2026 – Badger Ridge Industries

Posted on August 2, 2026August 2, 2026 by Badger Ridge — Leave a comment

Heavy Meddling and Smokeless Powder

This was originally posted to our old website in Jan 2019. It generated a lot of discussion (one public comment posted at the end, and many private messages and phone calls). Some folks just don’t want to hear any reasoning that contradicts their own ideas or desires. I stand by my reasoning and position. That is why I am reposting and editing/updating it below.

Rem 700 MLS feeding 209 primer into sealed breech - close up — Close up of Remington 700 MLS feeding 209 primer into sealed breech

The Remington 700 ML/MLS & Ruger 77/50 muzzleloaders have been out of production for years now. These rifles can vary drastically in condition. Some have hardly been used. Others used, but well cared for. Some have been neglected. So their condition truly runs the full gambit. This is further complicated due to the original design and other 209 modifications sending fouling corrosive gasses throughout the bolt and the receiver. New owners can be further confused by the various kits that may have been fitted over the years.

Our kits fix blow back issues, don’t rely on most of the parts people tinker with, and base line the rifle to a solid known good state. Many folks find their way to this blog from a simple internet search. Frequently because they are having trouble like misfires, failure-to-fire, are tired of blow back, etc. Some just want to use BlackHorn209 powder (which will misfire or blooper if not sealed up, or paired with proper standard or magnum 209 primers). Other’s have a friend that fixed his woes with our system, or saw a modified rifle at the range using our awesome 209 conversion for Remington 700 ML’s and Ruger 77/50 rifles.

Loading a primer and sealing the breech with it on our Rem 700 ML/MLS 209 system

Some just know that there has to be a better way, and there is: you found it in our kits. However you got here, and whatever shape your rifle is in, welcome to the best, last conversion you’ll ever want on your rifle, and a great source for other hard to find Remington 700 ML parts.

If you are new to our conversions, you may want to skip this blog post and read some of the others, then come back to this one, as it assumes you already know our conversions are awesome and fix your troubles.

However some folks are determined to do some even “heavier meddling” and make these rifles something different. I’ve looked at this and on a personal level, I’m not interested and won’t be doing anything more on my rifles than using our kits to seal the breech, and shoot Blackhorn209 powder.

We do have products that will aid those who still want to do that barrel swap and burn smokeless, but I myself won’t be going down that path. In this post I want to discuss this ‘heavy meddling’ and explain why I won’t do it myself.

The number one question I get concerning meddling and trying to do ‘more’ is converting to 209’s with our kit and shooting smokeless powder in the factory barrel: DON’T DO IT! It says it right on your rifle’s barrel. No kit will change the fact that the barrel is not safe for smokeless powder. I don’t care what you read on some forum, or what some guy on the range told you. DON’T DO IT! There are not any magical fairy smokeless powders for your rifle, and there isn’t any need to take that risk!

The problem here is that muzzle loader safe propellants (like Black Powder, Pyrodex, Triple Se7en, and BlackHorn209) have different burning properties than the wide spectrum that makes up modern smokeless powder. And that difference is what saves folks from blowing up guns (so long as they follow the manufacture’s rules, don’t double charge, double load, etc). I cannot emphasize enough how using only a muzzle loader safe propellant (and using a witness mark on the ram rod to know the rifle is loaded and avoid a double charge) is the key to enjoying this sport safely.

I did write a lengthy blog article about all this.

That said, some rifles, with special barrels are made to use certain types of smokeless powder. However, your Remington nor Ruger is not one of them.

Yes, some folks swap barrels to make a smokeless gun. They of course are 100% on their own, and liable for their own technical problems and safety issues. If it is possible to do a barrel swap, and may be legal in some states to hunt on some hunts with a smokeless muzzle loader… why do it? What really are you going to get and at what cost? Typically those pursuing smokeless want faster, flatter shooting, harder hitting rifles, and think that they need to go smokeless to get better performance. But how much increase in range or velocity will you get versus the $$$$$ spent? How much heavier or more awkward of a rifle will you make? Will it group any better than what you started with?

Doesn’t the original leaky rifle, with black powder, already have what it takes to kill anything in North America?!?! Our kits seals up those breach leaks and makes it reliable. Many modern muzzle loading propellants already out perform black powder. These rifles with their factory barrels have a reputation of being very accurate. Do you really need more than that?

A customer’s rifle 209 converted rifle (original barrel) and his group (click picture above to read more customers’ feedback)

Looking at these rifles as they came from the factory, folks ‘just know’ that they could be so much better. I agree: our kits take them to their full potential.

I believe the factory rifle (with our 209 kit) is good enough: my rifles shoot reliably, accurately, and harvest deer (the largest game I can kill around here is Black Bear, but Black Bear isn’t my thing… but I’m sure my rifles could easily handle Black Bear). I’m confident my rifles, with our kit and factory barrels, will kill any North American game to 200 yds. I’m convinced that anyone with a Remington 700 ML/MLS or Ruger 77/50 in good shape and wants to have a top performing muzzle loader, only needs to use our kit, standard 209 primers, Blackhorn209, sabots, and jacketed hand gun bullets or muzzle loader specific bullets.

Steve P, from Lake Orion, Michigan: 130 yard shot, 120gr by volume of Black Horn 209, Parker Ballistic Extreme 300gr and the Badger Ridge bolt upgrade, Timney trigger.

But to continue the comparison: rifles re-barreled for smokeless almost always have much longer, heavier barrels. It must be emphasized that the longer barrel itself gives an increase in velocity… all things being the same: longer barrels increase velocity. Or in other-words, shooting the same powder charge and projectile combination in a longer barrel will generate more velocity. This is because the projectile is in the barrel longer, getting pushed by expanding gasses for longer, so more energy (AKA velocity) is transferred to the projectile.

But with BlackHorn209, and your factory barrel, you don’t have to go smokeless to get more velocity. At heavier bullet weights, (like 275gr and up) I think you will find BlackHorn209 out performs all other muzzle loader safe propellants. And if you were to chronograph a safe smokeless load in a barrel made for smokeless, and of the same length as the factory barrel, against a BlackHorn209 charge (both using the same 300gr projectile), the BlackHorn209 load wouldn’t be too far behind the smokeless. By too far behind, I’m talking a couple/three hundred feet per second. And lets be honest, 200 to 300 FPS is not much of an increase in range or killing power.

Back of a Blackhorn 209 bottle. Note what it says about primers, compatible sealed systems, and min/max loads

In general barrel swaps cost around $1200.00 [this was back in 2019: the cost certainly has increased]. Frequently more, occasionally less if you do a lot of the work yourself. To consider what our kit does to a standard rifle vs doing a barrel swap, you have to consider the cost against the potential performance increases. And I don’t think that $1200 is worth it. Especially because BlackHorn209 is readily available, and safe! You must realize that if you get something wrong with the smokeless gun, you are more probable to have a KABOOM!

Remember, a longer barrel is essentially what the newer Remington 700 Ultimate Muzzle Loader (UML) has over the older Remington 700 ML/MLS. The Ultimate is a longer, heavier rifle. It is not as handy, and costs so much more than a good used MLS. Plus I understand Remington no longer will warranty the rifle if its been shot with BlackHorn209, so in that case, you are restricted in the powders you can use. I’ve had plenty of customers tell me they sold their Ultimate and got a used 700 MLS rifle and our kit because it does the job, is more handy, easier to carry, and actually saved them $ because its cheaper over all.

I have a Savage 10ML2, new in the box. I’ve never shot it! Why? Because its super long and super heavy: my Remington 700 ML’s and Ruger 77/50’s (with their original barrels) get the job done and are so much lighter and handier. And I don’t go deer hunting from a bench… I’m walking out to the fields and woods, climbing up into tree stands, up ladders, etc. My Remington and Ruger rifles with their factory barrels win hands down overall when it comes to hunting.

So for me, I wouldn’t entertain a barrel swap unless the barrel was not serviceable. And even then its probably cheaper (and definitely easier) to just buy another used 700 MLS rifle with a factory barrel! Or even easier and cheaper to find a ‘take off’ barrel on Ebay from someone’s smokeless build. I get nearly the same performance from my factory barreled rifles, and without all the cost, weight, awkward handling, and added trouble of doing the work to swap a barrel. Dollars & work in vs performance out: I’m tickled pink with our kit and my factory barrels.

If you are tired of the clean up of Black Powder substitutes, and wanting to get away from them for that reason, BlackHorn209 comes out ahead there too. Blackhorn209 cleans up great with standard gun cleaning solvents, just like a smokeless gun. You can read more about that by clicking the posts here in the Badger’s Den (organized by topic).

All that said: any muzzleloader safe propellant works great in the Remington and Ruger original barrels (with our kits installed on the bolt and shooting saboted projectiles). It is so much easier just to convert to our system and get great performance, I don’t think I’ll ever re-barrel a rifle and go smokeless.

But if you are absolutely set on swapping barrels, we offer “half kits.” Smokeless conversions usually use a custom breech plug that sits deeper into the breech (I typically recommend using a Savage 10 ML2 breech plug if you are going to swap barrels). So, folks putting a new barrel on a Remington will probably want a longer nose. Our long nose protrudes farther forward and will not work with our standard breech plug, nor the original barrel. The cost is the same for a half kit with a long nose or a standard nose (just tell us in the “note to seller” portion of check out if you want a long nose).

This bolt has a long nose: it goes about .085″ deeper, but won’t work with a OEM barrel

Standard Nose bolt (note you can see more of the breech plug exposed). Works with OEM barrel and standard Badger Ridge Breech plug

Our Ruger conversions don’t have longer nose options: only the Remington has that option and it’s only for barrel swaps.

ONE LAST COMMENT ON BARREL SWAPS: IF YOU SWAP THE BARREL YOU OWE IT TO WHO EVER USES THE RIFLE AFTER YOU SELL IT (OR PASS IT ON TO) TO INSCRIBE ON IT SPECIFICATIONS:

#1: Its caliber, ie “.45 CAL”

#2: What powder is safe in it: “Use ONLY BLACK POWDER/BLACK POWDER SUBSTITUTES” &/or “USE ONLY APPROVED SMOKELESS POWDERS AT APPROVED QUANTITIES” etc.

So there you have it. I got on my soap box, and told folks that I’ll sell them what they want, but I won’t necessarily agree with them that they ‘need’ it.

So if you contact me asking about smokeless mods, I’ll try and figure out what your priorities are, see if they could be met with a cheaper option: our kit, the rifle’s original barrel, BlackHorn209, and Sabots. Those are deadly combinations.

That’s my advice, because that is what I use and resolved to myself.

Alas, the customer is always right!

Preserving a public comment/reply below

Comment from Matt 9/24/2021

A new, prefit barrel costs $250-350, a 2 taps costs $40, a grade 9 bolt costs $2, a few small stainless bolts (replaceable vent liner) costs $5, 4 drill bits cost $10-$15, 20 cut down .308 cases are going to run you about $30 (and solve the blowback issue + allow the use of rifle primers)… for a rough total of $440… where is the rest of the $1200 coming from, unless you pay someone else to entirely convert your rifle for you? Basic knowledge of tools, attention to detail, and a basic understanding how firearms work are all that is really required.

Smokeless doesn’t necessarily mean more pressure, nor does it mean more velocity… you have to load it that way for it to be so. Bluedot has a similar burn rate to BH209 (higher ignition temps, however), and RedDot-Unique (on Hodgdon’s supplied burn charts) offer burn rates similar to common BP. You don’t have to use 150gr charges of slow rifle powder and pistol bullets lol.

BP is an explosive, it’s pressure curve is very short and spikey, in order to generate the necessary volume of gas to get the velocity, you have to generate quite high pressures. Smokeless, especially the slow shot powders and fast rifle powders, allow you to achieve the same velocities at lower breech pressures. You also use considerably less smokeless to accomplish the same velocities than you will BH209 or BP, which saves a lot of money.

Reply from Badger Ridge (Tom) 9/24/2021

I think you are mixing a bunch of half truths and and oversimplifying to justify your meddling. If you want to meddle, go ahead, but I’d suggest you slow down and quit trying to push and rail against those of us urging caution, not seeing the value in such meddling, and asking simple questions like: “What are the real risks vs the rewards? What are you trading away? Are you over simplifying & ignoring? What is the cost of getting it wrong? Who pays it?”

Please, don’t try to use this site to paint a false picture: that building a smokeless setup as something it isn’t. It isn’t simple and easy nor is it super safe. But again, if you want to meddle, its your life. Just don’t push it on others.

Your argument on cost is flawed: first, I specifically say that the costs can vary due to how much you can do yourself). How much did the tooling to make custom parts cost? How much would you have to pay a skilled technician for their knowledge, time, and tools? If you don’t like my $1200 round figure you must assume most folks are able to DIY, and that you don’t have to account for labor costs (and I said as much in my post)

Further, you also assume that you are correct in all your broadly expressed assumptions & over simplifications on various smokeless powder burn properties (you are not). You ignore the probability of, and the effects of, overcharging with smokeless in a muzzle loader. You ignore the pertinent differences in black powder’s ‘burn rate/spikey curve’ that make it much less dangerous to over charge with.

