So you want to become a Muzzleloader Hunter w/ Tony Smotherman from CVA....pt 3 of 3

This week we are again joined by Tony Smotherman for his pt3 of 3 on "So you want to become a Muzzleloader Hunter" ..... now we turn to "Tuning in that Muzzleloader" ...... it's all about understanding Kinetic Energy and when you need to shoot a heavier vs lighter bullet.

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Transcript

 And also a, uh, it vaporizes the inside because it's moving so fast. So, uh, that, that projectile, we'll say it's 28, 2, 900 feet per second, depending on your bullet weight,  a muzzleloader in theory, 50 caliber. Cause that's kind of what we've been talking about. Uh, will average anywhere from 1, 850 feet per second to 2, 200 feet per second.

Much, much slower than a centerfire rifle. So we don't, we don't, uh, we'll, I'll say this word, it's kind of a hard word, but we don't kill with velocity.  We kill with kinetic energy. And that's how far we can get them. Camel boots on my feet, bow in my hand Walkin in the early dawn to climb up the mountain  Redbone, what would you say if I could tell you that you could kill a buck on a certain day?

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Of a part three series of Tony Smotherman, CBA influencer and muzzleloader guru.  And my phone just talked back to me and it's called Tony Smotherman.  I didn't have my Siri on in the studio. Welcome to the show, Tony.  What's going on, fellas? Uh, we, this first part of the show, we're hanging out in the studio.

We talk about sports. Are you a big NFL fan,  college fan?  Man, I spend so much time in the timber, I don't have time to sit inside and watch football, bro. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well, the Chiefs,  what do you think? Well, they'll be coming off their loss to the Steelers on Christmas Day. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Uh, you have to excuse Wayne, sometimes he gets delusional. Yeah, he's a Yankee, he ain't like us southern folks. He said he lives across the street, not a gravel road.  We give him a hard time because we love him. Hard to break old habits. Yeah. But anyway, uh, high school basketball is going on, congratulations to all the teams that won and hang in there to the teams that lost.

Holiday tournaments are happening. Holiday tournaments are happening. Merry Christmas to everybody. I hope you all had a good day. Yeah. Yeah. And a happy new year, which will be just a couple days away. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, today is the first day of muzzleloader season in Missouri. Yeah. That's right.

Twenty eight. That's  the best day of the year, fella.  Well, we got a tree up, so.  We ain't got our tree up yet.  We're waiting on the last minute. I hate saying that, but you'd think with six kids we'd have our tree up already. It's sitting right there, ready to go up. With the kids being sick the last few days, we just didn't get it up.

Well, the real reason of Christmas is because of Jesus birth, you know? So that's the way we look at, but we still buy gifts, but that's not our main focus. But let's get back into this, you know, this show here, we're going to talk about selecting the right bullet. There's all kinds of bullets out there. And real quick, Wayne's going to mention the different types of bullets. 

Mike's and you talk about the bullets that you shoot real quick.  Yeah, we got the, what I shoot, which of course is the board driver. I absolutely love the board driver, but they also have the, uh, 50 cal four 99, which is the board driver, uh, ELD X. They also shoot the, uh, uh, high, uh, or excuse me, the very popular one is also the SST.

And that's what I shoot and then there's the x to x tp and I shoot it too. I've never shot that one I did shoot the s the sst before uh, but I I like the board driver That's just kind of like where I kind of found my groove with it. And I just love the way it handles Yeah, my accuracy is just like I said two inches I mean, when they first come out with the Sabbath bullets, I thought, man, this ain't gonna work,  but it does.

Don't it, Tony?  Hey, it works great. And, um, so obviously about half of us on this show here, probably redneck.  Just so you know, Alex, it's called a SABO. SABO. I'm sorry. SABO. A SABO. And how did they come up with that name, Tony?  I'm sorry, say that again. How did they come up with the name SABO?  You don't, I don't know.

It actually is a French based word and it dates back to way longer than you and I have been on this earth. But the SABO projectiles or sabbats have been around for a long, long time. I think that, um, when I got into the muscle and sport back into the early nineties. Um, we were shooting sabbats then or suppose then at that time.

Uh, so they've been around for a very long time, been a staple, uh, of the world we live in as far as muzzled and projectiles, and you talk about the bore driver, obviously a total different design, uh, projectile, uh, it is designed to where it is much easier to load. And that is the downside and why we progress so much in projectile design is that the sabbats are awesome.

They work great. They feel off the grooves and lands of the rifling in the barrel very well. And you get all the ignition or chamber pressure out of your powder, uh, when you ignite it, because you don't have any blow by when it comes to a Sabbath. Um, but the, the, the very weak point of a Sabbath or Sabob is the fact that they're very hard to load.

