Let's talk about statistics, shall we.

The gun in guestion, by Bridges own admission, had on the order of 7,000 documented shots fired through it before the one that destroyed it, yet he now claims that the 10ML-II is unsafe after a mear 500 rounds. His other pre-vendetta claim to fame was that he had over 35,000 documented shots through a number of 10ML and ML-II's without no incidents whatsoever. He also regularly loaded his rifles with loads using powders not endorsed by his former employer and against their wishes, and he also regularly shot loads that were well beyond those Savage knew to be safe in the gun and published that data even though Savage, as his employer, expressly forbid him to do so. Obviously because they didn't want the run-of-the-mill shooter to follow Bridges lead and get adventurous with their loads and have an incident that would create legal liability for Savage. That's not an unreasonable thing to do, and it was done out of both a concern for their shooters and for the company and firearms industry as well.

So we have a 35,000+ shots fired by Bridges alone, with one mishap that occured under questionable circumstances.

We also know that Savage has built and sold well over 20,000 10ML and 10ML-II's in the 6 years they've been in production. The 20,000 is a year old number, so given another year of production the number is now likely closer to 25,000, but since I don't know for sure, I'll use the lower number.

There have been, to my knowledge, three major incidents with the 10ML including Bridges', and the other two shooters admitted to experimenting with outrageous charges or powders like Lil'Gun (if I remember correctly, one was using like 75 grains of Lil'Gun trying to push a 250gr sabot to 3000fps), and using duplex loads consisting of large charges of slow burning powder with a base charge of a fast burning and easier to ignite starter like Bullseye. The other two rifles in question did not suffer nearly the damage Bridges' gun did, and I believe both shooters suffered at least minor injuries as a result (Bridges' suffered none). Other than that, there have been no catastrophic failures resulting in the complete destruction of the gun or injury to the shooter/bystanders. I've read about a few incidents of guns being sent back to Savage to be rebarreled and checked due to loading errors like double charges and loading multiple projectiles, but while the barrel was bulged or ringed, the structural integrity was not compromised in any of these circumstances.

So, we have 20,000 guns and 3 major failures, 2 of which the shooters admitted to reckless experimentation which is not the fault of poor design (load your favorite CF rifle case with as much Bullseye as you can stuff in the case and see what happens...better yet, don't). If we take Bridges' word that his gun blew up shooting a charge and projectile "well within" the limits established as safe by Savage, and we assume that there was no other factor playing a lead role in the guns demise like a bore obstruction (intentional or accidental), double projectiles, ramrod in the bore, etc.... So if we assume that Bridges' did everything right, then we have one catastrophic failure in 20,000 guns in the hands of shooters all over the country. 1/20,000 = 0.005% failure rate. That's as good or better than any CF rifle maker can boast, because let's not forget that those occationally blow up too. Take the Sako/Tikka incident. The foundry that provides their barrel blanks sold them a lot of stainless steel blanks that had undetected impurities and inclusions in the steel that resulted in the strength of the finished barrels being compromised. This resulted unfortunately, in several well documented blow ups, and once the cause was traced the bad batch of steel, the effected guns were recalled and fixed. Now, we're talking about a couple thousand guns, and a dozen or more catastrophic failures. Compare that to the 10ML where we have one incident out of over 20,000 guns. This leads me to believe that even if Bridges' is on the up 'n' up, it's not a major design flaw that caused his gun to blow, but rather a manufacturing defect unique to his rifle that, after 7,000+ shots and many gross overloads later, let go resulting in the catastrophic failure of the rifle.

This is an my alternate theory of events based on the apparently very low failure rate of the 10ML-II muzzleloader and giving Bridges the benefit of the doubt about his story. Either way it still doesn't lead the liability back to Savage or the Ball's. Manufacturing defects happen to every major gun maker. Fortunately most are caught in the proofing process (which the 10ML-II is the ONLY production muzzleloader today that is proof-fired before leaving the factory, BTW), but occationally one slips through. A 0.005% failure rate is outstanding even for the gun industry, and when you compare it to other major industries like the automotive industry, it is nothing short of phenomenal.

Mike