Smokeless Powder Muzzle Loaders

Muddying the waters of what is safe to pour down the barrel of a muzzleloader has always seemed like a bad thing to me.

I have never really liked the Trade Rifle style (the various heavy octagonal barrel muzzle loaders). At the same time, the modern rifle-primer style has also turned me off a bit. I prefer the Civil war era style. I have no doubt that those muzzle loaders wee carried by sportsmen, and meat hunters, for decades after the war.

Most of my muzzle loaders were stolen in a break in at my fathers cabin, where the thieves had plenty of time to take power tools to the gun safe. I am in the slow process of reassembling a collection of shooters. I recently found a Smiths Carbine (a breech-loading percussion cap, black-powder carbine), in a few months I will start the slow process of trying to find a good price on a Two Band Enfield.

All that being said, I would not consider shooting a firearm with a propellant that the manufacturer has not approved of. If the manufacturer has approved of the Smokeless powder I would consider it; but if they haven't, I wouldn't even consider it.

Blackhorn 209 is essentially a smokeless muzzle loader powder that can be shot out of inline ML's. You do need a hot 209 primer like a Fed 209A or CCI 209M but the smoke is essentially the same as shooting a .308 and the cleanup is just as easy. The problem is the cost is way more expensive than a cartridge smokeless powder round.

I know several people personally, and know of many others, that use smokeless powder for their inline muzzle loaders. These are CVAs, Thompson, Remington and others.
Dozens of different rifles firing hundreds, maybe thousand, of shots over several years.
This is just my observation, I certainly DO NOT RECOMMEND it.

One "esteemed" former editor of G&A most recently wrote of loading a cap and ball revolver with Trail Boss in one of the lesser distributed magazines.
I guess luckily for him it underperformed. Don't know how so many people seem to think it is a bp substitute. It isn't even a low pressure powder, just bulky and low velocity.
Some folks even use the old black powder cartridge trick of five or so grains of pistol powder under the charge of black.
Please don't.

I really don't think smokeless powder muzzle loader belong in this part of the forum or in primitive seasons either.

For the love of Heaven, don't play with a pipe bomb. Use proper black powder. Do you think so little of your hands and eyesight?

Black is an explosive. Smokeless is a propellant. When using a gun designed for black you operate within the confines of manufacturer data to maintain control of the explosion that is inches from your head. You don't want to monkey around and have an uncontrolled explosion.

You literally could not pay me enough money to shoot smokeless powder in a ML, even the ones designed for it.

The pressure curve of modern smokeless powders is different than that of black powder. You are putting a potential heavy hand grenade right up beside your face.

I sometimes think that Savage might have wished they'd never have brought out there "smokeless muzzle loader" gun.... only time will tell.

Good morning
Interesting to read these comments. I totally agree not following manufacturers directions is a bad idea !
Some of the other issues and preferences are some what repetitive of those you can read in history. When the matchlock was being pushed out by the flintlock many old shooters resisted.
When the "cap lock" was being introduced the flint shooters rebelled in some cases.
When rifled barrels were being forced upon regiments there was out refusal.
Some safe shooting fellers today have safely fired "smoke less" muzzle loaders for years. Others.. well the photo above is the result.
Me .. I built my own Matchlock years ago. Most my ML shooting and hunting is with flintlocks. Preferences do not make me any more a man or "lifted up" than those who choose to shoot the Savage safely.
No matter what hobby is entered there will always be those who are not safe to be around.
Mike in Peru

Missionary said:

Good morning
Interesting to read these comments. I totally agree not following manufacturers directions is a bad idea !
Some of the other issues and preferences are some what repetitive of those you can read in history. When the matchlock was being pushed out by the flintlock many old shooters resisted.
When the "cap lock" was being introduced the flint shooters rebelled in some cases.
When rifled barrels were being forced upon regiments there was out refusal.
Some safe shooting fellers today have safely fired "smoke less" muzzle loaders for years. Others.. well the photo above is the result.
Me .. I built my own Matchlock years ago. Most my ML shooting and hunting is with flintlocks. Preferences do not make me any more a man or "lifted up" than those who choose to shoot the Savage safely.
No matter what hobby is entered there will always be those who are not safe to be around.
Mike in Peru

Click to expand...

Keep in mind in some close battles during the Civil War the smoothbore 1842 Springfields loaded with buck and ball outshot the rifled 1861 Springfield/P53 Enfields firing the minie ball.

So not in every situation was the rifled barrel an advantage, especially considering not many soldiers were great shots to begin with.

I'm not understanding how anyone that would stuff IMR4350 (for instance) down a barrel is going to do it in the field. You gonna take your scale to the woods, set it up, weigh the charge, dump it? It is not safe to dump by volume. Oh, I guess if the charge is significantly light you could. I use a Lee dipper to charge my light cast bullet plinker loads for my 8x57s.

Uh, thanks, but if I wanna use smokeless, I have plenty of rifles for that from the AR platform to the bolt guns to a lever gun. I'll use subs for my front stuffers, or black powder if I ever find any for sale.

And, BTW, while you might call BH209 a "smokeless" powder, it isn't smokeless at all. A large volume of white smoke is emitted by my Hawken when firing a charge of BH209. And, yes, with the right 209 primer adapter, it'll fire in a sidelock. That's as close to shooting smokeless in a front stuffer as I'll ever get.

drunkenpoacher said:

I know several people personally, and know of many others, that use smokeless powder for their inline muzzle loaders. These are CVAs, Thompson, Remington and others.
Dozens of different rifles firing hundreds, maybe thousand, of shots over several years.
This is just my observation, I certainly DO NOT RECOMMEND it.

Click to expand...

This still remains high on my "I won't try this at home," but while thinking about this thread I watched a video of some guys trying it. The had trouble getting it to fail. They tried a number of stupid things. They did something, that I can't recall, that caused the barrel to bulge a bit. then they finally got it to grenade by putting a full smokeless load on top of a second smokeless load. I was actually surprised by how much abuse the rifle stood up to.

I think the reality is that we are using designs that weer very safe using the metals available over a hundred and fifty years ago and then replicating those designs using modern steels. There is a big margin for error.

. . . All that being said, doing something that the manufacturer says not to do, then placing it against ones head and pulling the trigger qualifies as a JPD (just plain dumb) action.

As I said before, I'm not recommending smokeless in a muzzle loader.
The fact is that many use it and have for a long time without incident.
The loads they are using simply do not result in the catastrophic failures that we have all seen photos of.

I've heard the ROA was rugged enough to stuff full of Bullseye and fire. I'll take their word for that. I don't need to do the testing.

The problem with introducing a muzzleloader rated for smokeless powder is that there are many less than brilliant people out there. I can see Bubba saying "well this IMR 4895 works in my buddys Savage I'm going to try it in my CVA"
It's going to happen.

Just remember. You can't cure stupid.

Noz said:

Just remember. You can't cure stupid.

Click to expand...

Well, you can, but it's a terminal solution.

The ROA must be stronger than a Super Blackhawk. I've seen two that were blown up with only 22 grains of Bullseye.

PapaG said:

The ROA must be stronger than a Super Blackhawk. I've seen two that were blown up with only 22 grains of Bullseye.

Click to expand...

A cartridge with a roll crimp would cause much more pressure than with powder and ball.

PapaG said:

The ROA must be stronger than a Super Blackhawk. I've seen two that were blown up with only 22 grains of Bullseye.

Click to expand...

22 grains is a LOT of Bullseye.
Alliant has a max charge of 6 grains (with a 240 grain bullet).

I'm guessing the ROA wouldn't fare any better.