Ok, we see the warnings but what would...

While I don't recommend using smokeless powder in a muzzleloader, I can also spend all day posting photos that "prove" that smokeless powder can't safely be used in any gun.
 
Excellent Post !!!

During our Hunter Safety Classes, we teach the four basic gun handling rules as listed by Jess Cooper. At our M/L station, we have a list of about 24 safety rules dedicated to M/L's. We only get into about eight and this one is at the top of the list. ... ;)

Another one is the importance of reading your manual or get to know your firearm and it's limitations.
Firearms and their associated manuals, are always getting separated and manufacturers are more than happy to accommodate you .... :)

Be Safe !!!
 
The fact is, if you know what you are doing, you can combust just about anything in your firearm safely, from smokeless powder to TNT.

The trick is knowing what you are doing.

Most people don't, nor do they have the facilities to verify that what they are doing is behaving as they expect it to.

Steve
 
And one idiot claimed that he and 6 other hunters were using smokeless in their TCs. "52 grains" I believe he said...

Of course, HE knows what he is doing.
 
After "Hold my beer and watch this," does anyone know what the most common last words on a redneck's tombstone are?

"I know what I'm doing!"
 
I shot smokeless loads in a Ruger Old Army revolver a while back. It was a published load of Hercules Bullseye that was known to be safe in a .45 Colt with a round ball.
When I tried to shoot it, the cap popped and nothing, even though the ball disloged from the cap's explosion and jammed the revolver, the powder did not ignite. I used a ramrod to put the ball back in the chamber and tried again, still no ignition.
Finally, I got out some magnum caps and it ignited and blew the ball out, barely, it squibbed on me.
Then I figured, that in order for smokeless powder to ignite properly, it needs a powerful primer like is used in cartridges. So, I put in a small kicker charge of 4fg, about the amount that a .22LR case holds to do the job of a primer and success. The gun shot, it didn't blow up.
However, since I had to use black powder as a booster, I still had to clean the gun and so I saw little point in continuing the experiment and quit doing it.

Now, had I not been an experienced smokeless powder cartridge reloader, I could easily have assumed that the squib meant I didn't have enough powder in the gun and would have added more and more until it finally burned itself to non-squib pressure and then ka-boom!

It's not so much that muzzleloaders are too weak to take smokeless pressures, it's that a percussion cap on a nipple is a totally unsuitable way to ignite smokeless powder. If you just put a fuse into a stick of dynamite or C-4, or TNT and light it, guess what happens, it doesn't explode, it just sits there and burns like a pile of smokeless powder set on fire. To make it behave right, you need a blasting cap. The primer is sort of a blasting cap for smokeless powder, the primer sets up the initial chamber pressure that the smokeless powder needs to burn correctly.
A small rifle primer is powerful enough that a .22 Hornet case with only a primer, no powder, will propel a .22 cal air rifle pellet to nearly 400 fps out of a rifle.

Anyway, injudicious use of smokeless powder doesn't just blow up muzzleloaders, it blows up modern guns also.

anaconda-kb.jpg
 
I would be so inclined to think that a 209 primer will ignite smokeless powder. I have also thought that why hasn't a smokeless powder derivative been developed for inlines. Seems that as popular as they are, the powder companies would do such a thing. But on the other hand it would take probably half the amount to propel the bullet to the same velocity that black powder and substitutes do equalling LESS powder sold. Just a thought.
 
deerslayer303 said:
I would be so inclined to think that a 209 primer will ignite smokeless powder. I have also thought that why hasn't a smokeless powder derivative been developed for inlines. Seems that as popular as they are, the powder companies would do such a thing. But on the other hand it would take probably half the amount to propel the bullet to the same velocity that black powder and substitutes do equalling LESS powder sold. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

A lot of inlines that use 209 shotgun primers still have a long and tiny flash hole similar to the one in a percussion nipple.
Savage makes a muzzleloader that's designed for smokeless loads and it most likely has a larger flashhole so the primer can really give the powder a kick, not just ignite it.
In Great Brittain, there is a company that specializes in smokeless cylinders for cap and ball revolvers. These aren't cartridge conversions (which the Brits aren't allowed to own) but muzzleloading cylinders that use 209 primers instead of caps to ignite the powder.

