do any of you have one of the savage muzzle loaders that can handle the smokeless powder,If so tell me about it, what kind of accuracy do they have and have you encountered any problems.And do you like it love it or wonder why you bought it.

Don't shoot smokeless. To touchy. There's pics floating on the net of the one Toby Bridges blew up. Doesn't take much to do it.

I absolutely LOVE mine. I have the ML10-IIBSS and it's been the best shooting muzzleloader I've ever owned.

As for smokeless being dangerous, or at least any more dangerous than anything else, I beg to differ. Yes, Toby Bridges blew up one of his Savages is the PARTIAL truth. What pharaoh didn't tell you (and perhaps just didn't know) was that Bridges ADMITTED to using gross overloads in the gun many times before it finally went Kaboom, and he also didn't mention that there may have been a financial motive behind the guns "accident." If you do a search you'll find a thread here from awhile back that went into the Savage/Bridges saga in detail, including links to various places that discuss the events in more detail, as well as strong evidence (including a nasty email from Bridges demanding money for his support and silence) that Bridges had a falling out with Savage and the Ball's, probably having to do with money, and that Bridges was using the incident to blackmail Savage. Given the financial motive, and the evidence of blackmail, one cannot rule out that Bridges may have intentionally caused the gun to fail.

I've read about exactly three other cases of ML10's suffering a catastrophic failure, only one of which was anything more than anecdotal and supported by evidence. And in that case the shooters were using a type of powder NOT TESTED OR APPROVED BY SAVAGE for the 10ML. They were experimenting and their experiment when awry. In all cases, the shooters were trying to make the gun perform beyond the established safe standards intended by both Savage and by Henry Ball (the guns designer). If you do a search on the net you'll find that there are a number of people who are trying to get the velocities up to the levels of the .375H&H with saboted bullets of similar weight. That is NOT what the gun is designed to do, and you cannot blame the gun or Savage, or label the gun unsafe, due to the experimentations of those who choose to completely disregard the tested load limits set forth by Savage.

The FACT of the matter is that there are 50,000 PLUS 10ML's out there right now, and I'm sure a sizable portion of those who own them shoot smokeless, and yet there have been, to my knowledge, only TWO CONFIRMED cases of catastrophic failure, and two more unconfirmed cases (not supported by evidence). So even if we assume that the other two unsubstanciated cases are true, and also that there are no fewer than 50,000 ML10's in circulation (Savage has made more than that), that indicates a .008% failure rate. If you disregard the two confirmed cases where the shooters were using either non-recommended powders for gross overloads, and assume that the other two were loaded per Savage's recommended loads, that makes the failure rate a remarkably low .004% (yes, that's four THOUSANDTHS of one percent), or one-in-25,000. I'm not a betting man, but I'd take those odds.

I shoot nothing but smokeless from my Savage. I use VhitaVouri N110 from a Lee 3.4cc dipper for 40.4grains. The MAX load is the 3.7cc dipper for 44.8grains if I'm not mistaken. I get a chronographed velocity of 2250fps with 300 grain Hornady SST/ML bullets using a Winchester 28ga AA wads obturator cub as a sub-base. Average accuracy is 1 1/4 MOA. I see no reason to go any higher, as 2250fps is more than enough for me, and will kill the crap out of any deer on the planet out to 200 yards (or more, but that's my comfortable max range limit). The load does kick pretty stoutly, but not nearly as bad as a similar velocity load with 150 grains of 777 (because if the added ejecta from 110 more grains of powder).

I personally feel 100% confident in the guns ability to handle the recommended loads. I have shot almost 100 shots out of mine, and have seen no indication whatsoever that the loads were unsafe, and will continue to shoot mine (and allow my wife to shoot it as well) for many years to come. The Savage DOES require that the shooter think less like a BP shooter, and more like a HANDLOADER. Careless loading and wantonly fudging the stated limits are NOT as tolerable with the Savage, and dicipline and attention to detail are a must just like when handloading metallic CF cartridges. Gross overloads and using untested and non-recommended powders is not acceptable in smokeless handloading, and are not acceptable for smokeless muzzleloading. If you choose to experiment, then it's YOUR fault when a mishap occurs, not the gun's.

Mike

when you weigh up a charge for your muzzleloader with smokeless, do you use a digital scale, and measure by weight, or a traditional volume measurer? Sorry if you think this question is stupid, but I really have always wondered and didnt know anyone who shoots one.

Goodness Gracious Pharaoh2, how could you give that type of advise from a phoney setup to extort money by Toby Bridges. Are you toby? Did you see that guilding copper in the barrel? How in the crap did that happen if you got a sabot'd bullet? Big setup. Toby really let alot of us down over that crap.

Little, go with the smokeless. Very clean and all I have shot were very accurate.