Who analyzed those pressure curves, with what tools, and then engineered a system to contain them? What safety factor did they build into the system? (BUT OVER CHARGING IS BAD IN ANY SITUATION). People make mistakes. Which one do you want going KABOOM with your hand on the fore-end, and face just behind the action?

Another issue with your post seems that you are assuming we are discussing using a centerfire action (made to feed 308 cases and take smokeless pressures). The rifles I’m discussing lack recoil lugs and also don’t have the ability to utilize 308 cases as primer carriers… I’ve discussed primer carrier ignition systems like used on the Ultimate elsewhere (in the Badger’s Den and our FAQ)… and why we abandoned the plan to convert muzzle loaders to use them. 209 systems are simpler and more effective.

When you look at the whole of those shooting muzzle loaders, very few relatively, have the ability to prime and de-prime cases. They are better served by using 209s in a system to puts most of the wear on a 209 that is readily obtained and then discarded after use. Of course if you are set up to reload that’s an easy fix, but a very bad point to over look from the majority perspective.

So with these old muzzle loaders, that aren’t designed for smokeless, aren’t safe for smokeless, can’t handle 308 sized cartridge cases, but yet have a great propellant (with tons of engineering behind it) like BH209 available… its still the smarter move just to put our kit on the old leaky breech rifle, use BH209, and avoid the heavy meddling.

A little knowledge on a subject is dangerous… knowing enough to believe you understand and are competent, but not knowing enough to know that you don’t understand everything is a bad place. To get through that state, one typically requires something called wisdom.

If you can come up with all the complicated stuff to convert/re-barrel a rifle, but don’t value what I’m trying to show you here… please move on.

But alas you are free to meddle. Just don’t expect me to support it as a ‘good’ or ‘best move’. Nor will I urge others to put so much resources into trying to get such little performance increase when its so safe and easy and to get just about the same thing with our kit and BH209.

Posted on August 2, 2026August 2, 2026 by Badger Ridge — Leave a comment

Another tough bolt arrived, and went home with a 209 conversion.

Originally posted to our old website in November of 2018. Reposting and updating it here. I’ve done a lot of these totally frozen messed up bolts over the years. Unfortunately bolts corroding solid are a fairly common outcome from many folks ignoring basic maintenance on the old leaky breech systems. If you have one, the short answer is to remove the bolt from the rifle, purchase our system with installation service, and then send me the bolt. If you want the long answer keep reading:

Welcome to the blog of the company that has the best fix for your Ruger 77/50 and Remington 700 ML/MLS. Our sealed breech 209 modifications are the fix for blow-back, miss fires, etc. Our kits are Blackhorn209 compatible and seal up the breech with 209 primers. If an internet search brought you here, your search is over. This blog has lots of articles about those two rifles and our products for them. You can click on the links in them or in the banner at the top of the screen to find the items you may be interested in.

The Remington 700 ML and Ruger 77/50 muzzleloaders are our specialty. They both came from the factory with the same fatal flaw: blow-back coursing backwards through the bolt from each firing. The Remington and Canadian 209 mods didn’t improve this. If anything they only made blow-back worse.

If not quickly and properly cleaned after firing, the bolt will corrode and freeze up. Our kits correct this fatal flaw by sealing up the breech. But not everyone has our kit yet, and seeing these rifles are all 20 plus years old, it’s all to common for some one to have shot and then put it away without a proper cleaning. Be thankful if the bolt was at least removed! Getting a frozen bolt out of a rifle is a nightmare!

So beyond installing our 209 system on bolts that have been well to decently cared for, we frequently get challenged when folks send us neglected froze up bolts. Sometimes we get them before they get beat on, other times we get to see if we can pick up the pieces and make it work. You can read more about some of the crazier ones we get here in the “Badger’s Den” and get more specific help troubleshooting a Remgington 700 ML by clicking the “Maintenance and Troubleshooting guide” of the Remington 700 ML Resources section. We also have a Ruger 77-50 Resource section too.

If you have a tough Remington or Ruger bolt, or any questions, remember you can call us at 989 795 2526 or reach out to us via our contact form. We’ll get back to you with a cell phone number and email address so we can start the process!

When the owner of the bolt seen here contacted me asking if I could help, once I replied to him, he was thoughtful enough to text me pics. After looking at his pictures, I was pretty sure I could fix it: But I wasn’t certain what parts of his I could salvage and what parts I would need to replace. The bolt plug looked good, which was surprising… usually when folks try to take these apart and break them they mangle something, and typically that is the bolt plug.

So I counseled him that I was confident I could fix it, but couldn’t be sure of the price until I had it in my hands, tore it down, and scrubbed it all clean. I commonly have to sell new components in cases like this, or have to ask for some more money beyond the basic install fee for my time and tools/materials I put into fixing these.

I told him to start by buying our standard Remington 700 ML-MLS kit with installation, then send me the all the pieces he had from the bolt, and we’d take it from there. If I needed more money I’d let him know.

When the parts came, it was very clear that the striker/firing pin was fused to the body pretty solid. I tried my normal tricks to get it loose, and even tried to press it out with my jig and 12 ton press. It wouldn’t budge. So I began flushing the gunk I could out of it from the back end of the bolt, and tried the jig and the press again. No luck. It actually kept breaking the sacrificial pin I built into the jig to keep from over stressing stuff: This bolt wouldn’t break free. Frustrated: I filled the back end of it up with Kroil penetrating oil to sit over night. Worst case, I’d have to chuck this in the lathe and drill the firing pin/striker out from the opening in the bolt nose.

I then turned my attention to the cocking piece. The cross pin was out. So I chucked it up in my lathe and tried drilling it out left handed, that normally does the trick but it didn’t budge. So I tried small holes with screw removers wedged in, and every other trick I knew, but it wouldn’t budge. So I ended up just drilling it out and leaving the little spiral of the V from the thread in it and then picking that out. It was a bit tougher than removing a screw from a blind hole as it all kept fracturing where the cross pin was drilled through, and it’s a deep hole proportionally to its diameter. But eventually I got the portion deep towards the bottom out with a bottoming tap and a small dental pick.

I’m glad I could save the customer from having to buy a new cocking piece (we stock the unthreaded version of these cocking pieces for customers in this situation and have special firing pins for our kits that work with unthreaded cocking pieces).

The leftovers from drilling out the end of the firing pin lodged inside the cocking piece

I left the bolt body to sit for the evening so that the penetrating oil could do its work. When I came back the next morning none of the Kroil had seeped through to the nose. That wasn’t a good sign, as it meant that pin was wedged in there and sealed. I tried the jig and the press again. I sheared the breakaway pin again (I was really getting frustrated having to fab more break away pins!).

So I made a new jig that didn’t have a shear pin. Either I was going to break the pin free of the bolt body, or I’d break the bolt in the press. I probably should have just chucked the bolt in my lathe and drilled it but I was pissed and moving forward: At this point I falsely felt I had nothing to lose. Luckily for the customer the 12 ton press and the new jig (and probably the Kroil) did the trick, the firing pin/striker busted free of the bolt body, but bent the old firing pin the the process, which made it super tricky to get out, but I managed to get creative and work that one out too.

Bend the firing pin breaking it loose! Note the absence of a main spring: it corroded totally away!

I was amazed. Typically when I break these apart there are sections of mainspring that come out. In this case the mainspring had completely corroded. It must have been all that corroded mess that I had flushed out the first evening!

Anyways from here it was just cleaning up all the crud, and removing any pitting that would interfere with the new firing pin. Now that I had the parts all apart and cleaned up: it was just a normal installation.

I did ask the client for a little more money for my time, broken shear pins, and use of my lathe and sent his bolt back to him: Crisis corrected.

If you have a tough Remington or Ruger bolt, and want a convesation please feel free to reach out to us via phone (989 795 2526) our contact form. We’ll get back to you with a cell phone number and email address so we can start the process!

But all you really need to do is get the bolt out of the rifle, purchase our conversion with installation service, and get me the bolt. I’ll figure it out and get back to you.

This is the completed bolt ready to go back to the customer.

Preserving a comment from the original website below:

Comment from Eli bowman 10/13/2019

Was sick of my 700ml to many misfires then I come across a like a new gun. I had Badger Ridge 209 install the conversion into my bolt. I love the way it pushes the 209 into the breech plug; highly highly recommend if you have a 700 ML. It’s worth every penny for this conversion and really like the hand written thank you for your purchase that came with my kit.

Badger ridge, thank you for quality kit. Keep up the great work! Got 3 buddies that have 700ml s so I’m sure you will get there business when they see mine!

Reply from Badger Ridge (Tom) 10/13/2019

Thanks for the kinds words. We look forward to helping your friends as well!

Posted on August 1, 2026August 1, 2026 by Badger Ridge — Leave a comment

Detailing Fixing Another Frozen Remington 700 ML Bolt

This was originally posted to our old website in April of 2018. Moving it here and editing/updating it to preserve the content. Now-a-days I fix bolts like this more often that I’d like to admit, but a few years back I sometime I felt inclined to share. Hope it helps you.

Welcome to the website with the only conversion kit you’ll ever want on your Remington 700 ML or Ruger 77/50. I’ve been writing and updating this blog for years. If an internet search brought you here, you will find what you are looking for by reading through these articles or finding the topic you are interested in along the right hand side.

The Remington 700 ML and Ruger 77/50 are our specialty. They both came from the factory with the same fatal flaw: blow-back coursing backwards through the bolt from each firing. The Remington and Canadian 209 mods didn’t improve this. If anything they only made blow-back worse.

If not quickly and properly cleaned after firing the bolt will corrode and freeze up. Our kits correct this fatal flaw by sealing up the breech. But not everyone has our kit yet, and seeing these rifles are all 10 to 20 years old, it’s all to common for some one to have shot and then put it away without a proper cleaning. Be thankful if the bolt was at least removed! Getting a frozen bolt out of a rifle is a nightmare!

Badger Ridge sealed breech 209 system feeding a primer

I was contacted by a Remington 700 owner who admitted he shot his rifle a few years ago, removed the bolt but never cleaned. He had soaked the bolt in penetrating oil for a couple of days, but he couldn’t get it to budge. I recommended he buy our 209 conversion with installation, send me the bolt, and if it wasn’t too much additional work I wouldn’t bother him. He was on a tight budget and couldn’t afford our 209 conversion. So, I told him to purchase our legacy mainspring replacement service and ship me the bolt. We’d go up from there as my time and replacement parts required. We sometimes have new bolt bodies, and essentially always have new mainsprings, and more!

Once I got the bolt in my hands, it looked like any other Remington 700 bolt with the Canadian 209 mod, but indeed I couldn’t compress the mainspring nor get it to move when I put it in a rifle. First move: soak it a couple of days in penetrating oil. After the penetrating oil bath it still wouldn’t budge, so I put it in the jig I made for these bolts and pushed on the firing pin with my 12 ton press. That worked without any marring or damage!

What it looked like after I used my jig and press to compress the mainspring.

The firing pin “protested” a little as it protruded. Once the threaded portion of the firing pin was exposed, I cut the firing pin off (at point where it threads into the cocking piece). I removed the remnant threaded end from the cocking piece. Then I reversed the bolt in the jig and pressed out the pin from the back:

Fring pin pressed out from the rear after cutting it near the cocking piece. The brown crud isn’t grease: its penetrating oil soaked rust and crud

Because it was corroded through in multiple places: most of the mainspring came out (in 3 pieces) with the firing pin, but not all of it. The bolt plug wouldn’t unscrew, even after I cleaned it up. I realized the back end of the mainspring had fused itself to the bolt plug, so back into penetrating oil for another night.

The next day I managed to get the bolt plug to break free of the body. Removed the chunk of mainspring that had fused itself to the bolt plug, and cleaned up all the pitting. After a lot of cleaning, scrubbing, and gingerly re-freshening of threads: the cocking piece, bolt body, and bolt plug ended up being serviceable. As I had to sacrifice the original firing pin to get it apart, I pulled an old used Canadian firing pin out of my junk bin. All I needed was a new mainspring to put it all back together. The client made my additional trouble ‘right’ with a few more dollars and it all went back in the mail.

While the customer is always right, and he is very happy… I have to admit it didn’t sit right with me to do so much work just to leave the bolt with a leaky setup that will likely fail even if properly cared for… and if neglected it will totally lock up again. I really felt this rifle needed our sealed breech 209 conversion. But the customer is always right.

Hope this has helped you. If we can help you in anyway (perhaps with a Ruger 77/50 or Remington 700 ML) please call us at 989-795-2526 or use the Contact page to reach out. We usually reply within 24 hrs. Be sure to mention what type of muzzle loader you have!

Ruger 77-50 Badger Ridge 209 sealed breech converted bolt

Preserving some of the more useful comments and replies from the original post:

Comment from Jeff Harn 12/4/2024

I have a 700ML (20 years old) and keep having a lot of miss fires.

I’m just looking into to what the problem could be since reading the above article think it’s just going to need a good internal cleaning of the bolt and go with the upgrade.

