On the History and Future of “Smokeless Muzzleloading”

Over five and half years ago, the following letter was published on Guns & Shooting Online:

An Open Letter to Ron Coburn,
CEO of Savage Arms

April 08, 2005
Mr. Ronald Coburn, CEO
Savage Arms Inc.
100 Springdale Road
Westfield, MA 01085

Dear Mr. Coburn,
Largely as a result of my muzzleloading videos, my articles on Guns and Shooting Online (chuckhawks.com currently receives over 4,000,000 hits and 600,000 visitors a month--Source: Urchin5 web stats), I hear from thousands of hunters and shooter annually, from across the USA, and across the world. As hunting season draws near, the e-mail load has exceeded 200 e-mails a day, with a goodly number of phone calls to augment this.

As a result of the renewed, vibrant interest in your Savage 10ML-II, I have embarked on a great deal of independent research. This includes barrel makers such as Dan Lilja and others, bullet manufacturers such as Barnes, and most of the major powder companies for which I been testing products: Accurate Arms / Western Powders and others.

I've also discussed your product with such luminaries as Doc White, Dr. Ken Oehler, and manufacturers of custom smokeless muzzleloaders such as New Ultra Light Arms and Swing-Lock. NO reputable authority, those with far more knowledge than me, has offered anything but accolades pertaining to the tremendous strength and safety of your product. Perhaps that is why, over the last six years, the 10ML and 10ML-II has the very BEST safety record of any muzzleloader in the industry.
Further, I've heard from consumers who have made honest but foolish mistakes, such as double loading their 10ML-II, and credit the integrity of the design, and your industry-leading 100% proof-testing of barrels with saving their lives.
My 76 years young father has been astonished at the accuracy, soft recoil, and pleased with its ease of use, lack of immediate maintenance, and the crisp AccuTrigger. Dad's last three shots through your 10ML-II resulted in three quick one shot kills: a doe @ 225 yards, a javelina at 125 yards, and a nice boar at about 110 yards. I watched the look of joy on the face of younger shooters, such as 13 year old Harrison Pickett, as he bagged his first wild boar in Texas with your rifle.
I've logged some 3000 shots through ONE of your 10ML-II rifle in the last year alone, in the course of testing various powders, sabots for MMP, and bullets. A couple of these shots found their way into wild boars, caribou, and deer with fabulous results. It exhibits NO wear, despite being used with experimental propellants not yet on the market.

Though I have no reason to denigrate any other custom smokeless maker, they are all using lighter barrel contours than found in your 10ML-II. Having tested and hunted with most modern inlines today, it is apparent to me that the Savage 10ML-II is the most robust, overbuilt, lifetime quality muzzleloader on the market at an affordable price, less than half the investment of many semi-custom guns, and less than many black-powder only guns.

By any known ANSI, SAE, SAAMI, and even CIP specifications, your gun is the only one that exceeds all four. Few companies make their own barrels, none take the time to 100% proof-test that I am aware of. It is both disturbing and a bit disheartening that anyone could purposely, willfully, and vindictively disseminate bad information about your product-but that has happened to their great discredit.
However, the truth wins in the end. By offering a superior product that enables swift, humane harvesting of game-and ensuring clear visibility enhancing the recovering of that game, you have made muzzleloading a better place. Perhaps that is why you personally hunt with a Savage smokeless muzzleloader yourself?
Congratulations and best regards,
Randy Wakeman

It remains as true today as when it was first published, though "today" is tens of thousands of Savage 10ML-II's later and hundreds of thousands of big game animals later. Low cost per shot, greater visibility and safety, less hassle, less mess, less recoil, better velocities and better accuracy than possible with lesser muzzleloaders are all well-established by now. It has been well-established and accoladed by the top barrel manufacturers, propellant manufacturers, bullet manufacturers, and sabot manufacturers in the industry. Whether MMP sabots, Barnes Bullets, Western Powders, Doc White, virtually anyone who is anyone has used and continues to use safer, cleaner, more economical propellants that won't foul your bore or rot your barrel in firearms specifically designed for it. The price you pay for all this is a simple one: weigh your powder charges, follow the Savage owner's manual, use the witness mark on your ramrod, and please remove your ramrod from the barrel before pulling the trigger.

Use of modern, safer, cleaner propellants isn't going away from rimfires, handguns, center-fire rifles. It sure isn't going away from shotguns that use a 209 primer, specific smokeless propellants, and a wad or sabot. Nor is it going away from firearms that are loaded from the muzzle for the same reasons it is the preferred approach for virtually all firearms manufactured in the last one hundred and ten years.