I use the 3.4cc Lee smokeless powder dipper in the field and at the range. However, I also, using the dipper, weighed out about 20 charges on my RCBS 5-0-5 scale to confirm that the charges listed on the slide card included with the dippers, as well as the Savage ML10 data for the 3.4cc dipper, were accurate. They were both accurate to +/- .5 grain. Since I use the less than MAX recommended load by about 4 grains, I'm not going to sweat the +/- 1/2 grain. Accuracy is good and velocity spreads acceptable, so I'm not worried. If I were using max loads I would weight every charge on a scale, but for convienience at the range I chose to use step down to a load that is sufficient but below the max. Saves me a lot of hassle of premeasuring a bunch of loads, finding a way to store them, or taking my scale to the range.

I'm still in my 1st 2 pound container of powder (at 40.4 grains/charge, it's taking awhile, which really makes smooting smokeless a real value as well. The cost/per shot for smokeless is tiny compared to that for black subs.), but when I start my second container I will once again verify the charge with my scale before shooting my gun.

Mike

Only thing I can say bad about my Savage is the bluing/finish is typically Savage, crappy. But man how she shoots. I am gonna have the gun Tcoated next summer anyway so the finish issue is nil.

I shoot N110 powder under a 300grn SST. 44-44.5 grains of it. I simply took a dipper from the Savage shooting kit and filled it with powder (lol damn my CRS is kickin in, cant remember which one it was. Wanna say the 3.7/big one, regardless it was the one that Savage recommended.) and then poured it into a standard brass Knight blackpowder measure. I pushed the measure until the powder was flush with the top. I then screwed the top down and made a mark with a pocket knife on the outer side of the measure. I also filled the flask with powder. If you went by the BP numbers/indicators on the side it would be nearly 60grns but that has nothing to do with tea in China so forget those numbers.

Ya gotta love a muzzleloader that you can set the trigger on down too 2#s, dont have to clean and it has the power to WHACK EM AND STACK EM all the way too 300yds!!!
RA

ps
Toby Bridges is an F-IDIOT!!! The naysayers like to point to that ONE exploded barrel. Nevermind that the gun had already had 7500 rounds fired through it, most of which were STOUTLY overloaded test rounds and even highly dangerous exploratory rounds. If you stick "blends of powders" in there, what in hell do you expect to happen? Toby was loadin several grains of this, then several grains of that, then several grains of... "layering powders" and he wonders what happened? He wants to blame the 3 holed vent liner. While I prefer the single hole version, what did he expect other than the "pipe bomb" result he got as a result of his mystery powders?

The guns are tested to 130K cup. Thats more than twice a 300WBY Mag. If someone blows one up its NOT because of an accident on the part of a properly loaded gun or because Savage didnt do their part.

when using sabots and the modern powder how many shots can you get perfect before the sabot starts fouling the groves and tell me about the primer setup,is it enclosed ,if you got a good close up picture of one please post.One of the primer hole/breech plug area, also does the breech come out or is that sealed up.I know i need to hold one a shooting one would be even better to make a judgement call but i know no one in my area with one.

The primer pocket on the ML 10II is in the bolt receiver. The breech is removable.

Don't own one but have 2 friends who do and haven't seen any POI effects in a normal range session when not swabbing when using smokeless powder/sabots.

It is a very solid design and versatile if you can use smokeless powder during your ML season (here we can and as such it would be a top contender if I were looking for a new ML).

The ML10-II uses 209 shotgun primers. The primer slides vertically into a groove on the bolt face (much like the rim on a cartridge), the bolt is slid forward and closed, which actually cams the primer into a "chamber" designed to accept it, just like a cartridge, creating a watertight and 99% gas tight seal when the gun is fired. The breechplug and primer are completely recessed under the reciever, and there are blow out vents in the reciever just like in a CF bolt action rifle should the primer ever burst to protect the shooters eyes and face. This system is the best sealed 209 ignition system I've witnessed or shot. I can shoot 40 shots through my ML10-II and have less blowback into the action than I had with my Knight DISC after ONE SHOT.

The breach plug of the ML10-II is removeable in a similar fashion to other bolt action inlines. The bolt is removed by loosening the forward action screw (one of my very few gripes about this rifle), then you use the provided tool to unscrew the breachplug. The only major difference between other breach plugs and the Savages is the "vent liner" on the front of the plug. It's basically a 1/8" hex cap screw with three (or one depending on the style; single hole and three-hole) tiny holes bored through the center in a triangle pattern which direct and intensify the flame from the primer into the powder charge to provide reliable ignition of smokeless powder loads (smokeless powder is much HARDER to ignite than black or subs.). The vent liner is removable with an Allen wrench and is designed as a wear item that is replaced when worn out.

I'd take some pictures of my ML10-II and post them, but my I lost the cord for my digital camera in my recent move and have no way of downloading the pics to my computer.

Here is a picture of the boltface of the ML10-II I found on the 'net:





From the second you can see how the bolt closes, enclosing the primer completely. If you look at the bolt handle where it meets the reciever you'll see how it cams on closing. The ML10-II cams from the rear rather than using lugs on the front, both because the bolt doesn't bear much force on firing because of the breechplug, and because this prevents people from rebarreling it to a CF rifle.

Mike