First of all I'd like to say that I'm exceptionally impressed with Natchez for their VERY fast shipping of my rifle. I ordered it Wednesday afternoon and the brown truck bearing gifts arrived today just after noon while I was at work. From Tennessee to Iowa in two days meant they literally had to ship the rifle minutes after I placed my order.

I've been muzzleloading for several years, and until last year I'd enjoyed the sport and had decent luck. I started getting irritated with it after many siezed Knight breachplugs, despite using no fewer than 4 different types of anti-seize agents on the plug. Add to this the messy, laborous cleaning resulting in all sorts of crud getting into the trigger and action, gummed up bolt assembly from lots of blowback and the associated fouling, and an unexplainable lack of accuracy with previously proven loads (despite THOUROUGH cleanings with JB Bore Paste, three different scopes and two different mounting systems). I guess you could say that I was nothing short of fed up, and the shooting sessions that used to be pleasant and enjoyable were now nothing more that tedious, chore-like excercises in frustration.

After MUCH reading and research peaked my interest and reignited my desire to continue muzzleloading, and after having an opportunity last week to shoot one which sealed the deal, I decided to order my new Savage ML10BSS-II. The idea of shooting clean, non-corrosive, minimally fouling and very safe smokeless powder loads that easily meet or exceed the performance of even the hottest 777 loads, in THE strongest and safest production ML ever built (not to mention very high quality) has got me really stoked about stuffing bullets into a front-loader again.

My gun is the BSS version, with SS barreled action and very nice laminate stock (it even has REAL checkering!). Unpacking it from the box I was very impressed with the quality of the gun. The machining is excellent, with no exposed tool marks. The receiver is built like a tank, easily as heavy as any CF bolt action designed to shoot the hottest magnum cartridges. The bolt is smooth, lacks free play, and slides easily in the action and locks solidly. The ramrod is decent quality for a factory ramrod, and certainly better then the original one my Knight DISC came with. Of course, the Accu-Trigger is outstanding compared to most any factory CF rifle, and is definately at the top of the pile compared to every production muzzleloader trigger I've tried.

The quality of the laminate wood stock is excellentand has, as I already mentioned, real FUNCTIONAL checkering. Looking at the bottom of the stock one can easily see that the rifle is properly pillar bedded in the front, as the front pillar is visible and the front action screw contacts the pillar ONLY, just as it should. Disassembly of the action from the stock reveals the the pillars pass all the way through the stock and contact the action directly, both front and rear. The bottom of the rear pillar contacts the front of the trigger guard. The stock inletting is well done and smooth, and the recoil lug sits snugly against the stock preventing any side-to-side movement of the barrel during recoil. The barrel itself is fully floated in the stock back to the barrel nut.

The barrel itself, like a CF rifle and UNLIKE any black powder arm, showed signs of having been proof-fired by the factory, and there are proof marks visible on the barrel. Complete cleaning revealed the very nice button rifled bore with clear sharp-edged rifling, which should provide outstanding accuracy. The breachplug is fitted with the latest three-hole ventliner for better ignition with the harder to light smokeless powders (contrary to the preconceptions of many I've spoke to, smokeless is actually much HARDER to ignite than any black powder or its volumetric "substitutes") Sitting on top of the nicely bead-blasted SS barrel are a set of good quality Williams fiber optic open riflesights. While I do intend to mount a scope on this rifle, I believe that I may choose to use a detachable ring mounting system (like the Leupold QR system) to have access to the open sights in a pinch.

As for the most readily apparent downsides to the rifle that I can see are the lack of a second ramrod guide on the barrel. The lone guide does not align the ramrod with the stock, allowing the ramrod to possibly damage the forend if the ramrod is not carefully replaced. My second concern is the lack of any sort of decent recoil pad. The current butt pad is simply a piece of molded hard rubber that provides minimal give to cushion recoil. This will likely be remedied by a trip to the gunsmith to have a quality grind-to-fit pad like the Limbsaver or Hi-Viz installed. The third and perhaps the biggest design oversight is the need to partially unscrew the rear receiver screw to remove the bolt assembly. By unscrewing the rear screw one loosens the bedded fit of the action and possibly upsets the point of impact if the bolt is not retorqued precisely. Fortunately, unlike the blowback ridden bolt-action ML's like my Knight, this action seems to seat the primer very firmly by the camming action of the bolt, and based on what I witnessed with the ML10-II that I shot last week allows almost no fouling to enter the action. That combined with the non-corrosive nature of smokeless powder seems to preclude the need for complete disassembly and detail cleaning after every shooting session.

Overall, I'm VERY impressed with this rifle, save the three issues I pointed out above. I am as eager to take this rifle to the range on Sunday as I was to go with my dad to shoot his muzzleloader for the very first time. I'll write more after I have had the opportunity to put a few loads of Vihta-Vouri N110 down the barrel.

Mike