Actually, Higgins was just Sears & Roebuck's trade name for the guns they made in store. There was millions of them made, some right up here in the Cooey factory, some by Winchester, etc. etc. They're not super obscure and are great guns. Most of my chickens are killed with a Higgins .410.
Making shot for blackpowder stuff isn't too tough relative to handloading for anything else, and requires much less, if more specialized equipment. You need a bullet mold and a way to melt lead, and that's about it. If you wanna get fancy, you can make paper cartridges by measuring out your powder on to rolling papers, soaking the paper in potassium nitrate and rolling them up. That's what's in that little box in the big fancy wood case. You can make shot en-mass too if you just want something that kinda fits and goes pop, but you need a really tall tower and some other stuff to do it, which I won't go into unless you're really interested. You can also make the powder yourself with some basic chemistry and a coffee machine, though I don't recommend it, or with alot of patience and some every day stuff like piss and charcoal if you're oldschool.
Contrast to handloading cartridges, which needs powder measures, presses, dies, shell holders, a media tumbler or some other way to clean brass, a brass prep tool of some kind, brushes, lubes, cases, bullets, primers etc. etc.
The rest of the stuff you need to actually load the shot into the pistol is built right into the gun - the lever under the barrel is for pushing balls into the cylinder.
Flintlocks are a PITA which is why I have none these days. It's too wet up here. Also, if you're lefty and shooting a rifle, you have to contend with a small explosion right in front of your face when they go off.
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