The idea of using better propellants in muzzleloaders is hardly a new idea or new event. Most folks are unaware of the Knight Rifles / Hodgdon Powder “Red Powder Project.” The idea of calling gun powder “black powder” is a fairly recent event. It was always just gunpowder until the last century. Several so-called muzzleloading propellants, whether Triple Se7en, Black Mag3, American Pioneer, CleaRshot, Cleanshot, Pinnacle, or White Hots have nothing at all to do with organic blackpowder. They aren't remotely the same chemically, physically, or in efficiency. A pellet isn't even a powder at all. The muzzleloading industry has done a poor job of educating their customers, though, preferring hyperbole to facts.

The “Red Powder Project” was the idea of using a specific smokeless powder in Knight Rifles designed for its use. As folks have the idea that “black powder” means a whole variety of things, Hodgdon noted that powder can be offered in any color you'd ever want. By offering a smokeless powder that was red, there would be no chance for confusion. You just use prescribed amounts of red smokeless powder in red powder rated rifles only, and that was it. The “Red Powder Project” never became a commercial reality for several reasons, one being the immense popularity and profitability of pellets. There is little motivation to compete with and obsolete your own product, so Hodgdon can hardly be blamed for the path they took.

Smokeless Muzzleloading Inc. has been around since 1984. Ultra Light Arms offers smokeless muzzleloaders, as does Swing-Lock, as does Bad Bull. There are a countless number of custom rifle builders that currently make smokeless muzzleloaders as well, not the least of which is Henry and Bill Ball. The custom order route is not affordable in the minds of most hunters and shooters, though.

Bad Bull Muzzleloaders asks the question, “With the cost for a good hunt being in the $3,500 to $7,500 price range, why would a good hunter want to take a chance on a $150 "Hit or Miss" muzzleloader with a range of 100 yards?” While it is a good question, many muzzleloading hunters don't think exactly that way. The cost of a Bad Bull “X-Series” is $3950. The utility, lowest-priced Bad Bull is based on a Stevens 200 action and sells for $2650.

On the other hand, the most expensive Savage 10ML-II ever offered is the stainless steel laminated thumbhole version, with a MSRP of $915. The blued synthetic's 2010 MSRP is $680 with street prices lower as is typical. You could buy four Savage 10ML-II's for the cost of the most economical Bad Bull, a rifle based on the non-Accutrigger Stevens 200 action. The Savage is smokeless capability for today's muzzleloading enthusiast for 75% less than other options, the only mass-produced smokeless muzzleloader in history, the only smokeless muzzleloader that many people would characterize as affordable, and the only muzzleloader offered from a reputable, major United States rifle company over the last ten year stretch.

As you might imagine, as soon as Savage announced that the 10ML-II was being dropped from the catalog for 2011, everyone seems to want one. We always seem to want what we can't have. Roger Joyce of Bad Bull Muzzleloaders has done a good thing, in a way. The only powder you can use in a Bad Bull is IMR 4350-- nothing else is allowed, period. Black powder subs are also not allowed with the exception of pellets. This eliminates the notion that it is somehow “okay” to shoot whatever you feel like stuffing down the barrel. With the Bad Bull, you use IMR 4350 and a 275 grain Parker Ballistic Extreme, period. Though some may find this lacking in versatility, it ends the practice of amateur internal ballistics theory before it begins. The same premise was behind the “Red Powder Project” of years ago.

So, no, smokeless powder muzzleloading isn't going away anytime soon. Smokeless Muzzleloading, Inc., of Hartford City, Indiana, has been around since 1984. That's before most modern muzzleloaders in use today were so much as designed, much less actually manufactured. I've been asked many, many times if the Savage 10ML-II will be back. Well, the direct answer is that I have no idea whatsoever. I've never been a Savage Arms employee and I'm just about as far away from a decision maker at Savage Arms as can exist. It isn't particularly rational to compare a muzzleloader with smokeless capability with one that does not have it. Yet, this apples to oranges comparison has been made with surprising regularity.

I understand that Savage Arms is no custom shop, offering only affordable firearms to consumers on the basis of modern production methods and efficiency. Savage, like all major firearms companies, makes through their many dealers and distributors. So, I's speculate that it would be a matter of a major distributor or distributors or large chain retail outlet to take a look at the last twenty-four years of smokeless muzzleloading and come to a mutually beneficial arrangement with the executives at Savage Arms that makes good business sense and is viable in terms of production quantities. Savage listens to their customers; enough customers have to ask the question, though.

Contact: Randy Wakeman, 12362 S. Oxford Lane, Plainfield, IL 60585

Email: randymagic@aol.com

© Copyright 2003-2010 by Randy Wakeman. All Rights Reserved.

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