History

The Birth of the Savage Model 10 (or "the birth of "Big Nose Kate")

Posted on message board by: 1SHOT-1KILL - 12/6/2001 Photos provide by 1SHOT-1KILL on 3-13-03

In September 1990, we were at the range, for final sighting in of muzzleloaders for the upcoming season, in October. He was shooting a Lyman percussion .50 Cal trade rifle. He shoots left handed and was shooting it when the bolster drum cleaning screw blew out, entering his right forearm just about 2" above the wrist and traveled up his forearm about 3/4" deep, and it lodged about 1" behind his elbow in the lower tricep. Any way, he got back to the shop, examined the trade rifle, and found that the threads had stripped out of the bolster drum, were the screw was screwed into it. We had many discussions over what was the best design out there, what was available, etc. We decided to build a new design. First and foremost was, we wanted the strongest design ever. I decided that the use of a centerfire bolt action be the strongest design.

To keep it light, we chose the Mini-Mk X actions for this design. Using the concept of saboted shotguns slugs, we concluded that we should be able to achieve the same results out of a muzzleloader, with pretty much the same powders and charges. The only difference is ours would be loaded from the muzzle. The biggest hurdle we had to overcome was to prevent blow back. We conclude that some type of carrier would have to hold the 209, to ignite the smokeless powder, yet it would have to prevent any blow back. We chose to copy the case design of the .223 Rem. case, except it would only be 1" long, have a tapered nose to match that of the angle inside the breech plug. These modules would be made .001-.002" longer to create positive headspace, so that when the bolt was closed it would be forced to mate tightly, steel to steel, inside the breech plug. The breech plug was 2" long fully threaded. The concept was that with the 2" breech plug, a tight fitting module, and locked together with the bolt locking lugs it should safely hold up to the pressures of smokeless powders. August 1991, the guns were built, the modules were exact, and the powder were chosen.

We chose powders that were suitable for heavy shotgun and big bore pistol loads. We started out with 2400 and Win 571. We decided to start out with about 24 grains of each and work up from there. I forget what sabots we were shooting then, but we chose the Speer .451 260gr Mag-HP. Off to the range. Let me tell you that the pucker factor on that first shot was off the scale. The gun was loaded, the target sighted, but I must have sat there for 5 minutes squeezing the trigger. It seemed like an hour. The trigger finally broke, and I barely felt the recoil. I was happy as could be, my head was still there, where it was supposed to be. Now it was time to get down to serious shooting. In 1992, we filed for patents, and on prior art, they went back to initial designs drawn back in 1990. We spent the next few years building these custom smokeless muzzleloaders for customers, in just about every design you can think of, Remington #2 Rolling Blocks, Ruger #1's, H&R break open's, Martini's, many different bolt designs, and even Winchester M-94's. In 1996 we started soliciting major arms manufactures about this design. We sent examples to Remington, Weatherby, Browning, and Knight. They shot it a little but declined. But, one high ranking employee at Knight, took notice and tried a little too hard to persuade Knight to take it. Knight tried to imitate the design and failed. This employee tried hard to get Knight to accept this design, contract patent production rights, and go with it. Knight made his life there a living hell and he left Knight on bad terms. This employee would become one of our closest friends and the systems biggest champion, his name is Toby Bridges.

(Note: If you Click on the images a slightly bigger version will open in a new browser window)

(The Sako belongs to my dad, Henry, and one of the Martini's belongs to my neighbor, we built his Martini back in 1992 and the 2nd Martini I built a few years ago just because we had it laying around.)

For the next couple years, we solicited, through Toby Bridges, this design to Remington again, Austin & Helleck, Marksberry, Marlin, and Knight again. No takers. At the 1999 Shot Show, Toby Bridges approached Savage about this design, as he had heard through the grapevine, that they were considering getting into the muzzleloading market. Savage sent us a 10FP Tactical in .308 Win to convert to a muzzleloader. We got the 10FP in April 1999, made the conversion and tested it. IMR-4227 and the .452 300gr XTP performed the best, so that is what we carried to Savage in July 1999 for the demonstration. Savage conducted testing for the next few months and began tooling up. The contract was signed in February 2000. The first 10ML's hit the market in July 2000. But there was still 2 major hurdles to overcome. The first was the BATF, concluded that this what not a true muzzleloader and gave Savage an exemption of the BATF form 4473 requirement, till March 2001. Back to the drawing board. The other major hurdle was that Savage was having difficulty keeping the modules within tolerance. The new design did away with the modules, the bolt face, and locking lugs. This design was approved by BATF as a muzzleloader and total exemption of the 4473 form requirement. Thus the 10ML-II was born.