One thing I will say is that when everything is working correctly with this gun You can touch the bullet holes! Please any other feed back is much appreciated

Reply from Badger Ridge

Yes these rifles tend to shoot well. That’s why I love them and strive to service and improve all that I can. The original system and the older modifications all suck. However the system we sell will fix the unreliable ignition and make the Remington 700 ML/MLS one of the finest muzzle loaders you can own.

Bottom Line: You need to switch to our sealed breech system: Click the links to learn more:

Remington 700ML/MLS Sealed Breech 209 system

The Longer answer as to why this is better is at our blog here:

THE REMINGTON 700ML/MLS, A JEWEL IN THE ROUGH; Can You Make It Shine? Part 1

Posted on August 1, 2026August 1, 2026 by badgerridge — Leave a comment

We perform sealed breech 209 conversions for Ruger 77-50 rifles!

We originally offered a 209 conversion for the Remington 700 ML. Then in February of 2017 we released a similar sealed breech 209 system for the Ruger 77/50! Reposting this anouncement from our old website here to preserve and update it.

Much like the Remington 700 ML and 700ADL, Ruger sold a muzzle loader that looks a lot like the Ruger 77/44 (and the 77/22): the Ruger 77/50. According to the Ruger website, it was in production from 1997-2004. Judging by serial number data no where near as many were made as the 700ML. The Ruger functioned very similar to the Remington, and even had a breech thread that allowed use of 700ML breech plugs. (Not that we nor the manufacturer are endorsing that. It’s just so similar it’s possible). Thus these rifles had many of the same problems as the Remington 700 ML: Blow-back, frequent misfires, and factory setups that didn’t have 209 options.

So when Ruger owners find the Badger Ridge Industries 209 kit for the Remington 700ML, they often contact us and ask if we can make a similar “seal up the breech, BlackHorn209 compatible, finger simple prime de-prime system” for the Ruger 77/50. Now, I’m proud to say “YES WE CAN!”

In order to develop and prove out our sealed breech 77/50 209 conversion a few 77/50’s were purchased and converted by Fred and myself. Having a couple of centerfire Ruger 77 MKII’s that I’ve hunted with for years, in many ways the 77/50 didn’t feel like a totally new rifle to me, even though it was a ‘totally new’ rifle to me. And while on the surface it works similar to the Remington, and the breech plug threads of both are essentially identical, the 77/50 is a very different rifle to convert.

As the rifle came from the factory, or even when modified with a Canadian 209 system, the warning about “Hot Gases Exit Nipple Area” excerpted from the 77/50 manual rings true and must be heeded. Hot gasses and pieces of primers/caps being blown back and around the nipple and the associated fouling are some time referred to as “blow by”. However I find it seems more accurate to call it “Blow Back”. The later version of the 77/50 used a protrusion on the bolt itself to try and direct the blow back to the side of the rifle. And while it does accomplish this, it also directs blow-back into the bolt. The bolt has a vent in the bolt body that directs the blow back that enters it down and into the stock! So as delivered from Ruger, blow back gets in the bolt, and is even directed down and into the inner recesses of the rifle!

This complicates cleaning and over the long term reduces the reliability of the system. So compared to the Remington we had to modify the Ruger’s bolt much more to get a 209 system that seals the breech and is more reliable.

The main reason to switch to our system is not only to use 209 primers, but to seal up the breech area and essentially eliminate all of the blow-back issues. 209 primers are hotter and more reliable source of ignition. Using them to seal blow back into the breech plug vastly simplifies cleaning and makes the rifle safer and more reliable. Our conversion seals out the elements and allows one to shoot Blackhorn 209 powder. Which in my opinion is the best black powder substitute available. The Canadian 209 system and the original cap system are not Blackhorn 209 compatible, and they allow blow-back into all those nooks and crannies.

Remember the warning above: blow-back not only can injure a shooter or by stander, but it can burn the optics mounted above the breech, project corrosive fouling throughout the bolt and action, and wear out a mainspring prematurely. Even worse, the Ruger 77/50 is known to have an additional deficiency: Blow back launches the firing pin rearward and occasionally shears the trigger’s sear!

Our conversion for the Ruger 77/50 fixes all of these woes by sealing the blow back into the breech plug with the 209 primer!

Badger Ridge Converted bolt feeding primers and sealing them into the breech plug

The conversion process requires the bolt to be completely stripped, our new firing pin to be installed, the extended shroud to be cut off, and the nose of the bolt dressed. Then the 209 nose is timed to align it for loading and unloading, pressed on, and firing pin protrusion set. So once complete there really isn’t any going back. But once the converted rifle is shot, I’m sure no one will ever want to go back to the leaky original set up!

Our Ruger 77/50 conversion is through its first rounds of testing but is still in what the DoD would call LRIP (low rate initial production). I’m not comfortable sending this one out for just anyone to install, and for now, will only offer it as a full conversion service. Or in other words, I’m not willing to sell this one as a kit; you will have to pay me to install it.

The Ruger conversion uses a very similar breech plug to the one used in our Remington system:

If you are interested in making your rifle work the way you always wanted it to, and Blackhorn 209 compatible, you can purchase Ruger 77/50 conversion as a service (very similar to our Remington 700ML conversion service). Mail us your bolt, we’ll convert, and send it back with the breech plug, vent liner, and other accessories. The details are all in the listing for this service!

We also can ship an entire new 209 converted bolt to you if you want to keep the original leaky system, or are missing a bolt etc. That is more expensive than converting an existing bolt. We do not recommend this unless you hunt out west where leaky non 209 systems are required for special hunts, but on others you can use our sealed breech 209 system.

And as always feel free to use the Contact form to send me your info or call us at 989 795 2526. If you use the contact for we will do our best to email back promptly.

Preserving some of the questions/comments from the original post below:

Comment from Jim Brown 11/14/2017

How easy is it to remove spent primers? Are there issues with primer misalignment with the 209 recess in the breech plug? I am considering this conversion for my Ruger.

Reply from Badger Ridge 11/14/2017

Typically you pull the spent primer from the bolt nose with your fingers or just turn the rifle on it’s side and the primer falls out. No misalignment issues. The nose feeds the primer into the breech plug. It seals by getting a .003 to .005″ crush. So when extracting the primer it comes right out of the breech plug via the bolt action, and by turnging the rifle on it’s side the primer will fall out.

If there is any issue, its only with a discharged primer ‘ballooning’ and sticking in the nose, but every time that has happened to me a dry fire was all that was required to loosent the spent primer in the nose. Then opened the bolt and the primer dropped out when I turned the rifle on its side.

The real issue you need to understand is that every brand of primer has slightly different dimensions. With this system the most critical dimension is length. We will set the bolt to lightly crush Federal primers in our test rifle. 9 times out of 10 this will give the same results for the end-user.

In the 1 in 10 that doesn’t, they either have no crush, or too much crush (excessive headspace or insufficent head space). In the case of no crush, the instructions recommend that you try Winchester primers (as they are longer than the other 3 USA made primers). If you get a seal/light crush with them, then use them. Also you could buy primer pocket shims from us, and shim the primer pocket to use shorter primers.

In the very few cases the head space is insufficeint to cloase the bolt on CCI/Federal/Remington 209’s, the customer sends the bolt back to us. We increase headspace by about .005″ and typically they get a good crush then.

Comment from Jim Brown 12/7/2017

Tom, I am curious. What does the vent liner screw do?

Reply from Badge Ridge (Tom) 12/7/2017

Short answer: The vent liner is a removable flash hole… so that when the flash hole (small hole down the middle of it) is shot out and enlarges, you just replace the vent liner.

Long answer: The vent liner focuses the fire from the primer, and acts as a constriction of back pressure from the burning powder charge… by having its constriction and the large expansion area between it and the primer, back pressure seen at the primer is reduced and keeps from deforming or blowing up the primer. This action tends to produce consistent pressures, which tends to increase accuracy as well.

Flash hole errosion is a problem on all sealed breech 209 muzzleloaders (and that is rarely understood). The vent liner allows one to correct for an erroded flash hole, just by swapping in a new vent liner. Other breech plug designs ignore the problem, or expect you to purchase new breech plugs instead of inexpensive vent liners.

So over all the Vent liner is a key component to keeping blow-back in check, making a reliable ignition system, and aides in getting consistent pressures as well. It performs best when it’s orifice is between .030 and .036… it should be replaced when it hits .036 or accuracy will degrade and pressures seen at the primer will build.

We offer pingages (precision ground to .036) to determine when to replace a vent liner.

There is a bunch more infromation and details in the vent liner’s listing for sale and our FAQ:

Comment from B Qunn 1/6/2018

I’m very interested to convert the two Ruger 77-50s that I have (and some Remington ML700s as well). I understand that you do the work on the Ruger bolt(s) but will send the complete works to fix the Remingtons.

Here’s my question: if you aim for a crush on the primers as indicated between the bolt face and the breech plug face, and I install the breech plug, how can you ensure that, or put differently, how will I know I’ve achieved the correct ‘crush’, neither too much nor too little?

I suppose the breech plug could be marked and backed out a quarter or one-third turn or so if too much gap, but how about too little? Re the latter, will that be apparent with too forced a closing of the bolt, but what would that be like or feel like? Would there be any telltale marks on the primer in either instance (after firing), either too much gap or too little?

And finally, you imply (or indeed state) that the breech plug will, over time and use, open up, such that more than .036 it’s time for a fresh one; in other forums, Chuck Hawks’ for instance, he talks of carbonization in the breech plug hole for black powder rifles generally and drilling out the carbon occasionally, without any numbers for reference, but nonetheless. These two views seem inconsistent, can you enlighten?

Thanks, looking forward to hearing from you.

Reply from Badger Ridge (Tom) 1/7/2018

Mr. Quin,

Some good questions. They are essentially answered in the instructions that come with the kit.

First and foremost, never ever back out a breech plug from its fully seated position. Always fully seat the breech plug into clean breech threads. An unseated breech plug is not safe!

The crush is mostly a feel, ie you feel how the bolt closes without any primer in the nose, then you try a primer and can feel the difference. If its so hard to close the bolt that you’d have to strike the handle with your hand or some sort of hammer: DON’T. Or in other words a light crush is all that is needed, and it can be done with gentle but firm hand pressure. Again, nothing more than light hand pressure is needed to get a light crush: pounding and hammers are bad!

If you have ever just neck sized your brass, its the same feel you get after a few reloads. There isn’t any gaps to be measured, either the primer will feed without any crush, will feed with some crush, or it will be very difficult to close the bolt because the primer is too long.

Primers from different manufacturers will have slightly different dimensions. And they will even vary slightly between each other when they come out of the box. If you have precision measuring tools like calipers or a micrometer you can see what the primers dimensions are before you try and feed it, and then measure it after its been crushed to see the variation. This is not exact either, because the primer will spring back some. If you can do this, then you’d be looking for about .003 to .005” of crush.

But remember the goal here isn’t to crush primers; it is to seal them so that blow-back stays in the breech plug. So in effect if you are not crushing primers so much that you detonate them, you don’t have to strike or use extreme force get the bolt handle down, and you are sealing the blow back in when you shoot: you have been successful.

I’ve got a couple rifles, and Fred has had a few too. In developing the kit we tried a few different lengths to set the bolts length to and tried these bolts in multiple rifles… that gave us a good range to set them too (and there is only a few thousandths of an inch window here). So when I convert a bolt, I set it to that tolerance and try it in my rifles. Just from the length its set to, I’ll have a good idea what primer will work in my rifles, I try it in my rifles. We set these so that they work well with Federal 209’s.

So far that has worked well for clients, but I can’t tell 100% you what primer will work best in your rifle. That is because of the rifle’s we’ve bought and tried this on, we have a decent range of headspace figured out.

The issues is I can’t know exactly what your rifle’s headspace will be. But I really don’t need to know it exactly. When you get your bolt back, start by trying Federal, CCI or Remington (they are close enough in length to figure this out). If they crush, good. If not, you can try another brand. Seeing the primers length will vary depending on the brand, and Winchester are pretty much the longest, CCI’s are next (Federal and Remington are close to CCI)… it will either be Winchester that crush well, or CCI/Federal/Remington… probably one of the two groups.

So there is some trial that still must be done by the client.

Bottom line: Read and follow the directions, clean those breech threads, fully seat the breech plug, do not work on a loaded rifle, and don’t beat on things.

Occaionally a customer’s rifle will have excessive headspace. They will need to buy some small washers (aka primer pocket shims) and shim the bottom of the primer pocket to get a satisfactory crush/seal.

If a client is not getting a crush, say with CCI, they could add washers to get a crush, or they could try Winchesters. In my opinion it is better to just switch up to Winchester and if it seals use Winchester primers, and not use the shims…. Keep it simple and less complicated and it will work better in the field.

So essentially we’ve got it down to where the bolt we send will have a good crush with CCI/Federal/Remington primers 9 times out of 10… and our suggestion is to use the primers that crush with just some gentle downward pressure on the bolt handle. If you are the one in 10 that cant seal with CCI/Federal/Remington 209’s, then try Winchesters… or buy some primer pocket shims.

In some very rare cases the bolt won’t close on any primer. If that is the case well work it out and may end up machining off some more metal from the bolt to increase head space.

