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....
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.
Toby -->
<--Savage