I have always had a healthy admiration for our hardy pioneering fore-fathers and the primitive firearms they used to tame the then wild Southern Africa. Stories of hunters armed with nothing more than a pray-it-goes-off black powder musket and a lot of courage, taking on fleet-footed antelope, ferocious predators and charging pachyderms, have me continually in awe. A collector of muzzle-loading and early breech-loading black powder firearms from South Africa’s early history, I have had the opportunity to put these old ‘smoke-poles’ and their associated accoutrements to the test in the bush.
As with all second-hand firearms, it’s best to have original black powder firearms checked by a gunsmith to make sure they are safe to use. Shooting a muzzle- or early breech-loader on the range can be an extremely humbling, and sometimes frustrating experience, especially if using a flintlock! To hunt with one, some would say, is sheer madness. Apart from the sometimes long and precise loading procedures, several issues can prevent you from getting your old firearm shooting. Damp powder, blunt flints, soft frizzens, blocked vents, dirty barrels, underpowered caps, split cartridges, and a few other hiccups were probably the origin of many of the swear words we
