Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Drudge Report: Savage Muzzleloader

I have a Savage ML II, shoots great. I take great care weigh powder. I wonder if the blowups were caused by people using scoops instead of scales.

I have a witness mark on the ramrod. I don’t see how you can double charge with powder or seat two bullets or both if you double check with witness mark.

Funny how Mr. Bridges thought Savage was the best thing since pussy until they ran his ass off.

Yeah, Im not German either. A little something I think I read on the crapper wall at the Broken Spoke in Austin back in the day. Or in the New England Journal of Medicine. I really don't remember.

Du bist win cooler Mann Kaywoodie

All old news. 8 yrs and never had any problems with mine.

If you don't have any experience or knowledge of smokeless powders, reloading in general and muzzleloading in general. Then stay on the porch, wring your hands and keep your hummingbird feeders filled. And wait for rocky and bullwinkle to tell you when the next Goes weather satellite is going up.

I know two of the biggest culprits in these cases are guys that leave their guns loaded at the end of the day or the end of the season and forget, and the old shoot the ram rod down the barrel trick.

Obviously the use of the witness mark is the easiest way to solve problem one, and to always put the ram rod back in your thimbles before you shoot.

I know people who leave their gun loaded at the end of the season . Why to save a dollars worth of powder and bullets, stupid in my opinion. I also had a guy at a rifle range accuse me and the other guy at a bench on the other side of him of stealing his ram rod. He got down right nasty about it. I looked through my spotting scope at his target and told him bull chit, you shot your rod down range. Then he got even madder. Well at the next cease fire, I showed him his aluminum ram rod stuck in the berm. He apologized and felt quite dumb at that point.

Stupid is is stupid does. People are going to do dumb stuff. My cousin loaded a trapdoor Springfield 45-70 with red dot, filled the case full up according to him. Spectators say it was quite spectacular, the breech went 30 feet at least in the air. He lived.
Lucky he didn't win the Darwin Award that year. He had no knowledge or business loading anything. Same as the tyro on the Ask the Gun Writers forum a few days ago experimenting with powder in his 6.5 creed. He's another lucky SB. I recal one post where a Savage ML II shooter was going to load Accurate Arms #7 in his gun instead of Rel #7, lucky he ran it by the forum people first, that could have gotten real interesting, imagine 64 grains of AA #7 below a 300 grain bullet, wow.

I would bet my pay check the guy in the post double loaded his gun, or substituted a different powder, or tried his own special duplex load.

I don't believe that gun is any more dangerous than any other mz.

Another good one is measuring by volume and not by weight. Had an acquaintance who went from a TC and BP substitute to a Savage ML and thought you measured the powder by volume in both guns.

I'm sure the Savage works fine in theory.

But in practice, people screw up.

Some of the local idiots around here are shooting smokeless in standard CVA factory guns. I had one of them tell me, "It's all right to do it, the guns can take it, just CVA doesn't like people to know it". Before that, I used to buy guns from him, and sell them to him, fairly regular. After that comment, I decline to do either.

I don’t leave mine loaded. I’ll fire it off before I leave the lease. We ain’t talking about much for a bullet and a pinch of powder, plus primer.

What did Forest Gump say? Stupid is as stupid does!

A person can foul up loading pistol rounds too. I use a flashlight to check every piece of brass I load. Rifle and pistol.

Once while hunting, I double charged my .50 Hawken-type , big boom and recoil but no damage, black powder of course. My friend's stupid kid loaded a similar rifle with smokeless of some sort, blew it up in his face, no serious injury thankfully.

Maybe Savage does have a manufacturing problem here, but the whole thing of using smokeless in a muzzleloader seems fraught with the potential of real danger.

Mine came with a manual,I read it and followed the instructions.Doug's message board is always helpful.Over four hundred rounds and not a hickup.Dabble.

I discharge my kodiak at the end of every hunt. Take 30 minutes to clean it back home and enjoy it. Cold clean barrel the same way each time, and that is how the rifle is zeroed. Its what works for me . Other people have their ways, I have mine.

Biggest thing in ml safety in loading or checking if one is loaded is the simple concept of a marked ramrod............................ some people don't get it.......another poster said a magical post that some don't get either. Reading and learning the fricking owners manual............ the excuse of I don't have one is lame in the day and age of google- fu and downloadable pdf chit for just about every firearm you can just about think of.

Back in the day, wished I had a dollar for every ORIGINAL old azz muzzleloader I unloaded that was drug into the shop.

Very first thing I checked when some gomer walked in with one.

How many do you recall that had marked ramrod, or a faint remnant of a mark.

Not sure if this is the proper place to rant, but I'm going to do it anyway. When I first started muzzleloader hunting for deer, that's exactly what it was.........muzzleloader, black powder, and a round ball with a patch. My rifle was a Hawken replica, percussion caps, open sights, and I wouldn't take a shot at over 75 yards. It's amazing how much has changed. Inlines, scopes, much better bullets, much better powder selection, shotshell or rifle primers, 300 yard killing ability. The laws have even changed, as many states now allow breechloading firearms and cartridges, that were originally designed to use blackpowder, and perhaps others that weren't. In many places, where a hunter was once restricted to using a 45 or 50 caliber muzzleloader, and that nasty old black powder, he can now use a modern 45-70 lever gun.

The so called black powder deer seasons have lost their meaning to me. You may as well go ahead and let a guy carry his bolt action scoped '06, as I don't see a lot of difference. Yeah, I have a 50 caliber inline, 3X9 scope, Triple Seven pellets, and a Hornady saboted bullet. It is good out to 150-200 if I do my part. But, it's also taken a lot of the challenge out of killing a deer, and I always thought that was what was so cool about the original muzzleloader seasons.

<rant>I really hate all these damn boutique seasons. All they are is an example of Govt make-work prosperity for the suppliers of bows and MLs, etc. There ought to be just one deer season and you're welcome to use whatever method you choose, bow, ML or, for the "uncouth", something invented after 1880.

We wouldn't have these stories about MLs blowing up if people could use something post-Victorian.</rant>

Good question. Many has a "spot" worn by muzzle in the rod instead of actually marked. Many were missing a ramrod. Remember one pair of siblings brought in old Single barreled shotgun. Same story "hung over fireplace for decades". I wormed out about 1 1/2 oz shot and mebbe 2 drams of powder. Wadding was old German language newspaper! Naturally their eyes almost popped out of head when i touched powder off in a metal pan with a match!

Old collector friend told me when he started rounding up ML's in the 30's as a kid. They always found em above the door in a chicken house, loaded. There granny had it to shoot at chicken hawks! LOL!

I could say same for the number of modern ML's brought in for sale or trade. Same old story. Novice wants to try ML hunting (back in late 70's early 80's now) so buys xxxx "Hawkins" gun. Now never shot ML. Takes it out, loads, no fire! Misses out on deer! Damn POS! Monday morning back in shop trades gun for xxxx magnum or whatever. Rifle still Loaded. Never ceased to amaze me the amount of people that would come in shop on say a Tuesday and say " hey. Leaving for ML season in New Mexico Thursday morning, fix me up and show me what I need to do to shoot one of these "musket" loaders!" No schidt! That was back in the beginning of the Jeremiah Johnson craze and ML seasons.

I have no issues knowing when i have a properly seated ball. I know when something doesnt look or feel right. But thats just me. But its always a good practice to Mark your rod.

Barrel torn up that far down make me suspect a short started load or a conical that had worked its way ahead of the powder charge.