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A Season With Western Powders' New Blackhorn 209 Powder

More than once in my life, I've found that an enitre deer season often boils down to the last few days. For more than a month, starting in Illinois then jumping across the Mississippi River into Missouri, I had hunted every possible season trying to get a really good whitetail buck in my sights. I had filled 5 doe tags and had harvested a fair buck, plus zapped a big old dog coyote, shooting both my .52 caliber Knight DISC Extreme and .50 caliber Knight Long Range Hunter.

I'd taken my upper 130-class 10-pointer at about 120 yards with the .52 caliber, shooting Knight's big saboted 375-grain all-copper "Red Hot" bullet. Everything else had been harvested with the super accurate .50 caliber Long Range Hunter, shooting the new 300-grain Scorpion PT Gold that had been added to the Harvester Muzzleloading line earlier in 2007. Both rifles had been powered by the even newer Blackhorn 209 muzzleloader propellant from Western Powders - which won't even be introduced until the SHOT Show, in early February.

Western Powders' new Blackhorn 209 comes in a 10-ounce container.

Several times on my last hunt of the season, a late muzzleloader season hunt in mid December, I had spotted a huge 6-pointer (no brow tines) that would still score between 150 and 160 B&C points. But, like on earlier hunts, I just could not get the deer in range or in my sights. On the third morning of the hunt, I caught glimpse of a nice 8-pointer crossing a nearby ridge top. And when the winds began to top 25 m.p.h. that afternoon, I chose to cover a long and deep sandy draw that led from higher heavy bedding cover to a few river bottom hayfields - near where I had spotted the buck that morning.

That hunch paid off. Several hours before dark, more than a dozen does and one small buck eased past where I had parked my butt back into and under a lone cedar along the downwind slope. From there to the bottom of the narrow valley was 140 yards, and any of the deer walking past would have offered an easy shot.

Author Toby Bridges with the good whitetail buck he finally got in his sights while hunting with loads of Blackhorn 209 in his .50 caliber Knight "Long Range Hunter".

Then I spotted the buck slowly making its way down the draw. The wide and tall whitetail took its time moving in my direction, stopping and feeding along the way. Nearly an hour later, the deer was still close to 200 yards away, and stopped to watch several does feed up onto the side of the opposite ridge. Light was beginning to fade, so I decided to take the shot. A quick laser reading on a cedar bush a few yards closer to me revealed it was 182 yards. Using the 200 yard cross-bar reticle of the Leatherwood Hi-Lux Optics HPML scope, I held just below center-chest cavity and eased back on the trigger. The rifle belched extremely little smoke as it rocketed the 300-grain saboted Scorpion PT Gold bullet out of the muzzle at around 1,960 f.p.s., and a split instant later the buck humped up as the sleek spire-point hit with a resounding wallop. Then, the deer just stood there.

Quickly, I pulled a speed loader from my jacket pocket, popped it open and poured in another 110-grain charge of Blackhorn 209, slipped in another saboted bullet and easily pushed the projectile down the lightly fouled bore. With another of the Knight Full Plastic Jacket No. 209 primer carriers dropped into the action and the bolt closed behind it, I went for the same hold and eased back on the trigger again. The bullet drove home and the deer dropped where it stood. When I walked down to take a closer look at my buck, I was very pleased to find that the deadly accurate Green Mountain barrel of my Knight in-line rifle had put both bullets within 3 inches of each other. And a laser reading on the cedar tree where I had been sitting revealed that the shot had been 186 yards.

What made this hunt, and especially these last two shots of the season, remarkable was that the rifle being used had been shot and hunted with for more than a month - to regularly check scope alignment after another several hundred mile run to another hunting spot, and to take 5 other deer. Not once had it been broken down and cleaned, even though more than 25 shots had been put through it since it was last cleaned a month earlier. Nor had the bore even been wiped once.

All season, my goal was to test Blackhorn 209 to determine its finer qualities, and to see where it didn't measure up. What I discovered is the most user-friendly non-smokeless muzzleloading propellant I have ever poured through the muzzle of a front-loaded big game rifle.

After taking my buck, I simply slipped my factory-accurized version of the Knight DISC Extreme back into its case and headed out to enjoy the Christmas and New Year's holidays, and to check out the future home base of the NORTH AMERICAN MUZZLELOADER HUNTING ASSOCIATION in Missoula, Montana. Then, on January 1, 2008, nearly two weeks after the rifle was last shot, I pulled it from the case and with little more effort than when removing the breech plug from a totally unfired, spotless rifle, the breech plug popped right out. While Western Powders has developed one of its "MONTANA-EXTREME" cleaning solvents for the new powder, I simply used what I had on hand - Hoppe's No. 9. Just two well-dampened patches had the bore perfectly clean in about 60 seconds. Another five minutes or so was spent cleaning primer fouling from the bolt and receiver...and the rifle was ready to put away.

From a bore that has not been wiped, even after being fired 20 or 30 times, Blackhorn 209 continues to produce excellent 100-yard accuracy - such as

this 1/2-inch group.

Through this past summer and fall, I had done a lot of shooting with Blackhorn 209, along with just about every other modern black powder substitute, to devleop load data and fill in holes in the ballistics for a new book I was working on for Stoeger Publishing (the Complete Muzzleloader's Loading Manual). Early on, it became very evident that Western Powders' new muzzleloader propellant produced higher velocities (in equal amounts) than any other modern black powder substitute, plus it burnt a lot cleaner. In fact, on several occasions, I'd used the new powder to run 30 to 40 shot strings...without wiping the bore. Even so, the powder continued to produce outstanding accuracy with modern spire-pointed bullets like Harvester Muzzleloading's new Scorpion PT Gold and the Barnes all-copper Spit-Fire TMZ.

