Blackhorn 209 is being restocked, here's the catch | July 2022
I'm happy to report that Blackburn 209 is available. It's on store shelves and if you can't find it in store, Hodgson is opening a limited number of Blackhorn 209 jugs for you to purchase and have shipped to your door.
You're going to notice a couple of things when ordering it online directly from Hodgson first. The price is going to be a little bit more than you've paid in the last few years. If you've purchased from a retailer, Hodgson is charging upwards of 56 bucks per jug of Blackhorn 209, and then you're going to get bit by that hazmat fee, which Hodgson does not get.That's a shipping company and state law or federal law requirement on that hazmat fee. So buying two jugs of Blackhorn 209 is going to get you up over 100 bucks, which is going to sting. But if you need it and cannot find it, this is a way for you to get it.
Where to find Blackhorn 209 for the old price
I was happy to see reports earlier this week that black hole was showing up in Wal-Mart stores here in the Midwest. I live in northern Indiana, and I was able to go on to brick sitcom type in the code for black corn like I showed you in my How to Find Blackhorn 209 Video
It told me that my local Wal-Mart had four jugs in stock. And when I went there, I did have four jugs in stock. So that is an accurate way to find it. Now that black corn is in the distribution pipeline at Wal-Mart, the price was $36.86, which is the standard price that we're kind of used to over the past few years.
But whether you purchase from Hodgdon or Wal-Mart, you're going to notice one big change, and that is that the bottles are now eight ounces. instead of ten.
Why is Blackhorn 209 now 8oz per jug?
There are a couple of theories out there. The first of which being inflation. I'm not an economist, so I can’t try to explain it to you. But my money and your money is not going as far as it used to. And when we think about the production of powder and primers and everything, everything in shooting sports, I don't care what you're buying, even in muzzle loading, prices are going up and we're getting a little bit less for our money. So folks are theorizing that in an effort to keep the price similar or the same on the shelf for Blackhorn 209 and cut out two ounces of the powder to keep it at that same price point of $36.86 so that those hunters that maybe aren't super in tune with muzzle loading to go into Wal-Mart to buy their jug for the year, buy their pack of bullets and then go on their merry way, they might not even notice a difference because of that price difference.
The second theory is demand. Higher end muzzleloaders, performance muzzleloaders, all shoot blackhorn 209 for the speed, efficiency and ease of cleaning. Over the past three years performance muzzleloaders have become incredible popular as hunters look to take longer shots on bigger game with their muzzleloaders. During that time, Blackhorn 209 was almost not available - there was no way to satisfy that demand.
So if we look at Hodgdon and trying to satisfy that demand, for every four bottles of 10oz of Blackhorn that they used to sell, say you're selling that to four different hunters, you're now selling that same 40 ounces of Blackhorn to five customers by cutting it down to eight ounces per bottle. In theory, if you're not going out and buying five bottles at a time, which because of the shortages the past few years, I don't really blame you if you go out and shoot a lot of blackhorn or if you're a competition shooter, you're going to go through that five bottles like it's nothing. But if your selling those to a hunter and only goes through a bottle every year, you can “satisfy” that that set of five hunters for the year hopefully in time for, I would hope production and get back up and going and we can see it returned a ten ounces, maybe in the next couple of years, but I’m not holding my breath.
The bottles I’ve found, and the bottles from my friends who have found Blackhorn 209 in July 2022 have all been “Lot 42”, if you find Blackhorn 209 in your area, please let me know the state or region you are in and let me know the lot code. This will help us understand how and where Blackhorn is being distributed. Thanks!