Funny story. First let me set the stage. Muzzleloader hunter for many years but I’m kind of a hack at it. Same gun/powder/bullets from the beginning, X150, pyrodex pellets/powerbelt (I know, I know). Anyway, many years where I’ve shot and missed in early season, not cleaned the gun and left that charge/bullet in, continued to hunt through late season, and the gun has either gone off when I needed it to or fired on the last day of season. Fast forward many years to a late whitetail permit hunt. I had used the gun for a general spike elk season in October, only hunted a couple days and completely dry conditions. Gun was stored indoors after that. November comes along for my late hunt. Seeing lots of decent bucks but no shooters. Driving along the road and see a shooter 5 point buck dogging a doe on huntable ground. My buddy that’s driving turns around and tells me exactly what to do, so I do it. Didn’t have to get much off the road and I get within 5 yards of this buck. I squeeze the trigger, the cap (musket) goes off but nothing. Deer just stands there, 3 times over I reload caps and the same result. Doe bails across the road to private ground and the buck follows her. Mind you they crossed right in front of my buddy (no tag and no gun). So I get back to the truck and what can I say. He tells me for sure I had the pellets in the wrong way (igniter end not down). So I drop the breach plug out and out comes the pellet and I push the round out. Igniter was down and pellets were dry (not stuck together, no corrosion at all. That was late in the evening so it was a quiet ride going back to the motel in town. Funny thing is my buddies dad and his hunting partner both had the same tag as me and were hunting the another area. The night before the “event” we had dinner together where my buddies dad’s hunting partner talked about having a misfire on a buck just days earlier in another special tag (he had drawn 2 that season, quality and buck). So literally the day before we’re talking about misfires and I didn’t think to mention that I had a muzzleloader that had been loaded for 6 weeks, nor did I think to swap out. Needless to say I got a talking to by my buddies dad the night of the misfire. Never filled my tag that season, I had my heart set on a buck of that caliber and never saw another one. We still talk about it and chalk it up to not being that bucks time. So now I reload every day. Sorry Tommy!