And I've, I've heard that complaint over the years, uh, numerous times at different events. I want to share something with you after you're done. Go ahead.  Okay. Um, so, uh, in theory, uh, the Savity projectiles take about 65 pounds of downward pressure to seat. Uh, so basically, you gotta lay in on it, in, in, uh, general speaking.

You gotta lay in on it to get it seated against your powder charge. Whereas, there are several different projectiles on the market today that have, uh,  Well, advanced with technology like the bore driver and then there's a power belt ELR. Uh, and there's a couple other manufacturers out there that make bullets, uh, that are designed for modern day propellants, modern day muzzleloader hunters and shooters.

That are so much easier to load. And then the last two projectiles that I mentioned, they take about 20 pounds of downward pressure to see. So they're a whole lot easier to load than a Savage big difference.  I want to say, I want to share this with you, Tony, real quick. And  Mike's got something to say. The, uh,  the XTP  shoots, you know, groups up to one inch groups at a hundred yards.

And it says here, no lube is really required. Uh, to, to make the bullet slide easier. But what I wanted to share with everybody is I use boar butter on all of my SABOs  to, to, it helps the bullet slide easier into the barrel.  So that's something I do.  And I was taught that from Boob Brawley. Boob was one of the, uh, muzzleloading gurus here in our area.

Tony, you ever use boar butter with SABOs?  That product's been around for quite a long time, and, and I haven't used it in, I don't know, maybe 10 or 12 years, and, and the reason I haven't, nothing against that, but it's just these modern projectiles that we're used today, they're so easy to load, they just don't require that material to make it easy to load. 

Redbone? Yeah, I was just going to say before we wrap up this segment here, if we go to lunch at the country cottage one day and we're talking about muzzleloader hunting, muzzleloader hunting. We start talking about what kind of sabbaths we shoot and we say, well, I don't shoot a Sabbath. I shoot a Sabo, Sabo

They're gonna kick us out of there. Oh, they'll  . They gonna take you highbrow now. Yeah. The high eyebrows. Yeah, the peaky finger up.  We need to Sabo. We're gonna break. We come back. Tony Smotherman, CVA top influencer.  Mu loading guru. Don't go away. We'll be right back with more right after this. Hi everybody.

This is Brad Harris. You're listening to American Roots Outdoors with Alex Rutt, Legian friends. 

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They have an aggressive team, Redbone, like these guys get it done. They sell properties all over the country, especially here in the Midwest. But again, we've got Tony Smutham on the phone with us. This guy killed a 194.  About a week ago. His, a couple, yeah, a couple weeks ago now. Yeah. Farm Iowa.  No, I got, I got to thinking, you know, he was just, uh, giving us a little education here, correcting our, our, our grammar, uh, you know, Sabbath, Sabo.

I'm wondering if, did we mispronounce them? Tony did I, I, we didn't mean to mispronounce last week, but I, I know we were talking about primers or is it, uh, premier? Primers.  . So don't, I don't wanna mis mispronounce here to go.  Well, country folks, you're going to say sabot and primer, primer, and powder, powder, powder.

So Tony, selecting the right bullet, talking about that, we talked about seating the bullet with boar butter and, and you said these newer bullets, you don't need lube them.  And uh, I'm sure. Pointed you bullets are the same now, you know, but I've always used more butter, you know, to, to help the bullets slide through.

And, and, you know, the, I think, you know, digging into the topic of hunting, uh, or utilizing these new bullets and, and, and basically bullets in general, you know, when you go to the, your local sporting goods store, you walk up to the, the muzzle loading section. And, and if you look at that section right there and the, uh, bullets or projectiles available section there. 

It can be very overwhelming. There is a ton of different muzzleloading bullets that's on the market today. Um, and what I wanted to do is try to help steer, uh, you in the right direction to make that proper choice. And, you know, like you was talking about those Hornady SSTs there earlier, um, guys, that bullet's been around for a long time.

A lot of people use them, uh, and have used them. But the most important thing, I think, when it comes to bullet selection, to make you more effective, uh, that means more accurate on the range, which means you're going to be more accurate and more successful in the field, is picking the proper bullet weight.

There you go. Bullet weight. So, if you, if you dig into projectiles,  this is a question for you guys, also for the listeners out there. Mm hmm. What is the most common projectile weight or bullet weight for a muzzle loader?  Depends what caliber we're talking.  Uh, 50 caliber, 50 cal? 2 52.  2 53 I think 2 55.  What do you think is the most common one?

Purchased.  Oh, purchased.  Oh man.  Probably a 285 or 300.  So in theory,  that's the one that you want to use. The most common projectile on the market today that is purchased by muzzleloader hunters all across the nation is a 250.  And the reason that they pick a 250, Alex, is that they, the, and mechanically speaking, it makes more sense.