And with our breech plugs, the breech plug doesn’t open up or wear as it is heat treated stainless steel and prmers are made of much softer stuff. To clean the breech plug is gently reamed with drill bits that are undersized so that the carbon/fouling can be removed but cleaning should not remove metal from the breech plug!

The hole through the center of the vent liner will open up due to the fire from the primer passing through it from each shot. Remember the vent liner is like a screw with a hole down the center and is screwed into the end of the breech plug. When its orifice (inside hole) opens to .036, replace it with a new vent liner. The vent liner are only a few $ each, and the gage pin to know if its .036 or larger are in expensive too (if you add them you kit order). So using vent liners makes the breech plug last much, much, longer.

Comment from B Qunn 1/8/2018

Hello again, thanks for the answers, some more questions.

First, the “209 nose” piece which, once the overhang deflecting piece on the original bolt is cut off, is pressed on

1) is this piece stainless steel?

2) how deep into the bolt is it pressed?

3) how do you set the firing pin protrusion? Do you start out with an overlong pin and install it into the various bolts you get and then cut any excess off?

Also, I see from your setup that if there is backward movement from the primer firing, it bucks against the new bolt face (inside the 209 nose) much more than against the protruding firing pin, which is more like a usual firing pin in size unlike the original which is basically a big flat cylinder end-on, and thus would greatly reduce the reported ‘sear shearing’ over time (unlike the Canadian kit which, although it replaces the original firing pin cylinder with another with a bump on it, to make the primer fire, it’s still a relatively big cylinder end-on, an only held in place by the mainspring, so any rearward thrust could push the firing pin back and may over time deform the sear (maybe)); I like yours.

FWIW the hole in the Ruger bolt is as I see it a gas escape hole, just like the same in the bolt action Mauser/Springfield/Winchester 70, etc. It may have the unintended effect if there is blowback of fouling the works under the bolt or on the trigger mechanism, but its main purpose is safe gas management I would assume; having said that, not having any blowback at all is best, still leaving the hole for unfortunate extraordinary rearward escapes of gas like from punctured primers. I do find it odd that, once the bolt is locked, the gas hole points horizontally to the left into a channel which would allow the gas to go down; I would have preferred it pointed straight down from the bolt , but perhaps that would have exposed the hole even more to day-to-day dirt, etc., directly into the bolt where the firing pin and spring reside, so not good. But I’m glad it’s there, the Remington 700ML doesn’t have one.

I also see that there is a chamfered recess in the 209 nose piece and a corresponding chamfer on the breech plug surrounding where the primer will sit; are these designed to mate up? And finally, elsewhere above or on your site you mention routinely replacing the bolt/striker mainspring with a fresh OEM one on the Remingtons, but on the Rugers you use the original spring having cleaned it – can you explain? Thanks again.

Reply from Badger Ridge (Tom) 1/8/2018

Mr. Qunn,

Some good questions. Most of them are a bit of ‘trade secrets’ and design decisions…. but here we go:

Our Ruger 77/50 kit (just like the Remington 700 ML kit) is manufactured in the US on CNC machines from 416 stainless steel. The nose and the breech plug are heat treated. The vent liner is 17-4 stainless and also made in the USA.

The problem with the 77/50 that I haven’t been able to find a ‘fix’ for is the main spring. I just can’t find them. So we are forced to reuse the original springs. Luckily the new bolts we sell have brand new springs with them, but I cannot find the spring alone. If you know a source please share.

For the Remington I used to buy main-springs direct from Remington, but now have them made in the USA for us in bulk. (we have two versions: one for the original 700ML/Model 7, and a second for our 209 system or the Short Action Rem 700). If someone was to send in a Ruger bolt with a spring that was totally shot, I’d probably end up cutting another spring, or seeing if a 700ML spring would work (the two springs are very close in many ways).

On the Ruger, after cutting the bolt protrusion off, and machining it square and to the proper length, the bolt nose is pressed approximately ½” into the original bolt with designed interference fit. Trust me, the nose is not going anywhere.

The firing pin is purposely manufactured too long: I have to file it to set the protrusion on it similar to the way our Remington Kit works. (see the Remington 700 instructions for the details there).

As for fit between the nose and the breech plug, both the Ruger Kit and Remington have the same profiles. The nose and breech plug have the same very carefully designed tapers that allow them to come very close together to enclose the primer almost fully, but not allow them to touch and still allow pressure a path for gas to escape if there was some sort of rupture.

Like you said, no blowback is best, and we have a design that should seal it into the breech plug. But the path to vent any ruptures in the Ruger bolt body is not modified by our kit: the original a route for gas to escape if a primer was to ruptured remains. So in the Ruger, gas from a ruptured primer could still travel through the hole in the bolt nose, along the firing pin, then down through the bolt body, and into the lower recesses of the receiver: The gas safety route as designed by Ruger is preserved. And like you said, the Remington doesn’t have this vent hole in the bolt body, so if it has a rupture our system relies on the carefully designed gap between the breech plug and bolt nose to give a relief path (which is the same in both our Ruger and Remington systems).

Unlike the Remington, the Ruger Kit crushes the primer, and the Ruger has locking lugs on the bolt that hold the crush. So before firing there is already bolt thrust from the primer crush: when the primer is discharged it cannot move forward or rearward due to this crush.

On the Remington kit the swaging of the primer into the breech plug seals well. But swaging into a tapered hole also allows for some movement forward, deeper into the breech plug, when the firing pin protrudes and ignites the primer. The movement is more notable with lose primers or brands with more taper to them, such as Winchesters. This movement of the primer forward allows the primer cup to bulge in the the bolt face, which is one reason the Remington kit can suffer stuck primers (but not the only reason). The Ruger Kit seems to fare better here. I haven’t had a stuck primer yet, even with Winchester primers (which are notorious in our Remington kit).

I’m 100% sure that the sears in the Ruger 77/50 were stressed and broken by the original design driving the firing pin rearward into them. The Canadian 209 mod worsened this, and the Bager Ridge Conversion completely eliminates blow back driving the firing pin rear-ward. Thus our system should be considered an essential safety and life prolonging modification to every Ruger 77-50.

Yours,

Tom

Comment from B Qunn 1/8/2018

Further to my point on handling rearward escaping gas, obviously the main outlet would be the substantial hole (if that’s the right word, it’s basically the right side length of the action between the ‘chamber’ (if you will) and the rear bridge of the action) to the right of the bolt where the action dips down to facilitate primer loading (in a cartridge rifle, to load the cartridges); the escape hole in the Ruger bolt is just to handle whatever gas enters the bolt, if any, since most will blow up and out to the right which, as far as I can see, cannot be stopped or managed on inline muzzleloaders (on cartridge rifles, the bolt locks up about 1″ deep inside a big hole in the end of the action or barrel and so if gas escapes rearwards there into that chamber from a ruptured case or punctured primer, to manage it, they usually have an escape hole drilled into the right side of this overhang, sometimes both sides; they also have escape holes in the bolt for whatever gas gets inside the bolt).

One additional question: could you comment on whether the likelihood of escaping gas with an inline muzzleloader with a breechplug is significantly more or less than with a cartridge rifle; I assume much less, as with a cartridge rifle you can get either a punctured primer (here too) but you can also get a ruptured case side or bottom, whereas here you have the breech plug between you or the action and the powder burn, and surely a threaded breechplug is many times stronger than brass cartridge cases, so you only really have to worry about a punctured primer, and your system limits that, as well as reducing the likelihood of over-time sear shear. Agree?

Reply from Badger Ridge (Tom) 1/8/2018

There is a lot to this question.

I think simply: center fire rifles are designed to operate at higher pressures, and achieve those pressures faster (ie they have a faster pressure curve and higher peak pressures). As most of them are bottlenecks: They typically have smaller bores that don’t have the same volume as your standard 50cal muzzle loader. This tends preserve more pressure as the projectile moves down the bore, and tends to drive the compubustion of their powders to higher pressures. This is a feature of bottle necks, that muzzle-loaders and straight wall cartridges lack.

Your muzzle loader contains its lower pressures, and builds them more slowly by having a larger bore, using different propellants, and containing the combustion gases to the rear with a stainless steel breech plug. The breech plug is much stronger than brass center fire rifle cases, but does have holes machined into it. Those holes always allow some pressure to seap through rearwards.

All that said these are two different systems with differing ways to handle the pressure.

What I know is

1. The original leaky system blew that pressure all over you and through the action
2. The Savage 10ML2 did a great job of keeping the muzzle loader back pressure encased.
3. Our kits work a lot like the Savage 10 ML2 (but our stuff is not for smokeless powders!!!!)

If you follow the rules (ie no smokeless powder, use witness marks, only load with known good components, etc) you will be as safe as you can. Its when folks start trying to ‘get more’ out of their rifles by breaking the rules, that they only “get more… danger.”

Comment from B QUINN 2/1/2019

Thanks for all these comprehensive answers to my comprehensive questions (yes, I show up once a year bidden or not). Re your last paragraph, what are “witness marks”? Are these the markings you make on your ramrod to show when you’ve seated a bullet, etc.? Or something else? Thanks, and I still have the Rugers and the Rems, and hope soon to proceed with the upgrade kits. Life has a way of getting in the way, as you know.

Reply from Badger Ridge (Tom) 2/1/2019

Witness marks are marks on ram rods. When the ram rod is placed all the way into the barrel and abuts the breech plug: if the witness mark aligns with the end of the muzzle it will indicate if the rifle is charged or not (depending on where you put the witness mark). I personally make marks that indicate where the barrel aligns when empty. Any other alignment means the rifle is loaded.

Posted on July 31, 2026August 1, 2026 by badgerridge — Leave a comment

Convert to our Remington 700ML 209 system or keep the original alive?

Editors Note: This was posted to old website in January of 2017. Reposting and editing it here. Ruger 77-50 shooters will see many similarities. Though this post is directed towards Remingtion Owners, and was made many years ago, it show the issues all the plunger guns suffered and why its best to upgrade them to our sealed breech systems.

Nomenclature from Remington 700 ML/MLS Owner's Manual — Nomenclature from Remington 700 ML/MLS Owner’s Manual

From what I’ve been able to gather there is a good bit of variation on how people learn about our awesome 209 conversion. While we have a lot of repeat customers, and folks learning about us through word of mouth, most arrive here after an internet search. Frequently newcomers are having problems with their rifle and looking for replacement parts or guidance on how to troubleshoot their woes.

If you are tired of blow-back (aka blow-by), blowing up 209 primers, priming/de-priming tools, having misfires, hang-fires, bloopers, or trouble setting off Blackhorn209: Our kit is the fix, but it’s not a $20 solution.

Remington 209 system - sealed breech - Badger Ridge — Badger Ridge’s Remington 700ML/MLS sealed breech 209 system

I understand the desire to find a $20 fix, but for the 700 ML/MLS, especially with the many years they all have on them now, there isn’t a $20 fix. A lot of folks who end up here realize quickly that our kit is the right solution, but for others they are stuck on the $20 fix.

A good analogy is if this were cars… and folks have what they think is just and out of ballance tire. They are skeptical when I tell them an entire drive train overhaul is required; they are looking for wheel weights to stop a wheel vibration.

However the drive train is so bad it throws wheel weights the moment you drive it over 25 mph. Please understand that the truth is: the reason it’s throwing wheel weights is that it has a bad drive train!

We can fix it, and you’ll love your rifle afterward. Trust me; take the time to understand the problem isn’t the wheel weights!

Rem 700 MLS feeding a 209 primer into a sealed breech system

You get what you pay for!

There are so many little flaws in the original system: blowback getting into the bolt, shooter’s eyes, and burning the scope are chief among them. Then they get amplified with age, corrosion, use, and abuse; as soon as one is fixed another will creep up. Then the rifle doesn’t go bang when desired. So it doesn’t make sense to spend a dime to keep the original system running.

The only exception is when someone hunts out west where some hunts prohibit 209 primers or sealing of the breech. But those who have Ruger 77/50’s we offer entire 209 converted sealed breech bolts and breech plugs so they can switch to sealed breech on hunts where it’s legal, and keep their original system for hunts that it is not. One rifle can meet both requirements with a bolt and breech plug swap. We used to offer this for Remington 700 ML hunters, but our ability to make new bolts for a Remington evaporated.

But therein lies the rub… a small minority -have to- keep the original system running for those special hunts. So for those select few I’ll share how I’d try to keep the original system functioning (though my goal is to get those non 209, non sealed breech states to come to their senses and convert every Remington 700 ML to our sealed breech system).

What I would do if forced to keep the original system running:

My goal here is to help you understand where the original goes wrong, and unless you hunt out west in Idaho or Oregon (the only two places that won’t let you use 209’s and seal them up)… this should also show you why you need to dump the original and use our 209 conversion.

But here we go:- If legal I’d use 209’s; if the rules prohibit 209’s then i would use musket caps. I’d dump any #11 percussion cap system. 209’s and musket caps are hotter and more reliable than #11’s.

