Smoke pole question

I shoot blackhorn 209, how long can I keep it loaded during the upcoming deer season. This is my first muzzle loader and have got it zero’d in. Saturday can’t come quick enough

Thank you!!

Moisture is the enemy. It can be long added all week, but if it’s cooling down then brought in a warm place, possible condensation.

I use the same powder and just learned a few things about it. BH209 is a little sensitive to humidity. Not horrible, but I was getting a few misfires/hangfire.

I was using the cci 209mz primers then the federal 209. The ccimz was the worst on damp or humid days. I went with a recommendation I received on using the cci 209 magnum primers. It’s been flawless for me since.

One other word of advice. Clean that primer hole in the breech very well. I shoot a traditions and found that it took very little debris in the primer port to have an affect

Thanks Randy, appreciate it. I use the cci 209 mag primers too. It’ll be kept in the same environment, so I should be OK, and with any luck I’ll be done soon so I can be cutting meat.

Thanks again

BH209 does not absorb moisture anything like true black or T7 or Pyrodex. I’ve used it for several years and I leave the guns in a locked shop in the un-heated garage over-night.

BH209 is a “smokeless” nitro based powder while all the others use sulpher and carbon and will suck moisture from the air or any condensation from changing temperature zones.

Primers with the “mz” prefix are too cool when fired to reliably ignite 209. The shotshell CCI’s are good primers as are the Winchester 209’s that I use. The Winchester 209’s are longer, seal better with a slight crush and shoot clean in my guns while the CCI’s have too much blow by because they are shorter and can get hard to pull from the plug after firing three or four loads.

I just made the switch to blackhorn powder earlier this week. First, if available for your gun, get the breechplug designed for blackhorn. It makes a difference in powder ignition, especially after a few shots.

I was able to shoot two 5 shot groups, waiting 1 minute between shots, and 5 minutes between groups, with zero cleaning before it started to get hard to load a bullet. After 10 shots, I could still load powerbelts pretty easily, sabots were tough.

Had my breech plug redone hy badgerridge(excellent job),so I could shoot bh209 in my Knight with red plastic jackets,only thing available last week was win 209,ignited but with hangfire.Tommorow morning will have CCI 209M and Fed 209A to try per BH209 site,Hoping to cure the issue,dont want to go back to T7,but it does go boom all the time,even with the mz’s,just dont like to spit patch.
Anyone have issues igniting with the red plastic jackets??Hoping the new primers do it,but have talked to lots of others using win 209 with sucess,but none using plastic jacket.
I guess I will have my answer soon,just very curious.
Thanks!!

mnice….you can load and leave the charge all season long and if you have either a stainless or nitride barrel you don’t need to fret about cleaning until the season is over. T7, Pyrodex and true black has to be cleaned each day the gun gets fired and those guns shooting those powders should be kept in similar temperature environments over-night to prevent sweating as they will collect moisture.

Bill, I have zero experience with those primer jackets but I think that for the 209 powder one has to have a direct primer plug as the jackets make the flame path too long to consistently ignite the powder. I use Badgerridge’s vent liners in my plugs [CVA] that I have converted for their use and see no hang fires or misfires at all. I know Knight and others make conversions for Knight guns to use bare primers [no red or orange jackets]so you may need to check those plugs out but if I recall correctly there’s a bolt or bolt face modification that comes with the bare primer plugs too.

I have gone smokeless for muzzleloader hunting Savage ML2 and a custom 45/70 converted to a 45 cal muzzleloader . I have left the Savage loaded all year and no degradation . I do not miss cleaning every time i went out on a hunt .

Thanks all. I do have CVA stainless, have the 209 breech plug. I do appreciate the information. Good luck to all and stay safe

Thanks Tom,unfortunately the bare primer plug is no longer available,I would have gone that route,but still glad I did the ventliner conversion.
I ended up going back to T7 110grn 265grn hornady 44cal ftx and green crushrib,shot 2″ groups at 100 with a pretty good wind,so was happy with that,for the day.
I also believe plastic jacket and plug design are the culprits.