But a 250, everybody thinks that because it's lighter, it's going to fly faster. faster  and flatter, making them a bit more effective at long range and less concerned of having to judge yardage distance because of the bullet. Good stuff.  So if you think about that, okay, two 50. Yep. I think about it. Yep.

It's lighter than a 300 grain bullet. Oh, it's going to be faster. Oh, it's going to shoot flatter at long range. That is this, that, that mentally makes sense, but that is as far from the truth as humanly possible.  And I know you're going, what the heck are you talking about? That's no way.  We'll break it down again mechanically.

Yeah. So a 300 grain muzzleloading bullet will always shoot flatter, it longer ranges than a lighter 250 grain bullet. And you're probably going, there's no way because it's heavier. So gravity is going to take over on that 300 grain bullet faster than it will a 250. So the 300 grain bullet is going to fall off like a lead balloon. 

That is not the case. And here's, here's why it has more forward moving inertia when it leaves the barrel. So let's think about this. If we have, we have two cars, we have a brand new Volkswagen. That's probably 100 percent aluminum weighs, nothing super great gas mileage, cause it weighs nothing. Right.

Right beside it. We have a 1969.  Cadillac weighs 47 tons, gets 4 miles to the gallon.  Both of them are sitting side by side, running down the road at 50 miles an hour.  So they basically will say, they're leaving the barrel, both of them at 50 miles an hour. One of them's aluminum weighs nothing, the other one weighs like, like a lanyard. 

When you slam on the brakes,  which one's gonna stop first?  The lighter one.  The Volkswagen, the lighter one. So, now let's transfer that into a muzzle loading bullet. Both  bullets leave the barrel identically. A 250 and a 300. Hypothetical. They both leave the barrel at the same rate of speed. At 2, 250  feet per second.

Give or take.  That 300 grain bullet, at longer distances, is going to outperform and out shoot  The lighter for Jack tile for multiple reasons. It has bigger body mass, so when you get it rolling at 2200 feet per second, it's hard to get it to stop. Mm-hmm . So at, we'll say at 200 yards, if you're zeroed at a hundred, your 250 grand bullet's gonna be about 14 inches low. 

At 200  mm. Your 300, 300 grand bullet is gonna be 10 inches low  at 200  because that bullet is moving so hard and so fast equally to the two 50. It is harder to get it to stop so it shoots flatter. It longer ranges. It keeps its inertia energy.  It keeps the forward moving inertia longer. Here's another thing.

Here's another reason to choose the heavier bullet. I'm not saying specifically a 300 because that's a pretty common bullet,  but the 300 grain bullet or we'll say like the Hornady bore driver is a 340 or a power belt ELR is 330. Anything over 300 When it becomes, uh, a larger projectile than the 250, it doesn't get fatter. 

If it got fatter, it wouldn't go down the barrel.  So it gets longer. Mm. Lengthens.  Lengthens. So you remember the old days when everybody used to Kind of like a rocket. Yes. So the, the old days  of people shooting an overdraw on their bow, which means they, they, they basically, uh, had the rest on their bow, stepped back away from the bow so they could shoot a shorter arrow.

Yeah. It would be faster. That way they didn't have to judge yardage so much. Well, that only lasted for a very short period of time, because what they realized is it was a very erratic arrow flight. Any kind of movement would make that arrow shaft fly off. So now everybody is back to shooting full length arrows because they're longer, they stabilize better in flight. 

Same exact scenario if you micro it down to a muzzleloading bullet. The heavier it is, the longer it is.  The longer it is, the better it stabilizes in flight. So it's going to give you more accuracy on your target because it's longer, it stabilizes better.  It's going to fly flatter, it longer ranges  because it has more forward moving inertia.

But here's also a very key piece.  It's talking about kinetic energy.  So, kinetic energy is basically, let's think about it like this.  Mike Tyson comes up, punches you in the face. His fist is like a cannonball.  I come up and punch you in the face. My face is like a gnat slapping you on the side of the cheek.

Great, great, great comparison. We need to go on a break on this one. Tony, save it. We got to go to a break. We come back more about inertia,  more about bullets and kinetic energy. Don't go away. We'll be right back with the more American reach outdoors with Tony Schmotherman right after this. Hey y'all, it's Tyler Far and you're hanging with me and my good buddy Alex Rutledge on American Roots Outdoors 

Pair. 

So you  what?  Hey guys, it's food plot planting time here in the Ozarks and all across the country. What are you planting this year, Wayne? I'm gonna be putting some smorgasbord in with a whole lot of clover. You're gonna put some extra clover in it? What? Smorgasbord? What is smorgasbord? Man, it is a variety of annuals and perennials that'll get you through fall time, winter time, and all the way into spring.