To use musket caps: The nipple can be removed from the breech plug with wrenches. One must be careful not to damage any threads. New breech plugs are available if the nipple won’t come out (from others… we don’t support much of these old slam fire/plunger systems). I’d put a small dab of anti-seize (or choke tube lube) on the threads of the new nipple so I could replace it later when it mushrooms. And it will mushroom.

Unless someone has owned the rifle since it was new, they don’t know what sort of swapping and fiddling has been done to it. Not all strikers are equivalent, nor do they all work with the same primers/caps and nipples. Remington had two different firing pins for the rifle. Their first version only did percussion caps (or musket caps), then they released the 3 way system where one pin could discharge all three (209’s, #11’s, & Musket Caps). Plus the Canadian mod is out there as well, but it only does 209’s (don’t try it with musket caps or any other percussion cap).

Three different old firing pins compared — 3 styles of firing pins from old leaky systems fitted to Remgington 700 ML/MLS

I’ve seen rifles with the original flat firing pins installed with 209 nipples. The folks who had this set up contacted me complaining that the rifle wouldn’t fire! Of course it won’t fire with the wrong firing pin! Remember, the Remington 3 way ignition system had a raised central area for discharging the 209’s, and also worked with both types of caps. But it needs to be coupled with the proper Remington style 209 holder.

The Canadian strike pin won’t work unless its coupled with it’s unique primer holder.

The original Remginton 209 system is known for blowing up primers and needing special picks and tools to remove the pieces, de-prime, and reprime the rifle.

Who wants that when our system will let you do it all with just your finger tips?

Whatever leaky original system used, it’ll need priming de-priming tools as well. Who wants to try and find all that for a reload in the field?

Before trying to do anything with an plunger style set up:

I’d completely disassemble and clean the bolt and firing pin assembly. That means tearing the assembly totally down, scrub and clean all fouling and corrosion from every nook and cranny, and replace the mainspring. Our installation tutorial will prove useful here. If that is too much for you to do, I can replace the mainspring on your bolt for you.

– I always ensure the rifle is unloaded and empty, and in a safe area I shoot some caps/209’s to ensure the rifle will set them off. Remember even caps/primers will shoot things out the barrel with enough energy to hurt, maim, or blind. So if you decide to to this, ensure the rifle is unloaded per the procedures in the manual, keep the rifle pointed in a safe direction, and at a proper back stop.

–Crud and misshaped/mushroomed nipples prevent caps/primers from properly seating. Then when the striker hits them instead of detonating, it pushes them forward towards a proper seat. Then once seated, a subsequent strike, or repeated strikes can set it off. Sometimes the nipples/primer holders get so mashed there is no saving them. I’d clean out any crud, and correct misshaped nipples (I’d say its usually best just to replace with a new nipple… and again that’s not something we sell).

You need to understand: If the first strike doesn’t set off the cap/209, I’d try a second, third, fourth, or fifth before trying another cap/primer. If a subsequent strike on the same cap detonates it, this is pointing you to look for a misshapen nipple/primer holder. If multiple repeated strikes does not set it off, it could be a horribly bad nipple or it could be the bolt/mainspring (but with a good tear down, correction to any corrosion, goo, fouling, proper lubrication and new mainspring, I’d suspect the problem lies in the the nipple).

The repeated strikes a nipple receives eventually mushroom and mis-shape it. Even the 209 holders/nipples suffer this fate. Though the Canadian system will probably outlast the Remington vented 209 primer holder because its mad of more stout stuff. But distinction is still just ‘degrees of bad’… I wrote about how bad the Canadian conversion was in one of my first posts to this blog.

– Each time the original system is fired, blow-back pulses the mainspring back and away from the nipple. At higher loads it can even drive back the firing pin into your thumb if you were to place it near the tang! (It hurts… trust me) These cycles and extreme compression coupled with the heat and corrosion then deteriorate mainspring life. Blow back coats the firing pin assembly in a corrosive sticky mess.

If I was running any of these plunger systems: I would tear down and clean after each time the rifle is shot, and I’d do a complete tear down and get everything out of every nook and cranny after each season.

Blow back will find its way into the inner recesses of the bolt plug and cocking piece… trust me on this. I’ve torn hundreds of 700 ML bolts down. I’d replace the mainspring on the original system every few years. Again, I can do that for you if you like.

Why our system is better

So with the variations of the original system a shooter will have all those issues to deal with and think through. Once they fix one, soon another will creep up and cause issues. Those are a lot of inherent pit falls. All the while dealing with the blow back shooting into the bolt, a shooter’s face, and all over the scope. Seems much smarter to me to rid oneself of that entire mess, use our sealed breech 209 system, and not be forced to strip a bolt down every time you shoot.

Why don’t we sell any replacement parts for the original system nor the Canadian? I don’t like to sell things I don’t believe in nor use my self. Though the main spring is the same and we will replace it for you regardless of what system you use. I don’t want to be on the hook to keep something running that is flawed at its core, so I don’t sell or support it beyond changing mainsprings. But I’ll gladly replace the old leaky system with our sealed breech 209 system for you.

Any state forcing folks to use that sort of system is beyond logic to me.

Our 209 system seals the blow back in, which vastly reduces bolt strip downs and cleaning. With our system one only needs fingers to prime/de-prime, and the only parts that wear are the 209 primer (which is discarded after every use), the vent liner which is cheap and easy to replace (and the rifle will still go bang when its time to replace it), and arguably eventually someone will have to replace the mainspring. Mainsprings always have a finite life. It is true on any center-fire rifle; springs will eventually wear out.

However the mainspring lasts much longer in our conversion because it is spared all the extra cycles, heat, and corrosive blow-back of the original. Also even if someone was to fail to seal the blow back in with our system (i.e. it seeped around a primer somehow), the bolt nose and the 209 primer itself essentially block any blow back from making it inside the bolt. With our system a shooter only has to tear the bolt down and clean it as often as they would a center fire rifle… which is not that often, perhaps as often as replacement of the main spring is required on a center-fire 700.You don’t have to take my word for it, you can read our customer feedback section and see for yourself in the video below.

Posted on July 31, 2026August 1, 2026 by badgerridge — Leave a comment

Think Your 700 ML Bolt Is Beyond Repair? Let’s See!!!

Originally posted to our old website in August of 2016. Reposted and updated here.

A few days ago I got a call from a very nice fella out west. He wanted me to send him an entire new bolt. Always wanting to help, I assured him I could build and send him a brand new bolt for his Remington 700ML, but I wasn’t convinced he needed to spend that much. I inquired further. Seemed he was having some trouble because the bolt was frozen and wouldn’t come apart. He said the worst part was that he let a “gunsmith” that promised to convert it to 209’s take a crack at it, but he had failed, damaged it severely, and promised him there was no hope for it.

Jammed up frozen solid Remington 700 ML Bolt – How a bolt needing serious TLC arrived

He explained that the bolt plug was torn up and not serviceable and the cocking piece was frozen in it. I let him know that the standard 700 bolt plug would work, and I had them on hand. Once I saw the bolt and got into it I’d know what was usable.

After chatting more with him he decided to take my advice. Instead of purchasing a complete new bolt (much more expensive) he purchased a conversion kit with installation, sent me his bolt, and let me have a crack at it. I explained that If I couldn’t all the parts he sent, I’d figure out how to use some parts. I was confident I’d probably have a way to get it done if he bought what I needed to fix it (from me). Or in otherwords, if I could fix it and it took a bit more of my time or replacement parts I stock, I’d let him know what he owed me and we’d work it out.

When the bolt arrived a few days later it was clear that the bolt plug was unscrewed from the body but the firing pin was stuck inside the body, and the body was packed solid with old fouling and years of corrosion. Seeing the firing pin would rotate but not move in nor out, it was free of the mainspring but the mainspring was bound to the bolt body.

The customer was right: whoever clamped down on the bolt plug had squished it so much the cocking piece couldn’t move. They also hammered on the back and deformed it. Getting the cocking piece to protrude enough to expose the cross pin was going to be a chore! But first things first, got to get the mainspring to move in the bolt body. It was corroded solid and wouldn’t budge.

So I started the over night soak in penetrating oil. And got on with other things.

A good example of what happens when you don't konw what you are doing — A good example of what happens when you don’t konw what you are doing: There is no need for claming things in a vice and beating them until they are deformed.

After having my coffee and breakfast the next morning I went out to the shop while it was still cool and got to work. I removed the bolt from the penetrating oil soak, wiped it clean, and put the bolt in my vice with some rubber jaw pads (so I wouldn’t add to the marring). Then some persuasion was applied by a hammer directly to the face of the stuck firing pin. I used an old firing pin out of my junk bin as a punch. I got the firing pin to move along the axis of the bolt body and compress the mainspring just a bit. That was all I needed.

Still firmly held in the vice with rubber jaw pads, the nose up, and the plug down, I tied on some wire onto the bolt plug. Then hung a very heavy weight on it to counter act the main spring and always have a ‘firm hand’ pulling the firing pin out of the body. Then I added some more penetrating oil and a few more taps. Followed by rapidly lifting and dropping the weight to create a pumping action via the mainspring. The movement increased ever so slightly as the crud pumped out. The penetrating oil filled the tip of the bolt with brown-orange corroded mess which I cleaned out and replaced with fresh penetrating oil, and repeated the love taps and lifting and dropping the heavy weight. Each tap sprayed a bit of penetrating oil, but who doesn’t love the smell of penetrating oil in the morning?!?!?!

I repeated pumping, cleaning the crud, and refilled with fresh oil. I continued until I could get about a 1/4″ of movement on it, but then it just wouldn’t go any more. So I went “nuclear” on it!

I made up a jig out of scrap to hold the bolt body between the bolt plug and the body. Made sure it contacted the body, and not the handle (the OEM bolt body handles are only silver soldered on… if you put too much pressure on a handle it will pop clean off!) Then I put it in my 12 ton hydraulic press, placed a tip of an old firing pin between the ram and the firing pin and pressed. It wouldn’t budge pass the 1/4″ of travel I had earlier. So I backed off the ram, and then repeated applying pressure… by the third or fourth cycle it broke free! I had the firing pin loose and had pushed the cocking piece through enough of the the bolt plug the ‘gunsmith’ had pounded shut that the firing pin assembly would uscrew.

Some times you got to nuke ’em from orbit.

Once the cocking piece was pushed free of the bolt body I just unscrewed the firing pin.

Now that I had it apart it was clear that the bolt had a old “Canadian” 209 conversion. I wrote about how disappointed I was with the “Canadian” 209 conversion I purchased over 12 years ago in one of my first posts to this blog. It seems that someone used the rifle but didn’t clean up afterwards, then eventually the corrosive blow back fused the mainspring to the bolt body. [I’ve done a bunch of bolts frozen solid from this neglect in the 10 years that have passed since I originally wrote this, none were as hard as this one . Folks seem to know not to deform things with hammers and vise jaws.]

Remember our 209 system seals the blow back into the breech plug, so you don’t get the crud inside the bolt body! This drastically reduces the chances of missed maintenance locking your bolt up solid. Plus installing our system replaces most of the parts that get damaged from such neglect.

Luckily once I got it all cleaned up, there was only some light pitting on the inside of the bolt body. I spent more time cleaning up all the marring and mashed bits on the body with a fine file than I spent cleaning up the massive amount of gunk. Oh, and I had to chase the 1/2×13 threads with tap to fix where all the pounding on the bolt plug previous to me had damaged them. But that also cleaned out all the gunk that had collected in them.

Getting the cocking piece out of the damaged bolt plug was a minor challenge. First I just cut the firing pin’s large end off (that normally strikes the primer) and pulled off what was left of the main spring (that’s not a typical move, just one I had to improvise to fix this bolt). Then I opened the groove in the bolt plug that the cocking piece rides in with a wedge and some love taps. The cocking piece moved freely now, but was still captured in the bolt plug because the previous “gunsmith’s” pounding on the rear peened over the back of it. So I reamed it out with some large drill bits until the cocking piece came out with the little bit of firing pin still connected to it. Then it was a simple placing of the firing pin in my vice and driving the cross pin out. The cocking piece was in really good shape despite all the mayhem that had ensued around it.

Seeing the customer had the forethought to include a new Remington 700 stainless bolt plug, the assembly from here was the same as any conversion. We also sell the blued version from time to time (out of stock right now). For details on how to do a conversion nomally: see our online conversion instructions. The completed bolt is below.

The two images above are the “After” pictures. The one below is a before so you can compare with out scrolling.

Moving comments from the original post over here to preserve them and their advice.

Comment from Ray 12/12/2017

I have a frozen 700ml stainless bolt. Can anyone recommend someone that can fix it?

Reply from Badger Ridge

We can probably help you at Badger Ridge. If the bolt is out of the rifle, I’d suggest that you just purchase installation of a kit and send it in. I’ll figure it out and contact you if I need more for parts or labor… but usually I just get it done.

If you want to talk more, give us a ring at 989-795-2526, or fill out a contact form.

