Preparing for a hunt with a traditional muzzleloading rifle is not the same as shooting at the range with the same rifle. The two primary differences between outfitting yourself for a hunt and outfitting yourself for some range shooting, are:
1) When preparing for the hunt, you want to reduce the number of objects you'll be carrying to a bare minimum. When headed for the range, it doesn't really matter much how much "stuff" you carry along with you. I know guys who need a hand truck to get their shooting box to the firing line when doing some casual range shooting. You don't want to be bringing a hand truck into the woods with you, however.
2) While hunting, you want every item you might need for loading your gun as accessible as possible. Immediate accessibility is not as necessary when you're at the firing line as it is in the woods.
Also, the gun you choose for the range may not be the best gun for field use. For example, while a Pennsylvania Rifle with a 40 inch long barrel might look great and shoot well when banging away at a target at the local rifle range, that same rifle might be just too long and unwieldy for use in dense cover. After all, if you will be turning in the bush with your gun at your shoulder, a 32 inch barrel is a lot less likely to bang into something then a 40 inch barrel is.
Caliber is also something to consider. When headed into the field to do some hunting, you want to be sure that the caliber of your rifle is both legal for taking your prey in your area, and appropriate for the game you intend to shoot. Remember, while it's true that a perfectly placed shot can kill a deer cleanly, even if the rifle is a .40 caliber, perfectly placed shots are not as common in the woods as they are at the range. You will be presented with obstructions between you and your prey. You will be moving in a very deliberate manner, and your target might well move just as you are about to pull the trigger. Your hands might be shaking like leaves in a fall wind too! We call it buck fever.
Many feel that the .45 caliber muzzleloader is appropriate for deer sized game. Many feel that a .50 caliber muzzleloader is appropriate for black bear. Me? I prefer to use a .54 caliber muzzleloader for both deer and bear. Why not? I find this caliber round ball to be devastating on both types of game and devastating is what I'm going for. Ideally, the game I shoot will never know what hit it. In practice, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't, but all the deer I've shot have died on the spot and the only bear I ever killed lived for five minutes, tops.
So let's suppose that you've selected the gun for your hunt, you know it to be the right caliber for the game you're after (let's assume deer), you know the gun shoots where you want it to because you have sighted it in at the range and you are comfortable with it, and you're ready to head into the woods. What do you need to do differently than you would if you were headed to the range?
For starters, you want to look through all your muzzleloading gear and bring with you only what you will require during the hunt. That nipple wrench that sure comes in handy when you're cleaning your rifle back at the lodge won't be getting any use in the field. Leave it behind. That CO2 ball discharger is a heck of a handy item, but it is highly unlikely you'll need to blow a ball while staking a deer. You may well want to leave it behind too. Same goes for all those extra cleaning jags, your little bag of pipe cleaners, your toothbrush that you use for cleaning the nipple area, your wedge drift, your dry cleaning patches, that can of WD40, etc., etc., etc. What you do want are the bare essentials that a muzzleloader can use on a hunt.
Think about the hunt. Envision it, step by step. How's it going to work?
You'll be in the field. Maybe you'll be in a tree or in some other elevated position. Maybe you'll be still hunting. Either way, you'll want your gun at ready and your hands free, with the exception of your rifle. For your hands to be free, the first item you are going to require is something to carry the bare essentials in. Traditionalists generally refer to this item as a "possibles bag" because in this little bag, it's possible to find almost anything. Frankly, I would imagine that the mountain men of old all carried pretty much the same, minimum of stuff in their possibles bag, however
A possibles bag is just about any shoulder bag that can carry the items necessary for the muzzleloader hunt. The originals usually had a flap of some kind that came over the top of the bag, keeping the bag closed and the items inside in. The bag itself was often very ornate in design too. A strap will sling over the shoulder and the bag will hang down to about the waist.
Depending upon how traditional you want to be, a bag like the one described is what you'll be looking for. I have a nice, beaded leather bag and another beaded, goat skin bag that an old friend brought back from the Himalayas for me. Both bags have seen plenty of use. But if you are willing to compromise pure tradition for better function, a bag with a zipper that will be used to close the top might be a better choice. It's much more difficult to lose a necessary item from a bag that has a zipper. Better still is a nylon, waterproof, fanny pack. Once you've secured that fanny pack around your waist, none of your important "possibles" will be going anywhere and neither will you be bothered by your bag slipping down your shoulder while you are hiking through the woods or climbing a tree. The choice is yours.