It's awesome. You want to plant healthier food plots to track all kinds of game? Go to www. EagleSeed. com. It's a smorgasbord. You know, we all get tired of certain things. A smorgasbord has everything. Your deer will love it. EagleSeed. com. American  Roots. 

Eagle Seed presents Welcome back to American Roots Outdoors, part three of a three part series with Tony Schmulman, CVA Influencer and Muzzleloading Guru. We're talking about kinetic energy and, uh, tuning that, uh, muzzleloader in with bullets. And what information, I mean, you, you lost everything about physics.

Well, I, that's what, I mean, listening to Tony talking about, because, and Tony, I think you'll admit, all this sounds, uh, It goes backwards. It does. And it kind of goes against what we learned about physics in high school. Yeah. But, uh,  truth is truth. Well, think about it. Would you rather get hit? If you, if your life depended on getting hit by somebody, like you said, Mike Tyson or Tony Schmittleman, who would you rather be hit by?

Yeah, no offense, but I'm going with Tony every time.  NRD! I'm, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with Mike, cause I get paid more in the end. What weather is that? Oh, that's a jab. That's a jab. If you survived. Hey, this way the kids can take care of me while I'm still in my coma. Yeah, yeah. But Tony, you've actually convinced me now, I think, to go from, cause I was shooting a 290, Um, uh, board drive, right?

And I may switch to the 340 now, based on what you're saying, I'd be better off doing that.  You, you would be in so many facets. Uh, the, obviously it's a longer projectile, so again, stabilizes better in flight, more kinetic energy, but, if you, if you think about this kinetic energy scenario, you know, that,  especially in a muzzleloader, we don't have a plan D  in a muzzleloading scenario, and, and I'm, what I mean by that is, is we have one shot  to be ethical here, and, and to be efficient in what we're doing.

We have one shot, and that's our first shot. You know, so we don't have a follow up shot in most cases, uh, to finish off our animal. So you want to put as much kinetic energy into that animal on the first shot that you possibly can because well, basically that's how we harvest. So if you think about a comparison between a muzzleloader and a centerfire rifle, so a centerfire rifle, and in most cases, uh, we'll say, we'll say a 300 wind mag, which is a very common round.

Uh, you're shooting 180 grain bullets.  That's a heavy bullet in a centerfire world, and that bullet typically is a very fast moving Joker So it will put kinetic energy into the animal But it also is so fast the muzzle velocity is so fast that it basically when it goes through The animal that you're after it kind of vaporizes the inside so it pushes kinetic energy into the body And also a, uh, it vaporizes the inside because it's moving so fast.

So, uh, that, that projectile will say it's 28, 2900 feet per second, depending on your bullet weight,  a muzzleloader in theory, 50 caliber, cause that's kind of what we've been talking about. Uh, will average anywhere from 1, 850 feet per second to 2, 200 feet per second.  Much, much slower than a centerfire rifle.

So we don't, we don't, uh, we'll, I'll say this word, it's kind of a harsh word, but we don't kill with velocity.  We kill with kinetic energy, and that's how hard we hit them.  Tony, if I may interrupt, if I may interrupt, I think it's important that we point out to our listeners. Is, you know, it's important, it's crucial to, uh, use the correct  amount of powder to get the velocity that you need if you plan on shooting long range. 

You know, some guns you can use too much powder and the bullet will not be accurate consistently.  So different guns tune differently, correct?  That is absolutely correct. And that's why it's also, I think, crucial in my personal opinion to run a loose powder form. So you can, um, basically tweak your power charges to the gun that you have, even though that you, you may buy one gun and I buy the same gun right off the shelf.

right beside yours. Mine made like a hundred and  ten grains of powder. You're made like 95. It's almost like, of course, I obviously, Alex, I've known you for years and turkey hunting is how I knew you and grew up watching you as a turkey hunting machine and that a shotgun is the same way that you utilize a turkey hunt with.

Some like fours, some like five, some like sixes. Exactly. Plus loaders are the same way. You do have to spend time on the range to figure out what your gun prefers. Uh, yes, we know we want to try to start with a heavier projectile for accuracy, kinetic energy and so on and so forth. Uh, but dialing in that powder too is very crucial.

And in other episodes that we've shot for American Roots, as we've talked about powder pretty in depth, and we talked about the loose powder versus pelletized powder. Well, the pelletized powder does not give you the ability to basically We can fine tune tweak. Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah. So I'll just say something about allows you to dial it in.

We talk about fine tuning and we got about a minute and a half left here in this part for a segment for the show. I just want to say this. Uh, when you go to using loose powder, your Ramrod, and it's a little tricky that I do, and I know you do it, Tony and Wayne is that I like to mark my Ramrod.  If my guns tuned in at 110 grains of powder.

