The evolution of muzzleloading guns has undergone an enormous revival during the past 60 years because of the great interest in the Civil War Centennial and the arms used during the period as well as the rise of interests and opportunities to hunt with muzzleloading guns. As a result large numbers of muzzleloading guns are available on the used gun market, and there is interests in using and collecting them. The author's interests in black-powder firearms is strongly slanted towards hunting with these guns, and he has written extensively about them in magazines, published several books on the subject, filmed some 800 videos largely about outdoor topics including hunting with muzzleloading guns, and blogged about them. For a decade he was the Corresponding Editor for The Gun Digest Annual covering black-powder guns. This book provides buyers of muzzleloading guns information on how to evaluate them, which defects might be repairable, what of the guns are more desirable for hunting, and information based on real experiences on how they performed in the field. A small amount of load information is included and much more appears in his other books and e-books. This book is the second of an eight book e-book series of which six have been published

The Second Edition of Buying Used Muzzleloading Gun is a considerably updated version of the original edition published in 2013 with added commentary about common and rarely seen muzzle-loading guns that appear on the used gun market. Not only does it explain how to evaluate different categories of used black-powder firearms, he uses his experiences, good and bad, to comment on the guns. Smith was never hired by any maker and is evenhanded in his evaluation of the guns. Pricing information has also been updated for every gun that he discusses along with brief recommendations on loads, cleaning, and hunting methods. This book is the second of an eight-book e-book series of which six have been published.