Comment from: John Willis 3/23/2017

I have one that want rotate to remove from gun, Customer brought in to see if I could free the bolt. does not seem possible without damage. Any hopes

Reply from Badger Ridge 3/24/17

If the bolt is out of the rifle, just order installation and send me the bolt. I’ll figure it out… but from reading your post I’ll assumw the bolt is in the action and won’t budge. What is wrong is mostlikely the firing pin probably is fused to the bolt body via corrosion and is preventing the firing pin to be cammed rearward when lifting the bolt handle.

How’d I’d try to free a bolt that is stuck in the action:

First: Remove the barreled action from the stock, and remove any scopes mounted.

Second: Stand the action muzzle up, action down in a tall skinny containter (like a 2 liter bottle with the top cut off) and fill it with penetrating oil, ATF, etc. Pour the oild down the bore of the barrel so it soaks the bolt and breech plug from inside and out. Make sure the oil level is a good 2 or more inches higher than the seam where the barrel hits the action lug. Let it soak a good week or so.

Then once you are sure its fully soaked, make sure the bolt stop cam follower screw is installed and engaging the slot in the bolt body (it helps with the camming action). Then wiggle the handle up and down multiple times and it should loosen. You may need to blast crud out from the bolt body and force more oil in as able. The goal is to incrementally gain more and more movement on the handle. Once you cam it up you should be able to pull it rearward and then remove the bolt by removing the cam screw

Next you will probably need a set of vise jaws and a mid or deep well 7/16″ socket and an impact gun to remove the breech plug (they typically get corrorded into the breech when someone puts the gun away dirty and neglected.

Hope it helps. If you need more contact me at 989-795-2526 or our contact form and we can email about it.

Comment from Doug Barnes 9/14/2022

I have a 700m firing pin cycles but won’t strike 209 primer when I open and close bolt it cycles but won’t strike primer can you help with this parts are no where to be found?

Reply from Badger Ridge 9/15/2022

Just purchase a our system with installation, send us the bolt. Whatever is wrong with your existing sytem will nearly certainly be correct by switching to our supierior set up.

If you need more contact me at 989-795-2526 or fill out our contact form to start an email conversation.

Posted on July 30, 2026August 1, 2026 by badgerridge — Leave a comment

Consistency Please!!! Muzzle-Loader rules vary too much state to state!

This was originally posted at our old website back in July of 2016. Reposting and updateding it here

We sell our Remington 700ML 209 conversion to folks who hunt all 50 states and even Canada. And I must say that I’ve seen some states make folks jump through a bunch of hoops, while others don’t. Its all tied to each state’s rules varying drastically. Some are simple, common sense, and easy to follow (and I expect easy for their game wardens to enforce). Others, require someone to have a law and engineering degree to determine what they can take to the field for any given hunt.

So if you are considering our conversion, I hope to help those who live in those troubled states with some simple facts:

1. Our system uses 209 shot shell primers
2. It completely seals the 209 primer into the breech plug
3. These rifles we convert use inline actions
4. You can use any Black Powder or black powder substitute with our kit (Pellets, loose powder, whatever… just follow the Remington manual/directions on the bottle for quantity of powder to use)

So for most states and most hunts, you won’t find a better option than our 209 conversion. It will take the old Remington 700ML/MLS and Ruger 77/50 and turn them into reliable big game harvesting brutes. However you are responsible for researching the rules for your individual state.

To figure out the answer’s for your specific state the biggest questions to answer in order are:

Do the rules allow 209 shot shell primers?
Do they prohibit sealed in-line ignition systems?

As far as I know Canada, and most of the US allow sealed breech 209s.

As of this writing Idaho & Oregon are the only jurisdictions prohibiting sealed breech 209’s (and that is only on some dedicated muzzle loader hunts… ie you can use a sealed breech muzzle loader during the regular firearms seasons in many states). There are other special hunts in other states (Pensylvania, Montana, etc) that don’t allow inlines much less 209’s… but we’ll ignore them (because they already ban the 700 ML/MLS and Ruger 77/50’s just for being in-lines).

So long as you can use 209’s and seal them up, you won’t find a better option for your Remington 700 ML/MLS or Ruger 77-50 than what you find here.

If you have a Ruger 77-50 and hunt somewhere where you can use sealed ignition on one hunt but not another, we sell entire bolts . This lets you swap between sealed 209’s and the original leaky OEM system (We used to offer this for Remington’s too, but that is out of stock for the foreseeable future).

Further down the rabbit hole: Trying to better understand our clients’ needs, I’ve spent the hours reading the various rules the 50 states have for muzzle-loader hunts. I lack the literary skill to describe the dull throbbing pain those regulations produced in my skull. I appreciate simple common sense approaches to regulations, so I feel it’s time to get on my soap box:

It seems traditionalists with lofty notions have hi-jacked hunting regulations in some states, and verbose rule writers dominate most others. To me, hunting regulations should be simple and boil down to promoting the safe and effective harvesting of the right number of game animals in a jurisdiction. I believe in individual freedoms, and always felt hunting, and the choices I made while hunting were a great expression of that freedom. So I don’t understand why anyone would stand by and allow their state to -force- people into using ignition systems, powders, or projectiles that would be anything other than those most probable to make a safe, quick, humane kill. I’m all for those who want to do it like their forefathers did. But to force anyone to hunt in that manner, especially if it is less effective, is nuts. There is a reason we developed better ignition systems, better powder, and projectiles: its called progress. Today we have better options that kill better, make better wound channels, and tend to produce less lost or wounded game. These same better ways are safer, and don’t blast the shooter with blow back and primer fragments. Those traditionalist ideals seem to have produced regulations that go counter to safe, humane kills, and true liberty.

Some would argue that complex regulation that forces old, out-dated, less effective means, reduces the number of game taken. I can see restricting someone to a single shot rifle with open sights doing that, but other wise, I doubt that prohibiting modern sabots, hand gun bullets, etc will reduce the number of game shot at.

So I’d argue that the rules that force traditional solutions probably increase the number of animals wounded and lost. And thus they probably reduce the number of game that get drug out of the woods. On the surface that produces statistics that say the number of animals taken was reduced. The significant difference being: the wounded animals that are not recovered are not recorded as kills. Wounded animals typically suffer a slow painful death. Making regulations that encourage wounding game is a shame. It’s especially shameful quoting tainted statistics to make the case.

I haven’t seen a state with ideal regulations but I think Wyoming’s was as a simple as they get. You can be sure sure you are in compliance, and game wardens know what to enforce:

“For taking of bighorn sheep, elk moose, mountain goat, black bear, grizzly bear, deer, mountain lion, antelope or gray wolf by the use of a firearm a hunter shall use:

Any muzzle-loading rifle or muzzleloading pistol handgun of at least .40 caliber and firing a lead or expanding point bullet using a charge of at least 50 grains of black powder or its equivalent.”

And while I don’t endorse the stuff below that prohibits multiple barrels, or restricts propellants (some rifles are designed to use smokeless powder: they produce more energy, and thus are more humane killers). Anyways I am partial to how Utah’s reads and gives solid guidance on projectile selection to promote humane kills:

“To hunt big game with a muzzleloader, your muzzleloader must meet all of the following requirements:

It can be loaded only from the muzzle and can use either open sights, peep sights, or fixed or variable zoom scope. It can have only one barrel, and the barrel must be at least 18 inches long.

It cannot be capable of firing more than once without being reloaded.

The powder and bullet — or powder, sabot and bullet — cannot be bonded together as one unit for loading.

It must be loaded with black powder or a black powder substitute. The black powder or black power substitute cannot contain smokeless powder, but may contain some nitrocellulose.

To hunt big game, you must use a lead or expanding bullet or projectile that’s at least 40 caliber in size.

If you’re hunting deer or pronghorn, your bullet must be 130 grains or heavier, or your sabot must be 170 grains or heavier. Truly over all, I favor Virgina’s rules; I wish all 50 states would adopt them as I feel they are a good balance on allowing freedom of choice but guaranteeing common sense, killing power (sorry muzzle loading pistol guys), and safety. I think they do a good job of bringing clarity to folk who are familiar with the issues and variety of rules from across the nation:

If you’re hunting elk, moose, bison, bighorn sheep or Rocky Mountain goats, you must use a 210-grain or heavier bullet, or a sabot bullet that’s at least 240 grains.”

Truly over all, I favor Virgina’s rules; I wish all 50 states would adopt them as I feel they are a good balance on allowing freedom of choice but guaranteeing common sense, killing power (sorry muzzle loading pistol guys), and safety. I think they do a good job of bringing clarity to folk who are familiar with the issues and variety of rules from across the nation:

“Only muzzleloading firearms, .45 caliber or larger, loaded from the muzzle of the gun. Muzzleloading firearms must be single shot, capable of firing only a single bullet or saboted bullet (.38 caliber or larger). Flintlock, percussion, or electronic ignitions are permitted. It is unlawful to have in immediate possession any firearm other than a muzzleloading gun while hunting with a muzzleloader. (See exception for valid concealed handgun permit holders on page 18.) It is unlawful to use muzzleloading pistols. Must use at least 50 grains of black powder or black powder equivalent.

Smokeless powder is allowed in muzzleloading firearms designed for it. Never use smokeless powder of any type in any quantity in a muzzle-loading firearm that is not specifically designed for it. Scopes are permitted. For the purposes of transportation in a vehicle, muzzleloading firearms are considered “unloaded” when all powder has been removed from the flashpan, or the percussion cap, primer, or battery has been removed from the firearm.

For complete safety, shooting into soft ground should empty a muzzleloader”

I’m sure any state could care less about my opinion. If you live in a state with crazy muzzle loader regulations that just don’t make sense, I urge you to engage your legislature and adopt a simple solutions that promote quick safe humane kills over traditional ideals like those I offer above.

Regulations change, and errors can be made, this post was old when I reposted it: Please read your states rules and don’t rely on anything I posted here as being infallible.

I’m goint to perserve one of the back and forth comments this spurred by putting them below:

Comment from John Mohler 7/20/2020

I know it’s only been a few years that you wrote this but I just ran into it.

As someone who has been involved in drafting hunting regulations let me help you out with this.

Traditional weapons seasons are just that. The natural progression of muzzleloaders has lead to what we call centerfire bolt action rifles with metallic cartridges. If your muzzleloader, and all its progress, allows you to effectively take game at 500 yards then you are free to use it in the general firearms season with all the centerfire hunters who think themselves capable of shooting at these distances.

A State has to draw the line somewhere and that line should be based on the effective range of a weapon. Muzzleloader seasons should be restricted to those firearms with a max effective range somewhere between 100 and 150 yards.

Reply from Badger RIdge (11-20-20)

Thanks for taking the time to write. Your opinion is noted. You seem to be defending making bad rules. Then put the goals rule making accomplishes. Those don’t have to be competing objectives. So I’m not sure you understand the point of this article:

1- The rules vary so much between states, that it is difficult to get a 50 state solution. This shouldn’t be. The simpler states’ regulations work (and do what you are saying about limiting range, shots fired and such [which are good wildlife management goals]). But good states rules are simple and easy to follow. Seems like the examples of good rules I gave accomplish the goals of game management, safety, and promote out of state hunters coming and enjoying the state’s game. As out of state hunters tend to pay more fees and bring more $… seems like that would benefit all, and lessen head aches, even from a bureaucratic perspective.

2- Limiting/Prohibiting sabots doesn’t do anything good. Sabots just allow one to use jacketed hand gun bullets. Which don’t do anything other than give good controlled expansion at both high and low velocities. This benefits the game receiving the projectile (it dies a more humane death over a wider range of projectile velocities), and generally improves the ratio of wounded to harvested animals. If there is some bad thing about sabots that I missed, please be specific in address it. Also if sabot’s are bad or give you any real advantage in accuracy or range, please explain why 47 out of 50 states allow them (on top of the entire country of Canada). Also please explain why the current long range muzzle loaders wining competitors aren’t using sabots nor BlackHorn209 powder? (They are using bore riding bullets pushed through forming dies and smokeless powder). Sabots and blackhorn209 are good, and better than traditional blackpowder and patched round balls, but don’t give you lazer like 500yd accuracy.

Limiting newer (and arguably safer) powders like BlackHorn209, and projectiles (sabots and modern handgun bullets) from being used is just silly. They are certified muzzle loader safe, and are safer and better than Black Powder. Why is it OK to use one but not another? Please explain to me how you are helping your residents by forcing them to use less safe powders? (just look at the MSDS and handling precautions of the various powders and you will see BlackHorn209 is much safer)… Or forcing your hunters to get creative in their projectile selection (beyond simple guides on how heavy of a projectile to use or minimum charges, banning sabots, or any other particular projectile is counter productive).

If you think I’m wrong, please prove it, rather than just stating opinion.

I think you will find that rules prohibiting Sabots is truly tied to very vocal ‘traditionalists’ monopolizing the rule making.

I’d hope that as a rule writer you’d value simple effective rules. I know I did when I was flying military aircraft: simple rules helped promote safe, standard aircraft operations across the globe. However when they are verbose, overly specific/restrictive, complicated, or different in a different jurisdiction they do nothing but give a good feeling to the bureaucrat writing them, and complicate the safe operation of potentially dangerous devices.

