Originally Posted by slowr1der
I came here to post a thread asking about this, but then saw this one. I'm also looking for opinions on these. I've always liked the idea of smokeless powder in a muzzleloader and have the opportunity to pick one of these up for a friend for what seems like a reasonable price. On the low end of what they go for on Gunbroker. Although still 2x what it cost before they stopped producing them. I love muzzleloader hunting as the season is the prime time of year to be in the woods. It often coincides with the rut. However, I absolutely dread shooting my current muzzleloader. I'm currently shooting a T/C Triumph with BH209. Even with BH209, it seems to want to rust very quickly after shooting it. For example, I shot it yesterday and it took me 4 hours to get it clean. I know I'll go through this again if I shoot it next week as well. It's a nightmare to keep rust free, seems to rust anyway and also has some pitting where I let a friend borrow it and he didn't clean it for a few days, etc. This is where smokeless powder seems like a huge benefit. I can shoot it for the season and then just clean it once at the end of the season without worrying about rust. It just seemed like a perfect choice and I was pretty set on it.

Then I started reading reports of these guns blowing up and people getting hurt. It seems like a lot of people chalk it up to them being idiots and double charging it, etc. although there is never any proof of this. There seem to be many different reports of this happening across the internet. It scares me enough that I'm wondering if I'd ever really trust shooting it if I did get it. I had a Beretta 92F years ago, and I could never get over all of the reports online of the slide blowing off of the back. I ended up selling it as I just never wanted to shoot it due to that.

So I'm wondering what your experience with these is? Is it worth it? Is it worth taking the plunge? Or is it not enough of an improvement over a traditional muzzleloader that it's worth taking the risk?


Look at it this way regarding no proof of people double charging their rifle. Of all the people you know well and feel comfortable enough to hunt with, how many of them produce reloaded ammo that you would shoot yourself on a regular basis. Now think of all the people that there is no way you’d ever go hunting with because they are too loose with their safety practices.

A small subset of all of the above groups have purchased a Savage Smokeless muzzleloader. A very small fraction of these have had one blowup and claim the fault was with the gun. Now in each case of a blowup, think about whether it is more likely Savage produced a faulty gun or the shooter followed the proper loading technique 100% accurately.