I have wanted to know whether black powder shooting was increasing in the U.S. and found a more complicated answer than I expected because—you guessed it—almost everyone replied, “Well, yes and no.” Thanks.At the Savage Armswww.savagearms.com booth, I talked to Tom Beiersdorf, the New York-Pennsylvania sales rep for Proactive Sales & Marketing. Tom picked up a 50-caliber Model 10MLBTSS-II with Savage’s individually adjustable Accu-Trigger. “It’s a muzzleloader that shoots regular smokeless powder,” Tom says. It also illustrates the continuing advance in blackpowder shooting technology. Load this with a charge of IMR SR 4759, maybe a Hornady 250-grain sabot, a 209 primer and you’ll shoot 2,300 fps. That’s screamin’, even if the wooden stock makes this 9 ¼-pound load a touch on the heavy side, say compared to Savage’s 7 ¾-pound 50-caliber 10ML-II with a synthetic pistol grip stock. Blackpowder hunting may only be steady, but the shooting end of blackpowder is definitely growing, National Accounts Manager Tom Bowen said, standing in the GOEX Powderwww.goexpowder.com booth. We talked about the phenomenon of cowboy action shooting—including mounted shooting—which still has big potential for growth.There is also a world-wide phenomenon called the “re-enactor movement” and today it is not just cowboy and Indian action or the U.S. Civil or Revolutionary Wars—which are popular in Europe as well—but people have discovered an interest in World War I and II battle reenacting (which was all smokeless powder). The other trend GOEX sees in the industry is the increasing acceptance of pelletized powders such as their Pinnacle E-Z Loads for the 50-caliber Savage above, for instance. Except perhaps for dyed-in-the-wool mountain-man re-enactors, pre-measured, easy to handle in any weather pellets have the ability to replace the measuring and pouring, the whole powder horn routine, required with thunder guns. I met Robert Bobbett from Master Shooter’s Supply while nosing around the Thompson/Centerwww.tcarms.com booth. Bobbett was scope shopping, and not shy about showing me the new .50-caliber T/C Encore Endeavor: black or camouflaged synthetic stock, blued or stainless interchangeable barrels. First, the easy-open break-forward action and the Speed Breech, which can be removed by hand with only a 90-degree rotation and, of course, replaced the same way. Then we looked at what T/C calls Energy Burners, the inclusion near the butt of the Endeavor’s synthetic stock of recoil-absorbing elements similar to Benelli’s ComforTech system in the synthetic stocks of its Super Black Eagles. Both T/C and Benelli talk about shock reduction in the 50 percent range and that is indeed significant!
The folks from Knight Rifleswww.knightrifles.com were present at the shooting range the day before the show officially opened and had a booth on the show floor, as well. They explained their new KP1 Utility Gun System, which is designed to transform from a muzzleloader to a centerfire rifle or a rimfire rifle: multiple configurations and styles for multiple shooting tasks. The guys were pumped, but I wanted to shoot, so they handed me a .50 caliber and invited me to choose a station and bang away. The palletized powder made that much easier than I expected, but the features that got my attention were the new hammer-safety and the hammer extension add-on that made it easier to cock a single shot muzzleloading rifle with a scope mounted low and close to the mechanism. Quote this article on your site | Views: 187
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