Gas Cutting Of The Smokless Savage Breech Plug

Great heads up. Ran into a guy a coupe of weeks ago, that was shooting one of these and could not believe how hot and heavy he was loading. Seemed very informed as to what he was doing. Even shared his ballistics on his load. Shot quite well and kicked like a mule. Have never seen a .50 spit fire like this M/L. I can understand this kind of failure!! I guess that is what you get when you go to smokeless. I am more than satisfied with the performance I get with my string of M/L's and see no reason to go there. This sure draws the line between In-Liner and Traditionals. :rolleyes:


Be Safe !!!
 
Very interesting post.
I have had a Savage for 5 years.
In fact, I was talked into buying one by Toby Bridges, writer of this story.
He was a big Savage factory rep, in those days. He drove around the country giving demonstrations of the Savage.


It was a complicated story when Toby's rifle blew. He was having problems with Mr. Ball, inventor of the rifle, and he was having problems regarding his employment with Savage. These problems existed before the rifle blew.
It got really messy over on the Savage forum. There was a civil war. There was the Toby faction and there was the anti Toby faction.
I joined the anti Toby faction. Many of us thought that Toby had deliberately blown up that Savage, using a 50 foot string.

At any rate, I got a lot of inside info on this deal at the time, and Toby definitely had an axe to grind.

I had not heard of these alleged other barrel explosions. I will look into this.

Meanwhile I keep shooting my Savage. I don't shoot that often, no range any where near here, so I have only 300 rounds through mine.
I do know many guys who run a couple thousand rounds a year through their Savages with no problems.

Also, if you dig around, you can see barrel explosions of virtually any rifle.
I saw a brand new Tikka 7mm mag that had blow up a few years ago.
 
Last edited:
I went over to the Savage site.

http://dougsmessageboards.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=smokeless

To these guys, this is a matter of life and death, as these gear heads will burn up a pound of powder in their Savage in a couple of months.
I looked back over 2 months of posts, they are not even discussing this.
Obviously, they still think Toby is full of crap.

If you will notice, there is only one definite case of Savage explosion in the article, that is, the name of the shooter is given along with photos. That is the explosion of Toby's gun. As I said, that explosion was suspect from the get go, even Mr. Ball, inventor of the Savage, has said that he wonders how long the kite string was that Toby used to pull the trigger.
In one of the other alleged cases, Toby "assumes" the allegedly injured guy was paid off by Savage.
Speculation on Toby's part.

You pay your money, you take your chances.
 
Quoted from the article:

At least a half-dozen other shooters witnessed the incident, along with about twenty Missouri conservation officers who were at the range to qualify with their handguns that afternoon....

....The rifle that blew on me had more than 6,000 rounds through it. However, I had replaced the breech plug after every 500 to 600 rounds. But as I discovered the more I scrutinized the blown rifle and the other Model 10ML II rifles I was shooting at the time - replacing the breech plug DOES NOT remedy the design flaw that is built into this high pressure muzzleloader....
Click to expand...

A lot of what he says makes perfectly good sense. But then if the problem is widespread and serious, we'd probably be hearing about more of the Savages blowing up.

But safety is an issue that's important to everyone and it's better to be aware and cautious then to not be at all.
This reminds me of a professional saying that goes, "In medicine anything is possible." That's because inexplicable medical occurances happen on a regular basis. Just because an event might only happen to some guns doesn't mean that it doesn't happen at all. It just means that it only happens to some guns and someone should examine some of the possible factors about why it happens to some and not others.
I've also heard that it's a known fact that the right harmonics and certain vibration frequencies can bring down certain types of bridges just like human voice waves can shatter glass.
So I don't think that any possible causes for the exploded Savages should be discounted just because of who Toby Bridges is. Maybe he is a "David" going up against a "Goliath", and I'm not betting against him. :)
 
Last edited:
Well, we don't know what really happened. Sure, it is possible that Toby's rifle blew up just as he has claimed.

I will tell you another thing, Toby keeps changing his story. When the incident occurred, he said that he had two game wardens for witnesses. For years, he did not mention any other witnesses than these two game wardens.
Now, "At least a half-dozen other shooters witnessed the incident, along with about twenty Missouri conservation officers who were at the range to qualify with their handguns that afternoon...."

