it.

Back to the gun itself. Check the lock for solid engagement in the half-cock and full-cock hammer positions. With the hammer at half-cock put moderate pressure on the trigger; the half-cock should hold the hammer securely. At full-cock the hammer should hold reliably but release cleanly and without undue pressure on the trigger (by the way, never let a hammer fall completely when checking the trigger; this can damage the lock and is just plain rude). Failure of either the half-cock or full-cock is a serious safety issue, and unless you know for sure that the cause is a simple fix that won't cost much money, you are well-advised to pass on this gun. This is another circumstance where it's a huge help to have a friend along who knows these guns and can say with some certainty how major a deal a problem is likely to be.

This brings us to triggers. A trigger set up wrong or out of adjustment can cause all manner of problems, some of which will give the impression there's something wrong with the lock. This is particularly true of set triggers, which you're more likely than not to find on used guns these days. I could write an entire separate tutorial on the use and adjustment of set triggers, but I'm going to take the easy and probably safer way out and just say that, even working correctly, set triggers can be a bit confusing and even dangerous for a newbie to manipulate. All the advice I'm going to give is to acquaint yourself with them, preferably before buying and definitely before loading up to shoot. So many T/C, Lyman, CVA, and other types of black powder guns have set triggers that I would tend to be a little skeptical of the claim that a would-be buyer had been unable to find a single gun to look at and ask a few basic questions about. If nothing else, Googling "set trigger" will turn up enough information to give you a good working idea of how these mechanisms are constructed and can be expected to work.

If no obvious problems turned up with the barrel, lock, or trigger(s), and nothing appeared missing or broken while examining the stock, give everything else a good once-over. Sights will generally either be screwed or dovetailed to the top of the barrel, and should be solidly attached. Screws, wedges, and pins should all be present and accounted for. Missing parts are an acceptable reason to dicker over the final selling price, unless the asking price is already too low to be argued with (for example, a $75 Lyman Great Plains rifle with a good bore is worth several times the asking price in parts for the barrel and lock alone -- short of feeling certain that the gun is stolen or something else involving simple ethics, snag that puppy and run before the seller comes to his senses). A missing wood screw or two can be replaced with one of similar size from the local hardware store, but screws threading into metal tend to be of ultra-fine thread pitch, metric, or both. Finding a replacement means finding out first exactly what size to look for, and then more than likely having to pay both the cost of the screw and shipping.

Amid all of this study, take time (after asking permission! and taking care where you point it!) to shoulder the rifle you're considering buying. Most of today's factory rifles use fairly similar buttplates, but there are differences in width and the degree of curve, and combined with different shapes of the actual buttstocks this results in a variety of different fits and feels that are fine for some, enormously uncomfortable for others. Hopefully you'll have been able to sort a lot of this out in examining friends' guns, before you ever start shopping, but every gun should be checked for how it fits you, personally.

I mentioned honest sellers, earlier, one of which I'm proud to be. However, there are the other sort out there, the kind who regard inexperienced buyers as their natural prey. They want your money and are not in the least bit concerned with whether or not you're happy or satisfied once they've gotten it. The time-proven rule applies here, that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Also, if something deep down inside is telling you something's just not right, whether it's about the condition of the gun or the simple behavior of the seller, you need to take a walk. Too many buyers, even a lot of us with experience enough to know better, ignore the red flags and screaming alarms because we've suddenly got a bad case of the "wants". This almost never ends well....

This is all intended as a very basic guide to buying a used gun, nothing more. Following these suggestions will help to assure that the gun you end up with will be mechanically sound and safe to shoot. All I can advise on, though, is what to look for in a good, sound gun -- your wants and needs, likes and dislikes, you'll have to work out on your own.

[trapperxx]

Excellent write up, I learned a couple things - Thanks Mongrel