Dean Capuano chased this unique antelope for most of the day before finally catching up to it after he decided to give up and search for another. Capuano dropped the buck with a shot just over 200 yards.

Three ingredients have to fit together in order to shoot consistently tight groups at long ranges: the bullet, the powder charge and the gun itself according to Knight Rifle's Mike Mattly.

"Four, if you count the shooter. It doesn't matter if you've got everything perfect if the guy pulling the trigger can't hold steady or flinches when he pulls the trigger," he said.

Mattly, who sometimes participates in muzzleloader match shoots, says it's not out of the question to hit a six-inch bull's-eye consistently at 250 yards. Of course, in order to make a shot like that without relying on pure luck, everything has to be perfect. A slight crosswind or even a thermal updraft can push a heavy bullet off course. The wrong bullet can also perform poorly at long ranges. Mattly strongly recommends saboted bullets if legal. Belted bullets, which have a plastic cup or belt on the base, tend to slide down the barrel much easier than bullets that use a sabot. That's one reason they are so popular, but Mattly said sabots create a much tighter gas seal, which gives the bullet better accuracy.

Match shooters tend to experiment with various powder charges and bullets until they find the perfect load for their gun. Hunters intent on making clean kills at long distances need to do the same, said Mattly.

"An even 100 grains of powder might be just right, but then it might not. Try increasing or decreasing your powder charge by five or ten grains at a time and see if that helps accuracy. Once you find the best charge, stick with it," he said.

The key to long-range accuracy with any muzzleloader, however, is consistency, not only in the bullet and powder charge, but in how the load is put into the gun. When he's punching paper or shooting steel, Mattly runs a wet patch down the barrel, followed by a dry patch after each shot. He then uses the exact powder charge, bullet and amount of pressure to seat the load.

Jones, however, is somewhat surprised at the number of clients who have never shot their rifles prior to the hunt or didn't take the time to practice long-distance shooting.

The author took this New Mexico antelope with a Knight Long-Range Hunter at 200 yards after becoming proficient by practicing on a 230-yard target.

"With the right gun and the right load in a high-quality in-line muzzleloader, you should be able to reach out to 150 yards--farther if you've got everything working together. I'd say our average shot at an antelope is between 100 and 150 yards, but you might only get a shot at 200 or more, so you need to be prepared," he said.

The rifles we carried came with a guarantee of four-inch groups at 200 yards and were loaded with the recommended charge of two fifty-grain pellets of Triple Seven powder below a 290-grain Barnes polymer-tipped boattail. Sighted in three inches high at 100 yards, the bullet will hit dead-on at 150 and eight inches low at 200 yards. With practice, a good shooter can knock the wind out of any deer-size game at 250 yards.

The 205-yard shot Capuano was facing should be an easy one, I figured, and as he extended his folding shooting sticks and propped the rifle in them, I watched the buck through binoculars. He looked back at us and then forward, as if he were deciding which way to lead us on another chase. A cloud of smoke erupted from the barrel, followed by the whack of the bullet finding its mark. The buck wasn't a ghost, of course, but we certainly wondered.