Another weird thing about Toby's story, he waited a month after the explosion before he told anybody.
If he was so concerned about the safety of all us Savage shooters, why didn't he spread the word immediately?

And for Toby to speculate that Savage paid off one of the guys whose rifle exploded, that is just internet rumor mongering on Toby's part. He admits he doesn't know whether Savage bought the guy off or not.
Again, no name of the victim, no photos of the "exploded" gun.

Savage is in business to make money. If they were aware that they were building a lethally dangerous rifle, wouldn't they simply change the configuration of the breech plug, and reconfigure all the old "dangerous" ones?
Savage stands to lose their shirt if someone were killed by an exploding rifle that Savage had known for years was a faulty design.
Besides the millions they would lose in the lawsuit, Savage would have to recall all the muzzleloaders and reimburse the owners.
Also, very bad publicity.



Anyway, I do appreciate your posting of this link. It is a damn fascinating story, and I am keeping my eyes peeled to try to get to the bottom of it.
 
Yea, count me into the skeptical camp. I have met several people who own 10ML-II muzzleloaders at the range I go to who have no problems whatsoever. One loads his quite hot.

I've heard of more people getting hurt from conventional muzzleloaders than from the Savage 10ML-II.

I don't see how this gas cutting could, in any way, cause the catastrophic failure he describes. It quite obviously was either caused by a bore obstruction or a massive overload. (Either accidental or intentional.) The BARREL failed on the gun in question, not the breech.

My personal opinion is that he is a tool with an ax to grind. The only evidence I have ever seen is the gun that he blew up and some stores about it happening to someone else with no further photos.

Savage isn't stupid. If the design really was faulty it would be suicidal not to recall them. They could be easily bankrupted by injured shooters if this was true. The anti's would jump on this in an instant if there was any truth to it.

My point of view on this issue is, "Put up or shut up." give us some pictures and evidence of these other supposed blown up guns. NONE of these other shooters have put up an account of their story on an online forum or to a gun magazine. No lawsuit has been filed with Savage. Even if they were paying off injured shooters, that is expensive and the gun industry is generally a low margin business.

We saw what happened with Ruger and the SR9. For something like this, even the largest recall is cheaper than what the lawsuits would cost.
 
considering how knight ( tobys supporter) is now out of business. i dont really think he posted this to get savages attention and get him back :D

If it is an issue waiting to happen, i see no problem with tobys website write up. He doesnt put down the product itself, just the poorly designed breech plug and what he thinks the problem is.

If the savage can not hold a double load, that in my opinion makes it the most dangerous muzzleloader to own.
 
If the savage can not hold a double load, that in my opinion makes it the most dangerous muzzleloader to own.


Where do you get that from?
The Savage company has test fired this rifle with a double load, and the barrel did not blow.
I am cranking out 3,100 foot pounds with my Savage with no problems.
As I said, I only have about 300 rounds through my rifle.
Plenty of guys over on the Savage forum are cranking out 3,500 foot pounds, and are shooting a thousand, or more shots per year, with no mishap.
 
I'm sure that part of the reason for Toby posting about the gas cutting is for preventation & awareness.
Can someone please explain why the Savage breech plug needs to be frequently changed, or doesn't it need to be changed at all?
He mentioned that he changed his often.
In theory, why would any gas cutting be limited to only the breech plug?
Whether there have been any bona fide ruptured barrels or not, what's up with needing to regularly change the breech plug? :rolleyes:
 
enlarged flame channel maybe? I hear reports from TC owners recommending that they change out their breech plugs every 3 to 400 shots due to the flash channel enlarging and accuracy going down hill.
 
The Type II Savage breech plug has a replaceable vent liner that is recommended to be changed every 50 shots if using Pyrodex or BP, or every 100 shots if using smokeless powder.

http://www.savagearms.com/cs_cleaning_muzzleloader.htm

And I thought that it was the Type I Savage breech plugs that needed to have their vent holes enlarged by drilling them out when new because they're too small, but I'm not positive about that.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top