Originally my family here in WA all had Knight Bighorns that were setup for musket caps and we all used pyrodex pellets. A few years ago they changed the regulations so we can use modern primers, so I converted my Bighorn to 209 and started using Triple Seven pellets. I never had a hangfire, but some of my family seemed to have issues quite often, so I changed to 209 and 777 and seem to have better accuracy. My nephew switched to a CVA Accura with the new regs that was using #11 caps and ended up throwing it over a cliff one day when it didn't fire at the "buck of a lifetime". He bought the Accura because of the closed breech, and when it didn't fire he had enough. I always thought it was because they don't clean out the nipple properly, but he claims it's water getting into the primer or powder. I've been happy with the 209 setup but it's a real pain removing the primers, but I just have the decapper tool on a lanyard around my neck when I'm hunting and it's not a problem and I like the extra protection from water with the red jackets.
Anyway, said nephew later switched his CVA to BH209 loose powder and still had issues so now he would rather hunt archery season than muzzleloader, so he gave me his CVA Accura V2 and gave another nephew his Bighorn that's setup for musket caps. I'm hesitant to recommend the 209 conversion to the new owner of the Bighorn because it's kind of a pain compared to using a traditional musket cap setup with the nice brass holder to cap/decap, and I'd hate for him to lose his first deer because of my recommendation. Now I'm wondering if I should just tell him to stick with musket caps or switch to #11 or 209. The 209s definitely work well, but seem to be real dirty, but it's also nice when you're all using the same setup so you can use another guy's primers and powder. I think I'm going to recommend he buy the 209 conversion so he has options in the future and he can try both out, but I'd also like to try #11 in my Bighorn with the 777 pellets and maybe not deal with those annoying red jackets. How well do #11 work with pellets compared to musket caps? When using #11 should I use the 209 or musket cap plunger? My original plunger for musket caps doesn't have much of a cone shape, it's a fairly wide shallow "cone".
Anyway, said nephew later switched his CVA to BH209 loose powder and still had issues so now he would rather hunt archery season than muzzleloader, so he gave me his CVA Accura V2 and gave another nephew his Bighorn that's setup for musket caps. I'm hesitant to recommend the 209 conversion to the new owner of the Bighorn because it's kind of a pain compared to using a traditional musket cap setup with the nice brass holder to cap/decap, and I'd hate for him to lose his first deer because of my recommendation. Now I'm wondering if I should just tell him to stick with musket caps or switch to #11 or 209. The 209s definitely work well, but seem to be real dirty, but it's also nice when you're all using the same setup so you can use another guy's primers and powder. I think I'm going to recommend he buy the 209 conversion so he has options in the future and he can try both out, but I'd also like to try #11 in my Bighorn with the 777 pellets and maybe not deal with those annoying red jackets. How well do #11 work with pellets compared to musket caps? When using #11 should I use the 209 or musket cap plunger? My original plunger for musket caps doesn't have much of a cone shape, it's a fairly wide shallow "cone".