Was the first Savage 10ML a firearm?

Posted on message board by: 1SHOT-1KILL - 2/03/2003

The original 10ML that first hit the market in the fall of 1999, did not fully comply with the BATFs' criteria for a muzzleloader. Savage submitted a 10ML to the BATF in the summer of 199 for evaluation and determination as to whether it was a muzzleloader and exempt from the ATF form 4473, whether it was a muzzleloader yet still required the AFT form 4473, or as to whether it was a modern firearm.

The BATF ruled that it was a true muzzleloader and did not require the ATF form 4473. A few months later, under pressure from other muzzleloader manufactures, the BATF reversed themselves. They stated, that because the receiver and the barrel are threaded, eventhough with a bastard thread, and had a bolt head that would accept .222 Rem, .222 Rem. Mag, and the .223 Rem case heads, it could possibly be converted back to a centerfire rifle by a gunsmtith, eventhough they admitted it was most unlikely it would ever happen. But despite that reversal, they gave the Savage 10ML a 1 year exemption of the requirement of the ATF form 4473.

This 1 year exemption was to allow us and Savage to modify the 10ML slightly to fully and completely comply with the BATF's criteria of a muzzleloading firearm. We started immediately working on making it fully and completely BATF compliant, yet maintain the strength and saftey, with no loss of performance. We did away with the percussion module, thus redesigned the breech plug to accept and contain the 209 primer only, the centerfire rifle bolt head was replaced with a solid round bolt head designed to hold a 209 primer (the interior of the receiver is round with no bolt locking lug rails), and instead of having locking lugs on the bolt head, the new redesigned 10ML used the bolt handle as the locking lug. Thus the Savage 10ML-II was designed.

This design was submitted to the BATF in early spring 2000 for evaluation and determination. The BATF ruled it was a fully and completely a true muzzlelaoding fiream, and exempt from the ATF form 4473 and any/all registration.

Unleashing the Savage Beast

by Toby Bridges (visit Toby on www.hpmuzzleloading.com)

WARNING SMOKELESS POWDER, OTHER THAN PYRODEX, SHOULD NOT BE FIRED OUT OF ANY OTHER MUZZLELOADER. THE SAVAGE MODEL 10ML IS THE ONLY PRODUCTION MUZZLELOADER AVAILABLE TODAY DESIGNED AND BUILT TO SHOOT MODERN SMOKELESS POWDERS. THE PRESSURES CREATED BY THESE LOADS WILL TOTALLY DESTROY ANY OTHER MUZZLELOADER.

Muzzleloading, as we now know it, is about to change. And this change will definitely appeal to the serious big game hunter looking for the most effective and hardest hitting muzzleloading hunting rifle ever offered. At the same time, this new direction of the sport is sure to raise the dandruff of those traditionally oriented shooters and hunters who have argued for the past decade that muzzleloading has become too modern. In several issues of Gun Week over the past year, I have given readers a sneak peek at the future of muzzleloading. For three years now, I have been shooting several custom muzzleloading rifles which have been built to shoot smokeless powder loads. And do they ever shoot!

Different Actions
These rifles were built for me by custom riflesmith Henry Ball, of Greensboro, NC, a partner in a small custom operation known as Bill's Custom Guns. While I have shot several rifles built on Sako and Interarms Mauser actions, the two Ball rifles I personally own are built on other actions. One features a Howa centerfire bolt-action receiver and, believe it or not, the other has been built using a Winchester Model 94 lever-action receiver. While these two actions vary greatly, both feature a chambered breechplug in the rear of a McGowan .50-caliber barrel and utilize a reusable stainless steel percussion module (with 209 shotshell primer) for ignition.

While I'm still working on a pet load for the Model 94 frontloader, I've come up with several for the Howa-actioned .50-caliber smokeless pole. One of my early favorites was 34 grains of Alliant 2400 behind a saboted 250-grain, .45-caliber Hornady XTP jacketed hollow point. The load is good for about 2,350 feet-per-second (fps) velocity and 3,100 foot-pounds of energy (fpe) at the muzzle of the 24-inch barrel.

For about the past year, however, I've been shooting almost exclusively 45 grains of IMR-4227 behind a saboted 300-grain, .45-caliber Hornady XTP-Mag jacketed hollow point. Muzzle velocity is around 2,200 fps, but the energy produced jumps to around 3,300 foot pounds. (This is about the same energy produced by a 7mm Remington Magnum with a 150-grain bullet.) And this load consistently prints three-shot groups at 100 yards which average less than 1 inches across.