I will take a marker or a knife or mark my ramrod to the end of my barrel. I get a consistent, uh, push and loading my muzzleloader every time. So that's a good trick for y'all  score it  with paint, magic marker, whatever. You have a consistent Ram every time  we got about 50 seconds left. Again, this has been a wonderful series of shows.

Gentlemen,  Wayne Redbone. This guy is full information. And if people say they couldn't learn something from this.  Man, they wasn't listening.  Yeah, and we got a whole other segment to go. Yeah, it's the bonus segment. No, be the end of the radio show. I'm sorry. You're early. I thought it was segment four. You said it was segment four.

Well, yeah, well we actually do the show in five segments, but yeah. Yeah, but we have one more segment. No, we have one more segment No, we got one more radio segment. We've done three, we got one more to do.  Wow. I just brought it in with Eagle Seed and you said it was segment four. Yeah.  Well, it is, but we'll, we'll talk about the technical, we'll talk about the technical later.

Yeah, anyway, anyway, we're not arguing. We're just trying to get things straight in here. I didn't want to sound very unprofessional here. But again, a great show. We got another segment, I guess, guys. Wayne?  Yeah, and I know when we come back, uh, we're going to touch more on, I want to touch more on the distance That you're saying that these bullets now can reach out to with this new powder and the accurate loading.

What distances are we now limited to or in some cases maybe not limited to what we thought?  Guys, we're going to wrap it up here.  We're going on a break. Yeah, we're going on a break. And the thing that I've learned listening to all this is, is  shooting muzzle loaders come a long ways In the days when I was shootin my old Hawken 50 caliber.

Yeah, that's another one. Yeah, that's my old Kentucky. That may be the understatement of the show right there. Wrap this segment up, Redbone. Yeah, we'll be back with more. So you want to be a muzzleloader hunter? In just a minute, on the American Roots Outdoors radio show with Alex Rutledge and friends. Hey guys, this is the Macklemore Boys here with Masterbuilt.

You're listening to our buddy Alex Rutledge. With the American Roots Outdoors right now. Let's go! Give me five, baby. 

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Right on optics presents. Welcome back to American roots, outdoor segment four of our show. I said segment four a while ago on the last series. I apologize. But anyway, uh, Tony Smotherman.  CBA Guru,  Muzzleloader Guru, we cover some great stuff here. We're talking about tuning in that muzzleloader. We talked about bullets, powder, primers, cleaning, we've talked about, you know, using loose powder and using a ramrod, marking your ramrod.

Great information, Redbone. Yeah, using the right primers, I mean,  the fact that they're not as hard to clean now as they were 30 years ago. Even 10 years ago.  Yeah, you're a hawk. I guess time. Yeah, it's not like my old hawk in which you had to tear into 14 pieces  And soak in the bathtub for hours. Yep, but anyway  Yeah, I think it's time to go back to muzzleloader hunting.

Oh, it's coming up at my house  Arkansas This information Tony just shared with us over the last couple weeks here has just now cost me probably another $150 . It's cost me that. 'cause now I have to go out, buy a new primer. I have to buy the stuff to measure the loose powder. 'cause I haven't shot loose powder since I got some, measure this since my old Kentucky.

And then, uh, now I've gotta buy, uh, now I gotta, uh, I'm looking at getting a scope now 'cause I'm shooting over eagle seed fields, not just in the woods. Yeah. Railroad updates. Yeah. So everything's my whole, anyway, my whole thing's changed now. You should have made a Christmas list. But speaking of Eagle Seed fields though, this will lead us right into  late season muzzleloading.

So Link, your distance of muzzleloading shooting, uh, Tony has changed obviously a lot over the years. Food plots now. So what, what is it that now we're looking at as being accurate at?  You know that, um, you make a great point talking about hunting over Eagle Seed. Food plotting is a thing today. Um, everybody's trying to enhance their farms to make them, uh, a bigger draw for the whitetail and the wild turkey and all that kind of stuff.

And our, because of that, we're hunting more open spaces than we ever had before. Uh, when I grew up, I grew up there in, in southern middle Tennessee. Kind of like you there, Alex, in that, uh, portion of Missouri, we just hunted big hardwood patches of timber. Uh, and we've kind of changed our hunting tactics just a little bit, uh, to hunting over these food plots.

And it does create longer ranges, and  back when I first got into the sport of hunting with a muzzleloader, um, I worked for Knight Muzzleloaders out of Centerville, Iowa, uh, and our accuracy guarantee was a three inch group at 75 yards.  At that time, it made a lot of sense. Um, but now looking back at it,  I feel like we didn't know where the bullet went  after 75 yards, like it disappeared.

