Well I found a .36 caliber Kibler Southern Mountain Rifle as my first foray into the wonderful world of Flintlock rifles! I have plenty of Kik and Goex 3Fg powder but since it is all new to me what else do I need? I am assuming extra flints, some type of patching material, balls or mold, powder measure (have one somewhere from my White rifles) powder horn maybe and possibles bag?

You’re on to most of it. DON’T use synthetic flints. Small piece of leather will help keep them secure. I got a .45. Balls are .440, patches .010”. Shoots 5 in about 2” at 50 yds....offhand.

You got some learning ahead. Lock time on flint guns is slow...stay on target, follow through.

Nice. Makes me want a Flintlock. Maybe a .50 cal or .54 though. Ya gotta have a new possibles bag and powder horn for sure. 🤠

I’d love to have that beauty Digital Dan posts a photo of every once in a while. Always makes me drool. 😬

I figure I will tote my Clements .50 cal Ruger Old Army with it. Should have it all covered😎

That’s a badass revolver. I’m jealous! 🤠

A priming horn or brass tube pan primer and a flint knapper to keep your flint sharp the little tube pan primers have a ball on the end that does a nice job of knapping an edge on your flint.

Don't fill the priming pan all the way, you want it to flash into the main charge not burn it's way in, once you have that figured out it will be nearly as fast as a percussion rifle.

also, only put half as much prime in the pan as you think you need. for one it doesn't cover the vent hole that way and you get the flash through to the main charge. prime with the same fffg you use for your main charge. ffffg is great except for sucking up moisture from that cloud way over on the horizon.
fffg is so slightly slower one can't detect it by eye.
second many a flinch has become ingrained by having too much prime in the pan. big flash, most wasted and your eye is drawn/repelled by it. instant flinch.
you will get to where you don't even see it if you force concentration on sight picture/hold/follow through.
follow through= flash-Bang- one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three.......... all while holding on the target and Not lifting your head to see over the billowing cloud of smoke!
lift your head and you will relax your arms. you will always hit low.
one more thing. the .36 rifle uses a .350-.352 ball. not the .375 of the 36 cal pistol.
like digitaldan said use a good COTTON or linen patch of .010-.015 with either spit or a lube of vegetable or animal fat for lube.
Some rifles like wet patches, some like dry patches. a good dry patch lube is one part Ballistol mixed with water of ten parts. soak patch and let dry.

i use bear fat and beeswax, mainly cause i have it right now and am an old curmudgeon. sucks when i forget and pop a patch into my mouth for a spit patch.
i have a .29 cal, a .32, a .36, a over under caplock in .36 rifle over .62 smooth under( built in 1840) and many large bore flints and caps. and one walker, but two flint pistols.
Rocklocks Rule.

oh yeah, you will need a vent pick, but can get by without a pan whisk. i use a pad of cotton cloth to clean the pan, and the other side to wipe the flint. both done after each shot and it increases the rate of reliability.

3F is ok in the pan, but get a can of 4F if you can.

Congratulations on that nice rifle! You are going to need the tools to clean and maintain it as well as shooting supplies. Most of that can be ordered from Track of the Wolf. I have a website and a YouTube channel dedicated to to traditional muzzleloaders. Check those out when you have a few minutes.

http://traditionalmuzzleloader.com/



www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnO-uvC6zXo




You have a quality rifle. Remember to clean it the same day you shoot it, even if you only fire one shot.

I shoot only BP in my Shiloh Sharps rifles and I am used to cleaning them as soon as I get home from shooting. I know a lot of people don’t like BP because it is hard to clean. To that I say bull [bleep]! I find BP easier to clean than modern smokeless powder if you do it immediately and correctly. Thanks for all the help

Read this again pilgrim, this guy knows his schidt^^^^.

thanks Flintlocke, but the wife and many of my "friends" say, this guy don't know schidt! i forget most of what i know anymore. if i ever knew it!
one thing i do know is Steve Sells knows his stuff too!

If you have someone or somewhere to get some 000 Buck lead shot for shotguns, they are .36 cal size. On my .36 cal pistol I use roundball, .0010 patch, 40 grn of 3F Goex for targets and plinking.

Mike

I have a Kibler SMR in 45. I use a 445 ball and 0.015 patch. Shoots excellent. Tried 440 ball and 0.015 patch, and it did not do well.
200+ shots no misfires. I used french amber and black english flints. They last a long time.
I dont clean between shots. I have a green mountain barrel, and I lapped it when new. It is like glass, E Z to load and clean.

Put on a barrel mount peep sight, and larger front sight. Original sights suck in my opinion.

Beautiful rifle, I wish they made it left handed!

