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Getting a black powder (or suitable alternative) permit generally takes a few days to get as opposed to in most cases a few years for a cartridge firearm so there has been an increase in demand and interest for muzzleloaders of all types. This is primarily why our rifles are styled as they currently are, they are aimed at the South African biltong hunter (biltong is a cured meat which many of us make at home). Our intention was to put an “off licence’ muzzleloader that looks similar to what they are used to in the hunters hands and enable him or her to get out into the field with their own “firearm”. We have used the best materials that we can source to build a STRONG muzzleloader i.e. EN19T (4140) for our barrels and breech plugs and have opted for a hand stocked walnut stock because it looks better and costs less than our locally made synthetic stocks (we did not think it was worth tooling up to make them in house either but we could be wrong?)

At present our laws state that ignition must be by means of a percussion cap or flint though we have managed to get primers being “deregulated” and added onto powder permits as they have been around since the mid 1800’s so they are not “new”. The majority of our muzzleloaders are fitted with #11 nipples or musket cap nipples for those requiring hotter ignition. 209 primers are difficult to extract so as an alternative we have developed an ignition that uses a 6,35mm pistol case as the holder thus enabling one to use small pistol, small rifle or small rifle magnum primers as an ignition source. Our reasoning for going down this road is primarily that it has become difficult to source #11 percussion caps and musket caps are near impossible to find at present and that is not good for business, we need people out in the field shooting and buying more firearms as opposed to skulking at home or in a shopping mall.

Black powder too has become challenging to find as AEL have stopped importing it there is a local alternative SANNADEX which is I think an iron oxide based propellant. We have looked at making black powder in small quantities as well as importing a container load but the shipping and storage costs are somewhat challenging however we will prevail and find a suitable cost effective way forward on this front.

Regarding the use of smokeless powders, we have gone down this road as well and paid a number of “school fees” it can be done without too many problems (our laws do not allow for a nitro powder permit but if you have a cartridge firearm licence obtaining it is not a problem ........) We looked at what some guys are doing in the U.S.A. and decided that we did not like what we saw many seem to use a typical .44 MAG loading which is fine if you stick to lighter bullets but we know that many will want to go heavier and that is where the problems and pressure spikes will start with disastrous effect (and many small pieces, I have always wondered if some of the SAVAGE problems are not lined to this?). We have decided that the best route is to opt for a SLOW burning extruded nitro powder (like our S385) that is typically used in big bore rifles as the pressures are much lower, ignition is better with our 6.35 pistol case.

Yes many muzzleloaders particularly those shooting conical become difficult to load once there is a build up of fowling, we offer our “MARUMO” range of pure lead ”SLIP FIT” bullets which have been sized to our bore diameters thus eliminating most of the problems ( to be lubed by the shottist). We know that lead is going to be banned at some stage so we are looking into alternatives like copper bullets which are annealed so that they are just as soft as lead the only problem is that they are expensive to make.

What’s the long term solution: Get more people involved in shooting and sell more firearms so that we can employ and train more people and do our bit for reducing unemployment in South Africa.

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Life is too short to shoot ugly guns