And that was absolutely not the case. We just did not understand trajectory. We didn't have the right on optics back in the day with adjustable turrets and first focal plane and hash marks in the reticle and all that kind of stuff. Uh, so optics has really helped us understand long range shooting with a muzzleloader.

Not to mention the higher ballistic coefficient projectiles are the longer, heavier bullets than we've ever shot before. The better powders than we've ever had. Uh, in history of muzzleloading is now at our fingertips. Um, so it definitely has increased our ability to shoot longer distances. Uh, one of my favorite calibers of muzzleloader to hunt with is a 45 caliber.

Uh, and I like the 45 caliber because typically those bullets are much longer and sleeker than a 50 caliber because obviously they're a smaller caliber. The bore diameter inside is smaller. So to get a heavier bullet, it's In a 45 caliber it has to be a really long High ballistic coefficient bullet.  Did you say something?

No, I didn't my phone came on. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah I thought I heard you say something. But so the 45 caliber is it's my favorite projectile Uh, and my favorite caliber of muzzleloader to shoot Because it it basically lends itself to shooting long range and you know The days of zeroing your gun at 50 or 75 like how I started has went away You In my 45 caliber muzzle as I shoot today, um, I'm running, uh, a 285 grain, 45 caliber bullet with a hundred grains of black or two or nine and I have zero. 

So I start shooting my gun  at 200 yards. Um, and now that we talked about with, uh, the advancements of optics, um, with adjustable turrets and understanding your ballistic data, which is getting super technical. Uh, but there are, again, we talked about technology, so we have apps that can go on our smartphones that if we type in our bullet weight, our bullet ballistic coefficient number, our muzzle velocity, it will, it will dictate and generate the data for us to be able to spin our MOA or MRAC turrets on our top end optics today, uh, in my 45 caliber gun.

I'm running 800 yards with them,  effectively.  800 yards. That's absolutely absurd. But because technology is such everything, uh, that makes a muzzleloader, well, everything that makes a muzzleloader go bang. But now extended our ranges to ranges. We've never thought we would ever be capable of doing okay I take back what I said earlier Tony just did not cost me 150.

I take that back Now he's cost me 750  Because I have to go buy me a 45 caliber muzzle loader now, which now i'm convinced I want to shoot it's funny. It's funny when you have to talk in 45 waves sitting there rolling his eyes thinking what where's Where's this going? Why? But but it is amazing actually You Actually cost you more money than that because now your tax return bill is going to increase because you're going to be paying taxes and she's going to be bused around.

You're killing dudes that you could never reach before. We will edit that out of the show so that the wife does not hear that.  Ha ha ha. I love it.  Hey, for 100 cash, I won't tell a soul.  Well, I tell you,  real quick story. Years ago, my wife finally said, listen, no more deer heads can go on our walls. You're done.

And she goes, unless it's bigger, it cannot go on the walls. I said, okay, fine. Take it to a taxidermist. I tell a taxidermist that I tell Jeff Mossbergers, my taxidermist, I said, listen, she said it can't go on the wall unless it's bigger. So I'm going to pull one down. He said, okay. I go to pick up my, my, my deer head. 

And I'm looking around all the ones he had on the wall. I'm like, where's my deer head at? And he walks in the room. He goes, Hey, how do you like your deer head? I was like, it's not here. He goes, turn around. I turn around. It's on a pedestal.  I put it on a pedestal. He goes, he goes, take it. He goes, take it back to the wife.

He goes, tell her. I don't have to take one down now because you said nothing more can go on the wall, but you didn't say nothing about the floor. That's right, yeah. Genius! Yeah. Genius! That only worked for one deer, though. I bet that went over well. We're teaching our listeners how to outsmart their old ladies. 

Otherwise, I would have crashed it. Wives. Wives.  Uh, Tony was talking about, you know, the phone apps to help with his stuff. I can just see it now as we get more into the, uh, AI. Bye.  You'll be able to go,  hey phone, hey, hi, hey, phone. Right. I'm shooting a 45  caliber muzzleloader, I got a deer at 225 yards,  where do I have to aim and here's the wind boss,  you just ask your phone and it'll give you an answer.

I can see that coming.  Technology is good and bad at some time. That's right. That's right. It is.  You know, and so, you know, we talk about all this kind of stuff that's making us more effective and more efficient. Um,  when we, uh, in measuring powder, this is how finite we have got, uh, to make these muzzleloaders capable of shooting this long range stuff that we're talking about.

Outside just the accessories and availability of technology and production and manufacturing. That's right. Um, when you're shooting loose powder, um, we've always measured volumetrically, basically means you pour your powder into a measuring tube, uh, and it, it has volumetric marks on it to give you 80, 90, 100, 110, 120.