Likewise, it didn't take me long to realize that Blackhorn 209 was slow to ignite with specialized "Muzzleloading" No. 209 primers, like Winchester's Triple Seven Primer. This stuff prefers hotter standard strength primers such as the Winchester or Federal 209A primers. (A limited amount of shooting with the new Federal-Fusion 209 muzzleloader primers was very positive, but really did not offer any benefit over the lower cost standard strength No. 209 shot-shell primers.)

By now, some of you are probably saying to yourselves - "This powder sounds too good to be

true!"

And that was excactly what I found myself wondering as well as several engineers with General Dynamics, who developed the powder for Western Powders, fed me information on their progress for much of the past couple of years. Their reports of 2,000 plus f.p.s. velocities with some saboted bullets using just 100 grains (volume measured), and being able to load and shoot (with accuracy) as many as 50 shots without wiping the bore did indeed sound too good to be true. But when I managed to get several pounds of the powder for testing well before Western Powders even announced that the powder would be available (this coming spring), it took just one trip to the range to convince me that the folks at General Dynamics' powder making facility in Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada had delivered on all of their claims.

Prior to shooting and hunting with Blackhorn 209, my favorite load for the .50 caliber Knight Long Range Hunter had been 110 grains of FFFg Triple Seven behind a saboted 260-grain Scorpion PT Gold. The load is good for right at 2,020 f.p.s., and the premium Green Mountain barrel of the rifle will consistently keep groups well under 1 1/2 inches - often putting three shots inside of an inch. But that kind of accuracy with Triple Seven requires wiping the bore between each and every shot. The same volume measured amount of Blackhorn 209 ups velocity to 2,039 f.p.s. That in itself is likely not enough to make many shooters switch powders. However, I found that with loads of the new powder, I could continue to shoot 1/2- to 1 1/2-inch hundred yard groups WITHOUT wiping the bore between shots.

For me, the ease of cleaning has been a real bonus. Surely the idea of being able to clean your favorite tack-driving in-line rifle with just a couple of "non water based" solvent patches has to have some appeal. Also, in the past I have occasionally experienced problems with getting a breech plug out after shooting 20 or so rounds with Triple Seven. With Blackhorn 209, it looks as if that headache could become a thing of the past.

But, as you may have already suspected, there is a slight down side to shooting Blackhorn 209, or so it may seem at first. And that is the cost. Compared to loading and shooting loose grain Triple Seven, the new powder is a bit more costly. Based on a $30 retail for a 10-ounce container, a 100-grain volume-measured charge will set a shooter back right at 48-cents per shot. Based on a typical $24 retail per pound, the cost of a volume-measured 100-grain charge of loose grain Triple Seven runs about 25-cents per shot. Triple Seven Pellets cost about 50-cents per shot for a 100-grain charge, 75-cents per shot for a 150-grain charge. And it takes the heftier three-pellet 150-grain charge to duplicate the vlocity and energy produced by the 110-grain charge of Blackhorn 209 I used to harvest my buck this past season. (That amount of Blackhorn 209 costs right at 53-cents per shot.)

Some of the cost for shooting Blackhorn 209 can be shaved off thanks to the fact that this powder performs best when ignited by standard strength shot-shell primers, which typically run about 3-cents (or less) each. The special "Muzzleloading" primers that produce best performance from Triple Seven cost basically twice that. And the ease at which the light fouling is cleaned from the bore, using a modern bore solvent, cuts back on the number of patches and amount of cleaning solvent required.

What appeals most to me is that I do not have to steal time to thoroughly clean my rifle at the end of the day just because I checked the sighting of my scope, or was lucky enough to down game that day. My abuse of the Knight DISC Extreme this past season was simply to see just how user friendly this powder is for the hunter on the go. I always keep my rifles in top condition, but now feel good knowing that in a situation when I cannot get to cleaning immediately, or within a few days, my prized in-lines are safe from being lost to corrosion or a breech plug that is hopelessly frozen in place.

Blackhorn 209 makes its debut at the 2008 Shot Show in as Vegas (first week of February), and should be on dealer's shelves this spring. Watch for more reports on the powder on the NORTH AMERICAN MUZZLELOADER HUNTING Web Magazine. For a look at comparative ballistics with other modern black powder substitutes, click here. - Toby Bridges

To Read An Updated Report On Blackhorn 209 - Click Here

Harvester Muzzleloading's Scorpion PT Gold

For the past two seasons, I have hunted almost exclusively with the copper-plated Scorpion PT Gold polymer-tipped spire-point bullets from Harvester Muzzleloading - because they have been so darn accurate and have performed so well on the game being hunted. The expanded bullet in the photo at left was recovered from the buck I took with my .50 caliber Knight Long Range Hunter and 110-grain charge of Blackhorn 209. The 300-grain bullet centered a heavy rib bone upon entering...passed through both lungs...took out another heavy rib bone on the opposite side...then passed though the shoulder blade and came to rest just under the hide. Retained weight was 238 grains. Thanks to the electro-plated copper surface that literally adheres to the lead core, the base of this bullet looked as if it had not even been shot. Still it shed enough tiny bits and pieces of lead (and copper) as it spun through the lungs to create a fist-sized wound channel. Now, that is performance.

Published 1-11-08