Corruption in our bureaucracy is everywhere you look. I live in Illinois, where are last two governors are now convicted felons. You don't have to shave with Occam's razor to know that the simpler explanations are, other things being equal, generally better than more complex ones.

What is now known as “smokeless powder” was and is a blackpowder substitute, an obvious fact based on history, not conjecture. It is a fact that the .45-70 Government cartridge was loaded with 70 grains by weight of organic blackpowder and that everything used since is a substitute for the original organic mixture used as a propellant. It is also a fact that the “drams equivalent” printed on many current shotshell boxes today refers to drams, a unit of weight, of blackpowder. Propellants used in everything from automotive airbags, rimfire cartridges, and most things you can think of are not organic blackpowder.

A clever third grader might rightly know what “substitute” means. Of course, it just means used in place of. We have butter substitutes, aspirin subs, sugar substitutes, and non-dairy dairy substitutes. Plastics are used as metal substitutes, veggie burgers are hamburger substitutes, the list is endless. When taxpayer dollars and resources are squandered on nonsense, those that pay the bills (hunters and shooters) might rightly wonder why the inefficient bureaucracy that collects revenue harasses the sportsmen that feed them and employ them? I sure do.

The only answer is corruption. When DNR's promote or ban one product over the other, taking the choice away from the sportsmen that employ them, something is rotten and it isn't in Denmark . . . it is right here. When it takes you longer to read muzzleloading regulations than to clean your deer, something is really wrong. It sure isn't about the animals, it isn't about the hunters that pay the bills. The only thing left is corruption. What else?

Nevada and Utah are the two latest examples. You might think that DNR's would be bright enough to accept that acceptable propellants in muzzleloading rifles are the domain and the responsibility of those that actually design and manufacture them? Apparently, some bureaucrats think they know more. It makes you wonder why they are just bureaucrats and not firearm manufacturers, propellant manufactures, or professional ballisticians.

The Savage Arms 10ML-II uses specific modern propellants in its muzzleloader. Note that Pyrodex, Triple Se7en, and Blackhorn 209 are all modern, synthetic propellants . . . actually more modern than what people who don't know any better like to call smokeless. In Illinois, it is simple: smokeless powder is an approved blackpowder substitute in rifles specifically designed for its use.

Alright, but what about so-called “blackpowder rifles?” CVA, Knight, Traditions, and Thompson all have confirmed that Blackhorn 209 is an approved propellant for their “blackpowder rifles.” We have DNR departments now apparently involved in restraint of trade, and the only logical answer is corruption.

Pyrodex was sold for years as “the smokeless muzzleloading propellant.” Triple Se7en has no sulfur and is closer to rocket fuel than organic blackpowder. Blackhorn 209 was designed from scratch to be a volumetric blackpowder substitute for inline muzzleloading rifles and that's what it is. What a shooter or hunter chooses to use is rightly the decision and domain of the individual, not fodder for revenue-squandering, corrupt bureaucrats with their own agendas. Why we fund corrupt DNR departments at all is an open question.