Hunting and Trapping Tools. Part One.

The smoothbore fusil and pistol. The pistol is of the same calibre as the fusil and is a very good powerful back-up.

Spare springs, mainspring vise, wad punch, and spare hammer.

Spare gun flint (more are carried in a seperat pouch), spare flint leather (used to secure the flint in the jaws of the cock), a screw (used to remove a stuck ball in the barrel), a pin punch (for driving the pins out that secure the barrel), a turn screw (for removing screws) and at bottom a small container of grease for waterproofing the pan in wet weather.

A hammer cap. This leather cap fits over the hammer as an extra safety feature. Should for some reason the hammer get bumped in a fall or the gun is struck making it go off half-cocked, the gun will not fire because the flint strikes the leather cap and not the hammer/steel.

This is a single shot mould for swan shot (buckshot). The flintlock smoothbore, fusil or musket, can be loaded with round ball, swan shot, bird shot, or a combination of any two of these.

A round ball mould, this one in .60 calibre to fit the Fusil De Chasse and the author's English hunting fusil. Above the mould is a copper lead ladle used for melting the lead to pour into the mould. A bush stick is inserted for a handle.

But why carry moulds? Why not just mould all your ball and shot before you pack to leave? Simply because although it is a general rule to carry 2 lbs of lead to 1 lb of powder, the truth is that powder is much lighter than lead, and you can retrieve your spent lead from the game you shoot and re-mould it to use again. In this manner you can carry twice as much powder, even more if you like, instead of carrying so much heavy lead.

The shot pouch and main powder horn. You prime the pan direct from the main powder horn, but you load the gun from the muzzle using a correct sized powder measure. NEVER load from a powder flask or direct from the horn, and always keep the muzzle pointed away from you when loading.

In this image you can see the powder measure secured in a leather sheath on the shot pouch strap. Also secured to the strap is a vent pick (for keeping the vent clear/open), a pan brush (for keeping the pan clean), and a ball or bullet block. This ball block has two lead balls wrapped in greased patch material ready for a fast reload.

The feathers are vent quills. One of these are placed in the vent when loading, which prevents the vent getting blocked with powder. Also one is placed in the vent to mark a loaded gun, even though the pan is open and not primed. This will prevent double loading as you can see it is already loaded.

Paper cartridges can be used in smoothbore guns. These you can easily make yourself. NEVER PRIME FIRST USING SOME CARTRIDGE POWDER! This was the method the military used to speed up loading, but it was and is a dangerous procedure. You first tear off one end of the cartridge and pour the powder down the barrel, then you ram the rest of the cartridge down on the powder. Only then do you prime the pan from your powder horn.

Only use black gun powder in a muzzle-loading gun. This is NOT referring just to the colour, Blackpowder is a specific type of gunpowder made for muzzle-loading guns. If you were to use smokeless powder in a muzzle-loading gun, it would blow it up!

You can make your own gunpowder (blackpowder), but it MUST be mixed WET, and you must be very careful to only make small amounts at any one time. Personally, even though I have made my own gunpowder, I can not recommend that you make your own.