But we're taking it down to the finites here now to make these guns really shoot and be very consistent. And we're actually, um, measuring our powder today down to the 10th of grain.  So it's as, uh, consistent as possible. Yep.  Like, uh, I was hunting this last, uh, well, the last several days I've been in Indiana for their late muzzleloader season there, and I had a 45 caliber Acura muzzleloader, which is a break open style muzzleloader.

Um, and we talked about tuning loads and all this kind of stuff earlier also, but I was running this gun here, which is. It, it really loved this particular load to, to where I was shooting sub half OMA or a half inch group at 150 yards. And I was weighing my powder down to 63. 2 grams. Oh my gosh,  Tony, good stuff, man.

We got to wrap it up here. We got about 30 seconds left again. Great information. What a great series of shows, Wayne Redbone. It has been. I've learned a lot. A lot. This is probably one of the most educational  shows we've ever done. I'd put it in the top five. Oh, absolutely. Without a question. Tony Schmuthman, how can they contact you? 

Bro, you guys can get a hold to me. All your listeners just get a hold of me through social media. That is by far the best way to do it today. And all my social media handles are traveling hunter and that's country slang traveling with no G. Hey, what are you going to say to everybody who heard this Christmas?

What do you want to say?  I hope you guys had a very Merry Christmas. And like you talked about earlier,  keep the man upstairs at the forefront. That's right buddy. Teach your boys to become men and your girls to become ladies. And remember, when you're rich, one, deep and strong. There's no reason to fear the wind.

We'll see you next year. See you never gotta worry  what the win might  do. American Roots,  thank you for joining us for today's American Roots Outdoors Radio with Alex Rusch. You. Find us on Facebook. Look us up on the worldwide web@americanrootsoutdoor.com. We'll be back again next week on this great radio station. 

Shoot.  Take it, holler,  take it to a,  a crowds  of big 

spin out shotguns presents.  Welcome back to America roots outdoors. Our bonus segment. If you're listening to this, you're listening to it on a podcast carrier. We are airing in 19 countries now, and I'm excited to kill some Turkey with that Spandau shotgun. And again, our special guest is Tony Smollin, CBA influencer and a muzzleloading guru.

We're going to talk about the proper way. To clean your muzzleloader after you use it. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you a question before we go back to Tony Uh, have you ever killed a turkey with a muzzleloading shotgun? I sure did really my first turkey I ever killed with muzzleloading shotgun was in nebraska.

I'll never forget it was an evening hunt  Was late getting out there and I can't remember who filmed me But I was with an outdoor rider and I cannot remember the outdoor rider's name And it's my first time to ever muzzleload And, uh, I shot the turkey at like 25 yards and it didn't kill him dead. Oh, really?

It's an OTC, uh, shotgun and, uh, it's my first time on, I'll never forget, Big Miriam's 25 pound turkey. Wow. But, uh, you know, I'd like to kill one this spring with a muzzleloader. I've not done it in years. And I still got that OTC one. See if he can make a good, uh, muzzleloading shotgun.  Tony? Yeah.  No, we do not make a muscly shotgun today.

You know, uh, we did several years ago, uh, not rifles made once every years ago, uh, but there's not a lot of seasons out there that's dedicated to muzzleloader Turkey hunters per se. And, um, with advancements of the Thompson super steel or TSS that everybody knows about, everybody's adapted to 28 gauges and four tens.

And I don't think, uh, I don't think there's a big call for muscle, not a big market for it. No, it's not.  Yeah, Iowa. Yeah, they have a dedicated muzzleloader turkey season. Mm hmm. No wonder you picked that state. Yeah  So Tony,  what is the proper way to educate our listeners about cleaning their muzzleloader,  you know, so we've talked about in a very  Amazing three part series here on you guys's podcast and we've dug into Everything and down in even micro down into powder selections and weigh in powder and so on so forth But after all that's said and done we've been on the range.

We've been hunting all year long. We we've Hopefully contacted our target bucks and we got them going to the processor to the processor into the taxidermist And in your case there bro, not on the wall, but on a pedestal  Well, we we've got a we've got to now go into uh making this muzzle loader an heirloom muzzle loader and by that I mean We have to Basically, break this gun apart, clean it, maintain it that way that it lasts a very long time. 

It kind of goes back to the different propellants, uh, that we've talked about over the series. Uh, some of the older ones like Go X and 777 and, um, or Pirate X and 777. Uh, they're, they're a bit more difficult to clean. Um, is it impossible? No. It may make you say a bad word or two when you've got to clean them because they are very nasty.

Um, and sometimes, uh, some of those older powders, like the Pyrodex and Go X, they actually do take a bit harsher solvent, uh, to clean up. So there's going to be harsher solvents, more dirty patches, more elbow grease. Uh, and if you go back into, I know that we talked about a little bit, um, uh, you guys are running a, or have run a Flintlock back in the day.