Don’t load it without a ball puller and patch worm on hand

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/839/1

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/851/1/WORM-CORK-10

Sooner or later you are gonna have to pull a load, the ball puller on the end of the ramrod screws into the lead ball so you can pull it back out.

You’ll be needing the patch worm to pull the patch or more often retrieve cleaning patches that went down but didn’t come back out. Sure is bothersome to have something stuck in the barrel and no way to get it out.

Worst of all is if the end of your ramrod breaks off down in the barrel with cleaning jag or the like attached. A royal PITA to get out. I’ve seen wooden ramrods break twice, the hardwood ramrod on that beautiful rifle is OK for show and prob’ly OK for loading.

Get yourself a cleaning rod or synthetic ramrod for cleaning it

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/830/1

Might as well get yourself some spare flints too.

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/141/1

In case you haven’t noticed already, www.trackofthewolf.com is gonna be your best friend 🙂

There was an incident in Texas years ago where a guy tending a campfire didn’t notice that the stopper on his powder horn had fallen out, powder dribbled out and the flask blew up on his hip.

You need a brass powder flask or a horn fitted with a mechanical cutoff.

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Search.aspx/1?search=Flask


Don’t ever have an open can of powder anywhere near the bench when shooting. Don’t ever pour directly down the barrel from the flask, use a powder measure.

https://www.trackofthewolf.com/List/Item.aspx/85/1

Every Camp that I attended made shooters poor their powder into a powder measure plug the main container (Powder Horn) before pouring the powder into the barrel.

Birdwatcher has given you some real sound advice.

Birdwatcher isn't wrong about the ball puller.


But....


A lot of times you might think you need to pull a ball, you don't.

Fill the pan with 3F, use your pan pick to work powder through the
flash hole into the barrel. You will need a few pans full.
Shoot it.
Hilarious. If there was no charge, you get a BLOOP. Can see the ball go.

Bought my flinter as a young teenager.
Read/heard a lot of stuff.
Tried most of it.
Double charges, tripple. Same with balls. Double both. (That kicked!)
Never tried leaving the ball off the powder, everyone says that will
blow them up. Everyone! So I accepted that one!


Pulled a ball intentionally loaded without powder. Once! To try it.
It sucks. Trying to thread a screw into a ball, then get it tight. Then the threads pull. Push It back down trying to screw it in again.
Make sure you get the puller fully threaded in, don't over tighten and strip
The ball.

My technique is faster, and works unless a saturated charge is the problem.

I've never had to pull a ball since that time it was done as an experiment.





PS. A ball puller can work pretty well to retrieve a lost patch.
Not like a worm, but not bad.

Instead of a ball puller, invest in a CO2 discharger. The one I have has hardware for both percussion nipples and flintlock flash holes. I've seen rifling damaged by energetic use of a ball screw.

Second this. Except when you are far-a-field, then you best have a ball puller and patch worm in your bag.

The bad part is, when you do need to pull a load or patch, it’s often when you’ve been shooting, hence there is powder residue in the barrel.

If you look at the pan after firing you can watch that residue (AKA fouling) suck moisture right out of the air within seconds and become damp even on a dry day, it’s a salt and it’s hygroscopic.

This is why you need to clean black powder firearms the same day.

It sure is a bad feeling when you really need to clean the bore but you can’t because of some obstruction, if you don’t have what you need on hand it can take days before you do.

It ain’t like WalMart or even gun stores carry CO2 devices or ball pullers.

I do not know if I was Taught Right but I was Taught to use a wet patch with cleaning solvent on it with every shot.
Dam not Soaked
It helps push all the crap down to the breach and cleans the barrel for the next ball to shoot.

I have never had a lot of Fouling Build Up after a shoot.

I can't highight this enough 1/4 of a pan is plenty and tip your rifle a bit to get some pan powder into the flashole. doing this significantly increased my locktime on my deerstalker

No doubt.
Hotshot liner, good flint, it is disturbing how often mine will go bang with
absolutely no priming powder.


Powder covering the hole acts like a fuse and blocks the fire from the pan until it burns.

A smidge in the bottom creates a small explosion that throws the fire into the flashole.

for a much more enjoyable shooting session, carry a bunch of alcohol swabs with you. (not pc but who cares). i swab my pan and flint, and frizzen every other shot, and sometimes when the humidity is up, every shot. cleans and dries quickly. and if you have a jag with you , one can swab the fouling with them.
some of my flinters require swabbing after each shot. others don't. some require the vent to be picked every shot others don't.
have one that requires the vent pick be full depth of the bore when the charge is dumped in.
flintlocks are like women. no two like.