Here's the link.
http://westlakeengineering.com/4640/4694.html?*session*id*key*=*session*id*val*
 
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Interesting, thanks for posting that link. The conversion is more than the ROA, but I bet its a handful for sure. Its all good to me though I like the smokey stuff, but I was just mentioning it because its amazing to me, how many deer hunters are going to muzzleloaders now days. And Smokeless may be a way to really make one cook. My favorite clerk at my LGS tells me he probably sells 2 ML's to 1 cartridge rifle. And we don't really have any primitive weapons seasons on private land around here.
 
SMOKELESS

My son shoots the Savage muzzleloader that's designed for smokeless loads and has for I think four years . He kills a lot of deer with it and makes shots of 200/250 yard shots all the time . He is using I.M.R 4759 at about 2600 fps with a 300gr, bullet . He loves it .

He kills 25 plus deer every year with it and a Thomson Center hand gun in 358 JDJ . The Savage Smokeless is little more then a Muzzleloading 30-06 Rifle .
 
Back when I was a kid, a muzzle loader was a weapon that stood taller than my wife, and weighed about the same as she does. ( Threw that in, because she reads all my posts) It took a master marksman a long time to get good enough with one to hit anything at more than 50 yards. It was quite an ordeal to hunt with one, but the world moved a lot slower then and if you wanted to hunt with one you could put the time in and learn what was needed.
As time went on the world started turning quite a bit faster, and very few people had the time left between work and the family to master the art of the muzzle loader. Luckily the evolution of the muzzle loader came up fast enough to allow a novice the opportunity to hunt without having to spend a great deal of time learning how. The ML's today are much shorter, lighter, and more advanced than ever before, which gives a lot of people the chance to learn about the sport than ever before.
I know a lot of you guys don't like the "Modern" concept of ML's, and I don't have a problem with that either, but technology has made it's impact on the sport, and it's not going away. The same argument will be made about the Cross-bows being legalized, as we start seeing the long bows fading away before long.
 
SMOKELESS

I agree with Wild Bill The Savage smokeless will shoot 3/4 inch at 100 yards. It,s like shooting any Rifle made today ?

KEYBEAR
 
deerslayer303 said:
I have also thought that why hasn't a smokeless powder derivative been developed for inlines.
Click to expand...

Blackhorn 209 is a progressive burning smokeless duplex powder that was developed for use with 209 inlines. But it can be used in any muzzle loader along with a booster charge to help ignite it.
 
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Blackhorn 209 is a progressive burning smokeless duplex powder that was developed for use with 209 inlines. But it can be used in any muzzle loader along with a booster charge to help ignite it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will defiantely pick some of this up, My inline gets REALLY tough to load after 3 shots using pyrodex pellets. Of course I can run a patch down it. But I'm gonna try using blackhorn and maybe I can get more rounds down range when plinking with it.
 
For what it's worth, the 16 inch cannons used on battleships during WWII used an "igniter charge" of black powder between the main smokeless load and the primer. If I remember correctly, that igniter charge was something like five kg of black powder, which supports my theory that smokeless powder needs more than just being set on fire to function correctly because a straight primer could easily have done that.
Maybe it was only two kilograms of black powder, I can't refind the info on the web, anyway, that's a pretty big charge of black powder, way more than you would need to simply ignite the smokeless charge.
 
"The same argument will be made about the Cross-bows being legalized, as we start seeing the long bows fading away before long."
Actually the compound bows caused this to happen.


"It,s like shooting any Rifle made today ?" actually shooting a Savage is a lot more tedious and time consuming. You have to let the barrel cool down between shots or your sabot will soften and you get blow by and poor accuracy. much more of a thinking mans game.

Advantages to a smokeless muzzleloader include, cleaner, no smoke to look for your deer through, for those of us with allergies-no stink or nose problems, faster velocities(even thought Blackhorn 209 will get to 2200-that is on the slow side of a good smokeless gun/load)

Smokeless muzzleloaders and barrels are more available then you might think-Savage, SMI, http://www.smokelessmuzzleloading.com/ makes aftermarket barrels for H+R and TC encores and there are some private gunsmiths converting/reboring barrels as well as people who make sabotless muzzleloaders in .40,.45 cal. Ie-you shoot the same .45 cal bullet in a tight barrel without the plastic weak link in the 50.

"it most likely has a larger flashhole so the primer can really give the powder a kick"--actually it's not bigger and the vent liner needs to be replaced when the hole gets bigger.
Federal 209 primer is hotter than most and most smokeless powders are not that hard to ignite--some don't operate well in cold weather.

Look here for all the smokeless information you will ever need--

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

http://randywakeman.com/savage3.htm
 
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