When you are ready to take your position, you will want your rifle to be loaded, but not primed. If you were at the range, at this point you would reach for your powder measure and your flask. You could bring these items into the field with you, but better than this is to bring small vials of pre-measured charges with you. If you will be hunting with an 80 grain charge, measure out as many of these as you think you will need (too many is better than too few) and put the vials containing these charges into your bag. The hard core traditionalist can look around for small cork vials that served one purpose or another years ago. Those less concerned with being totally traditional can use readily available plastic vials. Hopefully you've snapped a few caps before heading into the field to be sure that your flash channel is clear. You don't want to be snapping caps once you are in position to hunt for the obvious reason.
When your rifle is charged, you might want to lay a wad down on top of the charge. A wad will keep the grease from your shooting patch from fouling your main powder charge if you intend to have your rifle loaded for an extended period of time. Felt wads are readily available and serve this purpose well. A bit of hornet's nesting material works well here too.
Next, you'll want to load a patch and ball. I carry my greased patches in an old cap tin. They fit in perfectly and the tin takes up very little space in your bag. Center your ball on the patch and ram it home with your ball starter.
Here's a very handy idea for the muzzleloader hunter. Using a small sized drill bit, drill a hole just big enough to run some string through, through the "palm saver" (the top) of your ball starter. Run some sturdy string through that and carry the ball starter around your neck. This way the ball starter is always very readily available to you when you need to reload in a total panic. Be sure the string is long enough so that when it's around your neck, you can reload easily and also BE SURE the string is not so tough that if it catches on a branch and you fall, it will cut your head off. Remember, you want the string to be sturdy enough, but also weak enough so that it will break long before it can do you any damage in case of accident.
Start your load down the barrel, and then ram it home with the ramrod on your gun. Make certain that you have loaded with the ramrod that came with your gun before. I find many a ramrod to be inadequate for loading in the field and I often replace the original ramrod with a hunting rod for this reason.
When you are fully in position, cap your gun, assuming you are using a percussion rifle. Here's another good tip. Tie a strong piece of string on the loop at the top of your capper and tie your capper to a belt loop on your pants nearest to your pocket (either right or left side, as the case may be), and leave the capper in that pocket. Be sure the string is long enough to use the capper with. With the capper tied to a belt loop, you can't lose it. Furthermore, when you need to find it in a hurry (and you WILL eventually need to find it in a hurry), you can simply grab the string and pull the capper out of your pocket. If you are hunting with a flintlock rifle, you might want to do the same with your nipple pick, positioning the pick in such a way as to avoid sticking yourself with it should you decide to put it in your pocket.
If you are using a percussion rifle, cap your gun now. As soon as the gun is capped, place your (previously mentioned) "cap cover" over the cap and set you hammer down on it. Not only will the cap cover protect you from accidental discharge, but when you see game, your rifle is already in either half cock or full cock, and you can slip that cap cover off your nipple silently. This is a great little item, folks, and I recommend it highly. Use a length of rawhide lace to fasten the cap cover to your trigger guard so it will always be handy and so that you won't lose it when you drop it off your nipple.
Now you are pretty well set to wait for game to come by or to stalk. You aren't fully ready though. For added speed when a quick reload is required, I always make sure an extra ball, and extra patch, and an extra charge is at the ready. If I'm stalking, I keep these three in a pocket alone together. If I am in a tree, I set these items up in front of me. THE FIRST thing you should do when you have taken a shot at game is to reload as quickly as possible. When you're bear hunting, the need for this is obvious. But even when you're deer hunting, you want to be sure that should a follow-up shot be necessary, it's readily available.
If your rifle shoots conicals as well as it does ball, you might want to reserve a conical for your follow-up shot. Conicals load much more easily than ball and you don't have to worry about a patch for the follow-up. Try a conical in your gun. Some rifles can handle both projectiles well.
Other items that you'll want in your shooting bag are:
A small knife
Your hunting license
A tag for the game you've taken
Possibly a deer drag
Some cover scent (Be SURE to use a cover scent that will not be out of place in the area you're hunting)
Cough Drops (Because if ever you are going to HAVE to cough, it will be when you are trying to be the MOST quiet.)
An extra flint and flint leather (for flintlock shooters)
A small, deflated balloon (so that should it rain, you can slip it over the muzzle of your gun to keep the wetness out)
A hat with a sun visor ( baseball cap is good, but a pith helmet is better because it will not only keep the sun out of your eyes, it will also keep the mosquito net you might be wearing over your head away from the back of your neck)
A mosquito net (especially if you will be spring bear hunting up north)
Matches or a Fire Starting Kit (Because you never know when you'll get stuck in the woods overnight)
A Cell Phone (I know what you're thinking and you're right. A cell phone is not a traditional muzzleloading item. It can save your life in a bad situation, however, so this is definitely an item to consider)