Was Hodgdon Triple 8 Hodgdon’s answer to Blackhorn 209?

Traditions Muzzleloaders has been busy over the last year, and after recently announcing new partnerships for hunting TV shows, we’re finally getting some insights into one of the largest muzzleloading brands in the country.

This month, Muzzle-Loaders.com shared episode 16 of their podcast with guest Ryan Nichols, Traditions Vice President of Sales. It’s a great listen with some Nice commentary about hunting, but there are also some great details from inside Traditions that help us understand what the industry has been up to over the past year.

2020-2021 was crazy for Traditions

Never in his 9 1/2 years in the outdoor industry has Ryan seen products sell as much as they did over the last year, “Product was sucked off the shelves” he says.

The Nitro Fire

Traditions is still working bringing their new “Nitro Fire” rifle to the muzzleloading seasons of more states. As of writing, the Traditions Nitro Fire is legal in WY, SD, IA, MO, OK, KY, GA, FL, OH, MI, NY, VT, NJ, and MD, and in review in 21 more states.
Based on the marketing campaign around the rifle and Traditions is working hard on flipping those 21 states, and Ryan backs that up in this episode. The Vice President of Sales has been on the front lines of lining up meetings with the various state wildlife agencies. He’s optimistic it will be allowed in more muzzleloading seasons, but adoption looks to be slowing to me. It’s worth noting that the Nitro Fire is allowed in the general rifle season in just about any states.

Hodgdon Triple 8- Hodgdon’s version of Blackhorn 209?

While I’m admittedly not very interested in the Nitro Fire, there were some interesting bits of information in Ryan’s conversation about it. Mainly, Ryan shared a neat detail about the development of Hodgdon Triple 8, he mentions that Hodgdon Triple 8 started out as Hodgdon’s answer to then Western Powder’s Blackhorn 209, the preferred modern muzzleloading propellent of many inline shooters.

Ryan doesn’t go into much more detail about this, so we are left wondering a few things. Was Hodgdon Triple 8 in development BEFORE Hodgdon bought Western Powders? Did it come after? If the purchase was after Triple 8 was developed, why did Hodgdon buy Blackhorn 209?

My guess is the purchase was simply to own more share of the market, and maybe on another level more manufacturing capacity so Hodgdon could devote more resources to Triple 8 without sacrificing their current production capacity.

It’s a super minor detail of the podcast, but with the elusive Hodgdon Triple 8 not getting any press since it’s announcement in 2020, muzzleloading enthusiasts are keen to learn more, especially if more accuracy can be attained.

Until we learn more the only way to get Hodgdon Triple 8 is in the Federal fire stick, developed for the Traditions Nitro Fire.

Production Difficulties

Much of the rest of the interview was taken up with the discussion were all having, how hard it is to find products and how much more expensive they are. Nichols commented that “The world ran on “just in time”” for several years, and the dynamic changes over the last year messed up the pipeline. Ryan expects things to return to normal soon, products are shipping but distribution has been slow.

It’s rare fo us to hear so directly from a representative within the muzzleloading industry, but when it does happen, we really do get some insights. Listen to the whole episode from Muzzle-Loaders.com today and let me know what you think.