This is starting to sound like the compound bow hunters in Indiana. They have just about passed crossbows for our early season, next year. you should see all the uppity compound guys, having a fit. i would hate to ask a stick bow hunter, what he thinks. .
then you have the bow guys trying to shorten the firearm season or move it way out past the rut. so, they have the woods to themselves. it is just rediculous!!! I say whatever gets people out and enjoying the sport the better, no matter the weapon.

Back on subject though. I have both but prefer what gives me the best chance to put meat on the table, which is a scoped inline!!

Amen. it's hunters in numbers in the field that will keep the hunting sports alive and not what weapon there using.maybe a wrist rocket season?:s4:

What some folks may not realize is that even the smokeless muzzle loading guns can't come close to matching the long range performance of a Civil War era Whitworth sniper rifle.
And the way that I look at it, the smokeless muzzle loaders only serve as partial replacements for the Whitworth muzzle loaders.
Hence no one should complain or care about smokeless muzzle loading since even as good as they are, they still can't perform as good and have much less range.
That's a fact. So there's really no basis at all to complain about other states that allow smokeless muzzle loading unless they also want to complain about allowing hunting with a Whitworth rifle because of its superior performance.

That's kind of stretching it. How many modern hunters are using a 10lb Whitworth that shoots a 530gr bullet with 75 gr of real BP out of a 36" barrel. In it's day it might have had some long range success, but with the rainbow trajectory. It was a lot of guessing, and claims are exaggerated. It also had recoil from hell.

A smokeless inline is a much more user friendly modern hunting gun, that has an edge over a similar rifle using BP.

With that said. If the Savage was legal to use smokeless in Colorado. I might just own one. Surprise eh?

All i am saying is how far is too far, when we start loading .50 bmg hardware from the muzzle and knocking deer out at 1,000 plus yards. But as long as it was loaded from the "muzzle" i guess it is ok.

muley, i doubt you'd like the recoil of the smokeless muzzleloader. Its funny readying about people being sore and bruised up after shooting their savages.

I've read some saying the recoil is less.

What's the truth guys?

Recoil is less with the same bullet at the same fps since the total ejecta weight is less and the Savage is heavy. The Savage is a cream puff to shoot with book loads and a 250gr bullet. Book loads are similar to BH209 speeds to about 400fps more. Even my NULA is mild with a 225gr bullet at over 2300fps.

Pain kicks in when you start shooting the 300gr loads with larger amounts of slow burners at over 2300fps. Some of those are using 70gr-80gr by weight of powder so its worse than BH209. My 325gr load with 60gr of Re7 isnt bad at all but 60gr of N120 which is much faster will get your attention. A very highend 250gr load can also get pretty stiff but they are not common hunting loads. They are mostly from guys pushing the limits for long range target shooting.

Examples and a comparison.

260gr PT Gold at over 2300fps. Its on a sled with no weight but you can see recoil inst bad even in the NULA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrv_ILrHNPg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SURtePdjaCY

Free hand and the 3rd shot is a heavy BH209 load. The smokeless loads are all moving well over 2200fps with mostly 275gr bullets and only 41-43gr of a book powder. The 2nd shot may have been a blown sabot. It was 5744 and we are not sure why it smoked more than the 130gr BH209 load.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=folde_QfM74

They all had a good kick. The 130 gr BH load is something i'd never try.

I hate to be such a whiner, but my shooting shoulder really needs an operation. I'll never do it, so i'm overly protective of it.

My GPR was fun with light target loads. Yesterday I tried some hunting loads in it, and that curved steel butt plate tore me up. I'm not sure I can come up with any safe load for elk that will work for me. I was hoping the weight of the gun would help, but it doesn't help that much.

I really want to go on the other side of the mountains and camp out for the whole elk season next year. It will get rain every afternoon there. I need a reliable, softer shooting ML for that. I hate to start thinking about another inline, but it seems to be the only practical answer.

I think that I represent a lot of muzzleloader shooters, honestly. I live in a state that doesn't allow centerfire rifles for the most part (they are now allowed during the very last anterless season), and a front stuffer is just a much better tool to hunt with than a slug gun IMHO. If it were up to me, I'd probably hunt with a .308, but it isn't. Don't get me wrong, I really love muzzleloading now that I have experience with it, but I have never done it for the history. I thought about a SML, but with Savage not making the 10ML anymore, and with custom options being so expensive I thought against it. I have a TC Hawken and every once in awhile (after I have forgotten how much it hurts shooting conicals) I'll pull it out and play with it. When I go out to hunt however, I'll be carrying my new T/H Mountaineer!! Booya!