Proven System
During the past couple of deer seasons, more than a dozen whitetails have been taken with my rifles, at distances ranging from 50 yards to just over 200 yards. Three of the deer have been big bucks which easily field dressed at over 200 pounds each. Still, when hit by a 250- or 300-grain projectile, every one of these deer were literally anchored on the spot. Nothing ran, nothing tried to regain its footing. In short, the system has proven to be the most lethal muzzleloading big game rifle I have ever shot and hunted with.

Strength and Safety of the Savage

By 1SHOT-1KILL

This new system works very well and is very strong. I demonstrated its strength at the range in front of several naysayer's who said I was going to blow my head off by shooting smokeless powder. They kept saying IF I overcharged by a grain or two, it was going to blow up in my face. I got tired of listening to them and asked them if they were will to put their money were their mouth was. I told the one with the biggest mouth that if he was willing to put $100 on the bench I would over charge the 10ML-II I was shooting. He did and I got my LEE 3.4cc dipper and measured a scoop of Accurate Arms XMP-5744 (45 grains) and dumped it into the muzzle, I then got a second scope and started to trickle in a few grains, but decided what the hay, I dumped all of it into the muzzle, for a double charge (90 grains) of XMP-5744. I then stuffed a 250gr Hornady XTP on it, inserted a 209 primer, brought it my shoulder and fire it down range. They all looked at me like I was crazy or something. I then went on to tell them that I had designed this system for Savage and I knew exactly what it would do and was capable of. I did not take the guys money though, my conscience would not let me.

The current design, is the 10ML-II, that does not require the percussion module. The old design the 10ML, requires the percussion module. Each has its advantages & disadvantages, like the 10ML with the percussion modules is a stronger design meaning during destruction test it easily withstood pressures in the 156,000 psi range without any damage, but Savage has had trouble with the tolerances on the percussion modules on some rifles. The current 10ML-II, is much easier shoot, in that you will not have to worry about the percussion modules being out of tolerance are wearing out of tolerance. The 10ML-II is not quiet as strong as the 10ML, but has easily withstood pressures in the 120,000 psi range. Also the 10ML-II is available in stainless, and in the near future both the blued and stainless with be available with laminated stock and Realtree or Advantage camo stocks.

You can weigh every single powder charge, but I haven't weighed a charge (other than verifying the dipper weights for load data) in over 2.5 years. Instead I've been using the LEE Powder Dipper Set, mainly the 3.1cc, 3.4cc, and 3.7cc dippers exclusively for all loading, on the range and in the field. For example, the 3.4cc LEE Dipper will throw dip a charge of 44.9 grains of XMP-5744, if I weigh the charges I go to 45.0 grains even. I use the LEE Dippers on IMR-4227, H-4227, XMP-5744, VihtaVouri N110, and Lil' Gun. But until you get comfortable shooting smokeless powder in a muzzleloader, then by all means weigh them. Back in 1991, when I shot our prototype the first time with 2400 powder, I have to admit the pucker factor was high, to say the least.

There is a tendency to try and equate this muzzleloader to centerfire rifle loads. Yes, a grain or 2 over charge in a 30/06 can result in a blown primer, ruptured case, ect. That is because, in a centerfire cartridge you have an enclosed combustion chamber where the pressure spikes very quickly and with an over charge sometimes dangerously. But with the 10ML-II , you have a pressure relief valve, the sabot. If the charge is too hot, say in an over charge or even a double charge, the sabot simply blows apart at the base, cause blow by at the sabot and the pressure never builds to a dangerous level. I've demonstrated double charges of XMP-5744 with a 250gr XTP, by firing them from the shoulder. But I don't make this a habit, just done it a couple times.

Note: We don't recommend doing this, but you can see what this gun will stand, and the safety margin it affords.

With the 10ML-II, the sabot is the key to getting great accuracy. The key is to keep them cool. This means keeping the barrel cool. If the barrel heats up, then the sabots will heat up in the barrel. When the sabots, any sabots, get hot they become soft and pliable, and will not stand up to the high velocity and pressure. They will shred fingers off and burn through at the base. Allow 5 minutes or so between shots for the barrel to return to a cool state, then load and shoot. This is the most common mistake that I've found new shooters of the 10ML-II making. They tend to loads and shoot as fast as they can, just like with other muzzleloader using BP, PYRODEX, etc.

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