Uh, those suckers there, you got to soak them in the bathtub.  Talking about a mad wife. Holy fuck.  Um,  Uh, but with today's propellants, like we've talked about, uh, again, the Blackhorn 209, you can clean that with a couple, um, uh, patches, and, and it doesn't take harsh solvents. The Blackhorn takes, uh, basically, uh, water, uh, and, you know, the, the old school muzzleloaders of yesteryear, one of the terminologies that people used to talk about, they call a spit patch, uh, and that basically was the patch they used, uh, to, uh, basically encapsulate They spit on the patch, put the round ball in it, and then they would load it.

And that was basically their boar butter back in the day, Alex. I know you mentioned that earlier. Um, but with Blackhorn 209, you basically can clean it up with a spit patch. Meaning you can spit on a patch, swab your boar, and that, that gun is done for the year. Um, so with, um, Modern advancements of powder also has lessened our need, uh, for elbow grease to scrub these guns down.

Uh, they're very clean burning today with the modern primers we have, so the breech plugs are very easy to clean up.  Um, the design of today's, um, breech plugs also have basically stopped any blowback coming from the barrel into the receiver, so you really don't have to clean the receiver like we used to, uh, with so much in depth, uh, elbow grease and disassembly and reassembly.

So if you're running a modern propellant like Glycorin 209, your life is going to be much easier when it comes to the end of the year. And that basically is a damp patch and a dry patch down the barrel two or three times, and then basically you're done. And most of the barrels that's on the market today, most of the muzzleloader manufacturers are using a process called nitride.

And nitride is a,  it's a glorified salt bath that we soak our stainless steel barrels in and it, it makes them turn black. And that black is basically the carbon that's inside the stainless steel that we manufacture the barrels from. And that basically turns the barrel black on the outside and the inside, which makes them basically impervious to any kind of corrosions.

Uh, and that's either from weather or, and, or powder. So a couple of damp patches down your barrel this day and time. And then one patch of, uh, of, of a light oil and you're done for the year,  which makes, which makes us as muscle loader hunters and our wives, very happy because we don't have to soak muscle loaders in bathtubs anymore.

We don't have to use stinky, nasty solvent. The number one, stink up the house and number two, you don't want it on your hand. Um, and, uh, and we can get it done very quickly and put these guns up and. Instead of a muzzleloader being a throwaway gun with, uh, corrosive natures of powders and toughness of cleaning, we literally can clean these guys up, put them away for the season once we're completed and done, and continue using these guns and then basically pass them down to our family members later on down the road. 

Well, that's fantastic. And Tony, before we wrap up the bonus segment here, I want to ask you one question. This is, I guess, a safety issue. If we've got an older model CVA, and we haven't shot it in three or four years, and the gun's been sitting in the gun cabinet, and we cleaned it good before we put it away,  you might imagine this is a personal question.

Should I take that gun apart and make sure it's all cleaned and not corroded? You know after three or four seasons of not shooting it before I go out and shoot it  Well, absolutely what I would probably do is just take uh, take your ramrod or your range rod Run a patch down the barrel with some cleaning solvent pull it back out run it back down again And then what I would do I would leave the range rod or your ramrod in the barrel with that patch And then I would take a primer of course now understand the gun is unloaded But take a primer  put the primer on the breech plug and actually ignite that primer with the ramrod in the barrel You  What will happen is, when you do that, that primer, if there's any debris or oil that has settled in that breech plug in the flash hole, which is basically the channel that your fire goes through, that primer will push that debris or, or settled oil from sitting in the gun case.

It will push that, uh, oil and debris into the patch that's on the end of your ramrod that you left in the barrel. So that will make sure that flash hole is free of any, uh, debris or oil that's settled over time. 

What a series of shows, guys. We gotta wrap it up here. Tony, again, the Traveling Hunter, follow him on social media. This guy is an absolute muzzle loading guru. I'd put you up there in the top three that I ever met in my life. Probably number one, Tony,  with your information. You're one of them, man. Well, guys, it's been a very big A pleasure of mine to be able to be on you guys's podcast.

I wish you guys all the success in the world and thank you for the opportunity to spend time with you guys. Yeah, we love you Tony and we got to get together you and I and uh, Either come down here or we need to do a turkey hunt in Iowa together. Yeah, baby. We'll wrap her up. Come on. Yes, sir. Tony smothering great guy.

I've known him since he's young man Remember teach your boys to become men and your girls become ladies And when your roots run deep and strong, there's no reason to fear the wind.  Take you to a fields, a creek, up a big old  hill. Year after year, got my hunting gear 

and my old pair of hunting boots. Passed on down, planted deep in the ground, around your heart. So you never gotta worry. What the wind might  do,  American Roots.