After reasing Mr. Wakeman's articles on the Savage 10ML-II on Chuck Hawk's website, I'll have to say he's made me a believer.

At first I was one of the sceptics who shook his head in disbelief when Savage announced the 10ML. My first thought was that the first thing some idiot would do was take his black powder measure and dump 100 grains by volume of N110 down the barrel and blow himself and anyone nearby straight to kingdom come. I guess maybe I was probably selling people short, but there is always someone. With black and subs it'd be really hard to accidently overcharge the gun to the point of catastrophic failure. Black powder just doesn't make that much pressure. But smokeless surely can.

But reading through Mr. Wakeman's article I was surprized to read that the 10ML-II is PROOFED to 129,000psi (yes that's 129 THOUSAND...no typo). 129,000psi is over twice the max pressure of most high intensity magnum centerfire cartridges. Basically, the 10ML is built like a the proverbial brick ****house. Reading that also made me think about the fact that I had no idea what pressure my Knight or T/C barrels are proofed to, and I don't even think my Traditions was proof rated at all.

I was also pleasantly surprised that Savage makes all the 10ML barrels to the same specs and tolerances of their well regarded centerfire barrels. I know for a fact that all three of my muzzleloaders have different diameter barrels, both at the lands and grooves...there's just no standardization to muzzleloaders. At least Savage is trying.

I also never thought about smokeless in terms of it being safer. It's also more economical. Most of the smokeless loads listed use less than 50grains of powder...most people shoot 100+ of black or equiv. Less powder also means less ejecta, meaning less stuff gets blown out the front, so the less the rifle trys to make you pay for making it earn its keep. Higher velocities partially cancel this out, but I still think it'd make a difference, especially if one doesn't load the thing screaming hot all the time.

And then there's cleanup...the most dreaded part of shooting a muzzleloader. But with smokeless there is little concern about having the barrel pitted out if you get home from the range late and don't want to stay up to clean it...or if you want to hunt on a fouled barrel for best accuracy. Speaking of fouling...there would be no more need to bring a bag full of patches to the range to spit patch the crud ring out of the bore every other shot so that one can get the next bullet seated properly.

I don't know about the rest of you...but I'm saving for a 10ML-II. Maybe shooting smokeless powder will reignite (pardon the pun) my passion for muzzleloading. I love to shoot the things, but I hate the pain cleaning them. The Savage would be as easy to clean as my 22-250 (which is clean before I leave the range, most of the time...in less than 5 minutes).

Mike