[Adam Helmer]

skeet,

I am hoping for deep snow so I can snowshoe in the woods. Is your .50 T/C Hawken a flintlock?

The muzzleloaders all load from the front, but the difference in reliability pretty much ends there. The flint needs to be sharp and tight and dry, the pan needs to retain the pan powder and there is the possibility of a "flash in the pan" not experienced with a percussion cap or a 209 shotgun primer. I own and shoot all three and the flinter is the wild card in the deck. The Matchlock also loaded from the front, but not many folks would consider them as reliable as a flint or caplock or inline.

Circa 1825, the British Army tested the Brown Bess flinter against the caplock Brown Bess at Aldershot Barracks to see if they were going to adopt the caplock for their military. The flinter had about 65% reliability versus 98% with the percussion cap for 500 rounds fired through each. Guess which firing system the Brits adopted? So, both loaded from the muzzle alright, but both did not deliver at the same rate of reliability and that still is true today.

I read recently that the new muzzleloader hunters buy percussion cap or 209 primer ignition arms by a ratio of 99% to 1% for flintlocks. Many new muzzleloaders are not interested in the care and feeding of a flinter and its inheirent "fussyness" to keep firing, or its failure to fire just when most needed.

Adam