Tom from Badger Ridge

PS: after we tackle sabots, then you can explain how a hotter more reliable and sealed combustion system (209 primers that are sealed) are anything detrimental… they are just plain safer and more reliable. You don’t get crap blown in the face (unsafe) and don’t really increase effective range…

Posted on July 30, 2026August 1, 2026 by badgerridge — Leave a comment

Troubleshooting Hangfires and Misfires when using BlackHorn209

With our Remington 700 ML 209 conversion kit, we get very few complaints or requests for assistance compared to the number of kits sold and installed. The few instances usually are tied to not fully comprehending the kit’s components and how to maintain them. Of these, most center around the Badger Ridge Hunter 209 Breech plug. There is a good section in our FAQ on the breech plug and how to maintain it.

The other complaints center around not understanding the subtle differences when using Blackhorn209. This was posted to our old website back in May of 2016 (moving it here to preserve and update it)

TROUBLE SHOOTING AND COMMON MISTAKES

You must read and understand the Remington 700ML owners manual prior to using our conversion kit. Using our 209 conversion replaces the breech plug; so you have to apply what the Remington 700ML Owner’s Manual says about nipples, flash holes, and caps to flash channels, vent liners, and 209 primers.

Failure to Fire, Misfires, Hang-Fires, Bloopers, etc:

Typically these sorts of malfunctions are caused by one or a combination of:
-1. Using weak ‘muzzleloader’ 209 primers with Blackhorn209
-2. Obstructions or contaminants in the flash chamber (improper maintenance)
-3. Failure to seal and compact the charge when using Blackhorn 209.
-4. Not replacing the mainspring during conversion/poorly installed conversion, improper firing pin protrusion, using oils/grease that gel when cold, failing to properly reassemble after maintenance, etc.

First and foremost: The mainspring should be replaced during conversion. The original configuration subjected the mainspring to lots of corrosive blow-back, heat, and extra cycles. All quickly reduce its effectiveness. If not replaced, light and inconsistent primer strikes are probable. Also if the firing pin protrusion was not set properly, or there is a bur, rust, or crud causing the firing pin to hang up, failures to fire are probable. We always replace the mainspring as part of our installation service and include a new mainspring with our kits. If you did it yourself and are having trouble with detonating the primer: Take the rifle to a competent gunsmith to remedy these or any other unsafe or abnormal condition, or buy our bolt cleaning and mainspring replacment service and we’ll take a look at it.

Use only standard shotshell, full powered 209 primers with Blackhorn209. The primer must be sealed!!!

Properly sealed discharged 209 primers, this is what a fired 209 primer should look like

Besides leaking at the primer. It is critical that you understand: Any primer that says “inline Muzzle loader” or is titled by a black powder subsitue, or says it has reduce fouling or a “KleenBore” is too weak for BlackHorn209. I wrote a lenghty blog post about this if you want more details.

These Remington KleaBore muzzleloader 209 primers are too weak for BlackHorn209

These Winchester 777 muzzleloader 209 primers are too weak for BlackHorn209 powder

Remedies for obstructions or contaminants in the flash chamber/improper maintenance:
— Clean the flash channel of the breech plug with a 7/32 drill bit (only use your fingers and light pressure… do not remove metal!!!) Use standard bore cleaning solvents and round brushes to dissolve and scrub away any remaining contaminates.

–Clean the flash channel of the vent liner with torch tip cleaners. Break cleaner works well to remove oils and greases and any remnants, some guys use IsoPropal Alchohol (IPA). You should see a nice round flash hole when you hold the breech plug up to a light source, and the expansion chamber between the flash hole (vent liner) should be free of debris, dry and clean.

Breech plug, vent liner removed. Vent liner being cleaned by torch tip cleaner.

Remove any lubricants, greases, or oils in the flash channel prior to loading.
— Keep anti-seize only on the threads of the breech plug and vent liner; anti-seize or any other lubricant will reduce primer heat and cause ignition problems when in the flash chamber, or face of the breech plug.

— Swab out any excess oil left in the barrel with a dry patch before loading. You can swab it out (typically with an evaporating solvent), or sometimes even blast it out with an aersol can (like brake cleaner).

— After doing the stuff above: Some guys will take an unloaded rifle, and prior to loading, pop one primer and watch to ensure flame/lots of air shoots out the end of the muzzle to ensure the flash path is clear and dry.

In cold climates avoid greases and oils that gel or congeal when cold
— We use and recommend only dry PTFE lubes on the firing pin assembly

If you are using full powered primers and doing the above maintenance and still having issues only when using Blackhorn209 (typically diagnosed by successfully and repeatedly igniting a load of other easier to ignite black powder substitute), the cause is most likely a poor seal on the primer or projectile.

Poor primer seal can also be diagnosed by having soot or blow back on the sides of the 209 primers; only the primer’s face should have soot on it (check out the picture above)

ONLY SABOTS AND HORNADY BORE DRIVERS HAVE A SOLID REPUTATION OF SEALING THE PROJECTILE:

Most other conicals (PowerBelts, Federal B.O.R. Lock, minie balls, etc) will not adequately seal and will give bloopers and misfires!

BOTTOM LINE METHODS TO GET RELIABILITY WITH BLACKHORN209

— Seal Primer: full power 209 shot shell primer swaged and sealed properly into the breech plug; one should feel some resistance when closing the bolt with a primer in the nose. This is because the primer is being swaged into and sealing the breech plug. Failure for the primer to seal is commonly caused by over or excessive breech plug tuning, or poor primer fit. Correct by changing to a larger size brand of primers (Winchester are the skinnest, CCI-Federal-Remington are next, then foreign tend to be bigger), or purchase a new breech plug & do not over tune.

— Change projectile: Powerbelts, Bore Locks, Minet, Lubed conicals, Minnie-balls, etc do not fully seal (aka obturate) until the powder charge expands and presses them into the rifling grooves. Use snug fitting sabots with properly sized bullets with Blackhorn209. Some report great results with the Hornady Bore Driver bullets.

— Change powder: Black Powder and its other substitutes will combust easily and work OK when not completely sealed, but Blackhorn209 needs a good seal for proper ignition. Changing powders when one has a a poor seal is circumventing the problem rather than fixing it.

So in summary:

1> You need to make sure your 209 conversion kit is properly installed
2> You still have to clean the crud out of the flash channel like you would any muzzleloader, it just requires a few different tools. In many ways it is easier than taking care of a side lock. Dry PTFE lubes work great on the firing pin and action at all temperatures (hot and cold).
3> When you change to Blackhorn209 those weak 209 black powder primers aren’t going to do it.
4> And the old school, easy load, seals with combustion, projectiles don’t work well with Blackhorn209 neither.Keep it simple: Use our kit with modern sabots and properly sized bullets, standard 209 primers that swage and seal, and you’ll nearly certainly be malfunction and blow back free.

We have a webpage dedicated to troubleshooting this stuff, take some time to read it if you need help:

Remington 700ML 209 conversion troubleshooting guide

Posted on July 26, 2026August 1, 2026 by badgerridge — Leave a comment

Getting ready for Colorado Muzzle-Loader season?

This was originally posted at our oldwebsite many times. Reposting it here.

We’ve been selling and installing our great 209 conversions for years now. And I’ve noticed my questions and sales following trends influenced by the various hunting seasons and their associated rules. This time of year many folks are getting ready for Colorado’s muzzle loader season, typically focusing on harvesting an elk. So I frequently edit and re-post this one. The commentary here was also added the to the FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).

Q: I hunt in Colorado, sabots are not allowed for hunting during muzzleloader season in Colorado. I want to use your awesome 209 conversion, but you say you recommend sabots with jacketed handgun bullets. What are my options?

A: Short answer is our kit will work great with any projectile. I’ve found Pyrodex, Triple Se7en, and black powder work best with non sabot projectiles. So I suggest that you use our kit and any muzzle loader safe powder (besides BlackHorn209) for your Colorado hunts with Colorado legal projectiles.

UPDATE TO ADD: Some folks are reporting good results with the new Hornady Bore-Driver bullets and BlackHorn209 powder. They have a substantial plastic base on them that seems to seal well and function with BlackHorn209. You may want to try it out yourself.

Long answer:

I realize not all 50 state have the same rules. And some state’s rules are just plain silly. I wrote a blog post about that.

The main thing to remember here: the powder you chose must be compatible with the projectiles you use.

Our kit will seal the breech, which keeps the crud out of the bolt and action no matter what muzzle loader safe propellant you chose. Our kit is compatible with all muzzle loader safe propellants: pellets, loose powder, etc. Also using 209’s will give you more ignition heat and thus more reliable ignition over caps. And seeing our system keeps the crud sealed into the breech plug, the 209 is ignited reliably too. But the powder and projectile choice is up to the shooter. Read the manuals/instructions and follow them when developing loads.

Blackhorn209 powder is different from Pyrodex & Triple7even: To be reliable BlackHorn209 needs to be fully sealed; i.e. sealed at the breech (which our kit does), and sealed at the projectile. Minnie balls, minet, power belts, B.O.R. Lock MZ and other easy loading projectiles that are legal for Colorado muzzleloading, don’t usually seal until the powder combusts and forces them into the grooves. This deformation sealing the bore after combustion is called obturation. The problem is BlackHorn209 doesn’t burn well until it’s sealed and can build pressure. So it’s likely to have bloopers, miss fires, and hang fires with obturating projectiles. Sabots seal well to start, thus if you are using BlackHorn209, it’s recommended to use sabots.

Though the new Hornady Bore Driver bullets are reported to seal well and work with BlackHorn209, I haven’t tried them myself.

Never use smokeless powder in your Remington/Ruger! It says it right on the barrel!

Because Colorado doesn’t allow sabots during the muzzle loader seasons I would stay away from Blackhorn209. (or with a lot of trial, I may try the Hornady Bore Drivers).

Otherwise, If I was hunting in Colorado, I’d use our kit, choose a heavy projectile (250gr or more) that seals on ignition: Hornady BoreDriver, Thor, minie ball, lead conical, etc. But without a lot of testing, I wouldn’t use BlackHorn209; I’d try Triple7even, or Pyrodex. Although they are not as easy to clean, and will foul the barrel, they are very easy to ignite even when not sealed, and will obturate the projectile. Black powder will work just fine with these sorts of projectiles too.

I do have a few clients that report success with Blackhorn209 and magnum primers (CCI 209M or Federal 209A) using Hornady FPB’s or its aforementioned replacement: Bore Driver… and also with Thor bullets. I also had one that said the Thors worked well at the range, but didn’t fire when he had a nice bull in his sights. He said it was extremely chilly that morning, his rifle was cold soaked, and the Blackhorn209 wouldn’t go bang. He was very frustrated. I’ve heard the same report from folks using Powerbelts: worked ok at the range, but when cold soaked their rifle woulsn’t go bang: I suspect it was because the projectile shrunk with the cold, and the copper jacket or plastic skirt wasn’t quite as malleable. Also cold powder is just a bit harder to get burning, and thus that setup was unable to obturate the looser projectile and keep the BlackHorn209 burning. So I wouldn’t use BlackHorn to hunt with most obturating projectiles.

Thus without a lot of testing (like putting a loaded rifle in a freezer, pulling it out and shooting the combo… repeatedly). I would stick with Pyrodex or TripleSeven for Colorado muzzle loader hunting: they will go bang with an obturating bore riding projectile when you need it, even when it is very cold. Or I would use Hornady Bore Drivers (they have a big plastic base and seem to seal well).

Just about everywhere else, I recommend sabots because they have been accurate, easy to load, and jacketed hand gun bullets have always been very effective for me. Whatever powder you chose, the velocities your muzzle loader will produce are essentially the same that good jacketed handgun bullets are designed for. They tend to kill quickly and bring home game. Sabots are allowed in most states, so that’s what I usually recommend.

Long-term: If I voted in Colorado, I’d pressure my legislature to change the muzzleloader rules. Removing the most effective projectiles (jacketed handgun bullets are great in muzzleloaders), and the most modern muzzleloading propellant (Black Horn 209) from use is bad for the game receiving the projectile. I believe the no sabots rule promotes wounded/lost animals.

Posted on July 26, 2026August 1, 2026 by badgerridge — Leave a comment

Confused about the different types of 209 primers?

Your muzzle loader not going off when you want? Blackhorn209 giving you trouble with reliable ignition? I think we have some answers to what works and how we got here.

Orginally posted to our old website on 9/25/2020 (updated and reposted here to preserve it

loading a sealed breech 209 system for a Remington 700 MLS, Animated Gif — Loading a 209 sealed breech system on a Remington 700 MLS

Welcome to the Badger’s Den! If an internet search brought you here searching for Savage, Remington or Ruger muzzle loader solutions, don’t worry you found the right place! Stay with us! Keep scrolling, Click here, or Look at the banners at the of the page or the right side etc for what you are looking for!

Yes we still sell items for these old muzzle loaders!

For this installment I’d like to discuss the different types of 209 primers you can use in your muzzle loader and how we got to the point where you have to understand what is compatible with what in order to have a reliable shooter. I’ll also be adding this to our FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions).

Q: Why do you recommend I don’t use muzzle loader primers in my muzzle loader? Why did the “muzzle loader 209 primer” I tried with Blackhorn209 fail but the standard or magnum 209 primer worked? Why does Western Powders (makers of Blackhorn209) say to use magnum primers, but you say I can use standard primers or magnum primers, but not “inline muzzle loading” 209 primers? Why does the primer say it’s non corrosive, but you say I need to clean my muzzle loader soon after shooting because it will corrode? I’ve got a stainless muzzle loader, do I really need to clean it after shooting?

A: These are all Good questions with seemingly contradictory information.

If you want the short answer, and you have a Remington 700 ML/MLS or a Ruger 77/50, the short answer is: buy our conversion kit, use full powered standard or magnum 209 shotgun primers and pair them with Sabots and Blackhorn209. Clean your muzzle loader thoroughly after shooting.

The short answer also can be summarized as: not all muzzle loader and gun cleaning stuff is compatible with all other muzzle loader and gun cleaning stuff. Read and follow each item’s directions. Our kits seal the breech, so our kits are compatible with any muzzle loader powder. Using our kit helps simplify much of the compatibility issues.

If you want the long answer, please keep reading:

Remington 700 Modified with our 209 system feeding a primer into the breech plug to seal it up and improve performance and reliability

The long answer is, well… long:

First lets talk about primers in general and then some history of modern muzzle loader and black powder substitute development. Then BlackHorn209 muzzle loader powder.

Yes: modern primers (and percussion caps) have been non-corrosive for years. Corrosive primers formerly used fulminates, like mercury fulminate: their residues are corrosive, but for quite some time most western countries have used other non corrosive stuff (like lead styphnate). The Eastern Block countries were slower to adopt non-corrosive primers, which is why you are likely to run into old ammo from them that has corrosive primers. So today primers are still labeled corrosive or non-corrosive… FYI corrosive primers that use Mercury Fulminate attack brass and make it brittle. You want to avoid trying to reload any brass fired with corrosive primers… especially if it has had the residue on it for a while.

Regardless of the primer/cap, Black Powder and most substitutes produce corrosive residue (aka fouling). In the unique case of Blackhorn209 it’s fouling is not corrosive, but it is hygroscopic (which coats the bore with water that promotes corrosion). So you need to clean any muzzle loader using Black Powder or a substitute soon after firing.

Some manufacturers responded to this by offering coatings, like cerakote, nickle, etc… others use stainless steel to protect the gun from the corrosive fouling. Regardless of steel or treatments that may slow the corrosion, cleaning after shooting is still required to protect the metal from the effects of these residues. Also breech plugs and their components (along with bolts in leaky breech setups) can be fused into the rifle by the fouling alone. Then factor it the fouling’s corrosive tendancys: if not properly protected before firing and properly cleaned after firing a breech plug is likely to get stuck.

Breech plug left uncleaned and covered in BH209 residue (has been cleaned and scrubbed now)

Further complicating things is that Black Powder and most of its substitutes’ fouling builds with each shot, and tend to be sticky. This fouling will bind and cement stuff together, like breech plugs into barrels. Blackhorn209 is the exception here. It has no more fouling on the 500th shot than after the first, and its fouling is not sticky nor does it tend to lock stuff together. See the breech plug above… it corroded but didn’t get stuck in the rifle after being neglected (it didn’t stick liekly because of the BlackHorn209 powder). But I’ll get into Blackhorn later.

Crud rings became a problem when the venerable standard 209 primer’s with so much more priming compound than percussion caps were introduced to muzzle loading. The crud ring forms near the breech (with Black Powder and all its substitutes… except Blackhorn209). It’s caused by the organic residue of Black Powder (and its first substitutes) mixing with the inorganic residue of the priming compound.

Remington KleenBore Muzzleloader 209 primers — These are cooler muzzle loader primers that reduce crud rings (but don’t work well with BlackHorn209)

Reduced powered inline muzzle loader 209’s (Remington “Kleanbore”, Winchester “777”, CCI Inline muzzleloader, etc) were created to combat the “crud ring.” Standard shotgun shells are loaded with smokeless powder and smokeless needs a bunch of priming compound to get it burning reliably. So standard 209’s are pretty darn hot. With “muzzleloader” 209’s, the basic idea is to introduce less inorganic priming compounds because Black Powder and most of its substitutes are reliably ignited by lower charges than a typical shotgun 209 produced. Reducing the inorganic contaminates makes less of a crud ring and makes it easier to clean the crud ring (when cleaning between shots). So that makes these “muzzle loader” primers hotter than a percussion/musket cap, but cooler than a standard 209 primer.

Winchester 777 muzzleloading 209 primers — These are Winchester’s muzzleloader primers (they don’t work well with BlackHorn209)

However, the logic runs a bit circular when looked at retroactively… guns were designed to use 209s in order to leverage their hotter ignition and hence become more reliable (and of course they were marketed as such and the industry made money). Then more black powder substitutes that were easily ignited, but had organic chemistry were introduced (777 etc, they were marketed as better than Black Powder and the market made money). But the guns became harder to reload/clean because of the crud ring… so the manufactures created “Inline Muzzle loader 209” primer’s that aren’t as hot but works well enough to ignite most powders and reduce the crud ring (and are marketed as cleaner, but not as less powerful… and the industry makes money). This frequently confuses folks new to the sport… intuition says use the primers labeled ‘muzzle loader’ in your muzzle loader. Also a general desire to always have the most powerful stuff would mean folks wouldn’t buy the “muzzle loader” primer if they knew it was less powerful: So who would label their primers as less powerful? Folk would want to get the more powerful standard or magnum primer and use that wouldn’t they?

So thats starts some confusion and varying advice on what to use in your muzzle loader. We hope to make it clear what to use and why… so keep reading to find out the rest of the story!

Some folks stuck with the more powerful standard primers,,, and occasionally found that if they were shooting easy loading projectiles (aka obturating projectiles that don’t seal well or lodge tightly in the barrel until deformed by powder combustion: power belts, bore lock MZ, minie balls, etc), that they lost accuracy with the magnum or standard 209 primers, but when they tried the muzzleloader primers the same loose bullets and powders grouped well. They reasoned they were un-compacting the powder charge before it got fully burning with the more powerful primers. There’s so many factors, who knows what the cause is, but the remedy seemed to be using the low powered primer when that rare case arose where full powered primers would not shoot accurately. This also reduced the crud ring.

Still, I always suggest folks try standard or magnum primers first. If they can’t get a good group, –and they are not using BlackHorn209--, then try the primer with the name of the powder they are using or another muzzleloader specific primer (ie try full powered primers first; if you are shooting 777 and it won’t group, try the Winchester 777 primer… or any other low powered muzzleloader 209 primer). Getting a difficult to clean/load situation from a crud ring? Switch to reduced powered primers.

Why do I suggest that you try magnum or standard 209’s before “muzzleloader” 209s? First, the muzzle loader specific 209’s have always been about double the price of standard 209’s. I assume that is because they just don’t make as many. Second, if you can get it to work with more heat, then that seems better to me as more heat will compensate for other issues when you are in less than ideal situations… like its raining or snowing on a hunt and a big buck appears in front of you.

A runing scale of primer sources listed by increasing heat against the powders that require more heat (or a seal) — Note this is showing primers related to how ‘hot’ they are and how hot (or sealed up) a powder needs to be reliable. A hotter primer can ignite a powder lower on the scale (A standard primer easily igntes black powder).

Of course if they are using our kit to seal the breech, I always suggest they stay away from obturating projectiles and use sabots with Blackhorn209 and full powered or magnum primers. Our kits work with all 209’s, and all black powder/substitutes. The real question is whether the propellent you chose is compatible with the projectile you choose.

Blackhorn2009 is not compatible with obturating projectiles (projectiles that don’t seal until deformed by the burning/expanding powder charge) and is not compatible with weaker “muzzle loader” primers.

After reduced power “Muzzle loader 209’s” came out Western Powders introduced BlackHorn209 (which is nitrocellulose based) and needs at-least a standard 209. Nitrocellulose is inorganic and cleans up with solvents that also dissolve priming compound residue… so no more soap and water/Windex, no more crud ring, no more fouling in the barrel that builds up with each shot (though you can still get priming compound built up and blocking a breach plug’s flash channel… you may need to pull and clean the priming compound residue from your breech plug every 5-10 shots or so).

So now-a-days we have “muzzle-loader” primers that are not hot enough to set off nitrocellulose powders (like typical shotgun shells use). And now we have a great powder called BlackHorn209 that has a good bit of nitrocellulose in it and thus needs standard or magnum 209’s to go “bang”. However the intuition of some folks is to use the stuff labeled the same as the purpose… got a muzzleloader, so you use “muzzleloader” 209’s… right? Definitely wrong when using BlackHorn209.

Why bother with BlackHorn 209? Its just a better solution! First, it makes a lot less smoke… you shoot an animal, you have a ton less smoke to look through and watch it run off/fall over dead. Also, because it doesn’t build sticky fouling: It doesn’t require cleaning until the end of a day, and it cleans with standard gun cleaning stuff like Hoppies etc. Standard gun cleaning stuff was made to clean up priming compound residue and nitrocellulose fouling, copper fouling, lead fouling, plastic fouling etc, but these modern cleaners do not work as well with Black Powder fouling (along with most of its substitutes).

BlackHorn209 performs better. It tends to be more temperature stable than BP and its substitutes… ie it doesn’t swing as high or low as they do with large temperature swings… (not saying it isn’t affected by temperature… just saying it doesn’t swing as much). And is generally regarded safer as its harder to detonate than black powder. Just look at its MSDS if you want the specifics. If you were to chrony 300gr projectiles with equal volumes of BlackHorn209 against any other Black Powder or substitute, you’ll find BlackHorn209 has an edge in velocity. All of this is why I use and recommend BlackHorn209 with sabots and modern jacketed handgun bullets. Bottomline: you have to use standard or magnum primers with BlackHorn209.

This further gets hard for the novice as most stores typically stock muzzleloader only things in the ‘muzzleloader’ section, but if they have a reloading section that is where they put the standard or magnum 209 primers. Then guys who just want to shoot, hear that BH209 is better, or see a new thing on the shelf, and buy some along with the ‘Muzzleloader” primers in the same “muzzleloader” section. Then try to shoot it in a leaky breech or with a projectile that isn’t sealed setup… and it fails.

They get mad and rail against BlackHorn209 powder. Remember nitrocellulose needs to be sealed/fully contained to burn properly, the simple answer is sabots… and standard or magnum primers. Some may interject that there are other more experimental ways to seal a projectile. Yes there are but I won’t address them as they are not mainstream.

Remember the issue isn’t the powder. It’s because the gun is leaky… and/or they didn’t clean the flash channel and burnt primer compound is clogging the breech plug, and/or the breech plug wasn’t made to shoot blackhorn209, and/or the weaker muzzle loader primer is used… and/or the projectile isn’t sealed (like Bore lock MZ’s or powerbelts in some rifles)… In those cases: Blackhorn209 bloopers, misfires, or hang fires, and folks get upset and blame the powder… when they should be blaming themselves for not reading/following the instructions on the bottle of BH209, and/or walking over to the shotgun shell reloading section and grabbing full powered or magnum 209 primers. Or googling it and finding a thread here where I explain how to get it to work in an old muzzle loader built before BlackHorn209 was on the scene (like having us retrofit a vent liner into your old breech plug)… or…

Then you get to today: where some of us make a living helping folks through the mess and getting them to simple effective sealed breech solutions. As most of the mistakes have been made, and most of the answers are in the product’s instructions, or posted/explained/sold here.

If you have a Remington 700 ML/MLS or Ruger 77/50 and you want to seal the breech, or shoot BlackHorn209 we have your solution.

As for Western Powders (now owned by Hodgon Powder Company) recommending magnum primers for use with BlackHorn209… all I can do is wager a guess. (I don’t work there nor can I speak for them). I –think– its a combination of: that is what they tested, and tested, and tested. Factored against: if you want it to reliably go off for the best customer experience, have them get the primer with the most priming compound that may correct for a user error (like not fully sealing the breech or projectile, not fully removing oils and contaminates, not cleaning well, etc). Also if hunting in extreme cold, I do recommend magnums myself. Though I must admit, I’ve never myself seen an issue setting off Blackhorn209 with standard primers that were sealed into our kits when using sabots, but I don’t get a lot of negative temperatures to test in (nor do I really want to go out in those temps and shoot a lot).

I hope this has helped you. We specialize in sealing up the Remington 700ML (produced from 1995-2005) and the Ruger 77/50. We also sell many items for the Savage 10 ML muzzle loaders, and modify breech plugs from other guns to get them working more reliably with BlackHorn209. Feel free to call and ask questions; we are here to help.

Perhaps on another installment we’ll discuss how all the 209 primers vary in dimension depending on the company producing them! (important for sealing up 209’s into the breech!)

Also don’t forget that all breech designs are not equal. Leaky breeches not only cover the shooter, the gun’s internals, and any optics in that same nasty fouling, but are hard to maintain and not as reliable as sealed breech systems. Keep reading through the Badger’s Den for answers and explanations on leaky breeches, why and how we seal them up.

Year: 2026