But like most things worth arguing about at deer camp or many local conservation clubs, Pyrodex didn’t begin as a tidy corporate brainstorm. It started on the bench of a chemist.

In the mid-1970s, a quiet innovator named Dan Pawlak helped develop what would become Pyrodex — a safer-handling, more stable propellant designed to give shooters black powder performance without black powder headaches. Hodgdon partnered up, brought it to market in 1976, and just like that, muzzleloading had a new fork in the trail.

On one path, pre-measured pellets, in-line rifles, 209 ignition systems, and the ability to load for big game with the arithmetic of a second-grader: One pellet for small game. Two pellets for whitetail. Done.

On the other hand, there was my late family friend, Peter Voss of Blasdell, New York. Peter didn’t trust anything that rattled in a plastic tube (like a pre-measured pellet). Peter trusted powder horns, volume measures, and muscle memory honed over decades of Civil War re-enactments and autumn hunts. He poured charges the way they did in the 1860s. Fast, practiced, and with just enough ceremony to make it feel like you were borrowing time from history itself. Rain in the forecast? “Bring an umbrella,” he’d say.

Old-fashioned blackpowder shooting was smoky and messy, and about why keeping your powder dry mattered. Peter Voss was all about teaching, sharing and letting a kid hold a ramrod for the first time. Photo by Dieter Voss

Moisture in a flashpan could turn a perfect morning into a long walk home, and Peter wasn’t about to let the weather steal his ignition. He cast his own round balls too — soft lead, hand-poured — because buying them felt, in his words, “like outsourcing your handshake.”

He loved the smoke. The ritual. The shared patience of doing something the old way simply because it deserved to be done that way. And yet, he never picked a fight over progress.

By the time Hodgdon introduced their 50-grain Pyrodex pellets — especially the 50/50 drop-ins for .50 caliber in-line rifles (they make .45 caliber now too) — hunters were discovering a new kind of freedom. Load consistency improved. Safety improved. Season participation improved. The end-of-day cleanup still involved brushes, patches, and solvents, sure… but it beat chiseling fouling out of a stubborn bore with a prayer and a pot of coffee.

Then came newer substitutes like Triple Seven, offering cleaner shooting with the same drop-in convenience. The arguments didn’t stop. They just changed tone. “It’s not traditional,” some said. “It’s still one shot at a time,” others replied. Peter just mostly grinned at all that.

He was too busy planning his next trip to see the New York Yankees play ball somewhere out on the re-enactment circuit. He’d map the season by muskets and stadium lights — Gettysburg one month, Yankee Stadium the next — sharing campfire coffee with folks from all over the country.

“I really enjoy that stuff,” he once told us at a family gathering. “Talking to folks from everywhere… mostly just sharing time about America and history with the younger folks — you know, those under 50.” I think that was Peter’s real mission. Teaching. Sharing. Letting a kid hold a ramrod for the first time. Explaining why keeping powder dry mattered. Showing that history wasn’t just a chapter heading or a story on your handheld cell phone — it was a smell, a sound, a careful hand seating a ball against a measured charge.

And here’s the funny part: By the end of the day, whether you loaded by volume from a horn or dropped in two pellets from a sleeve, everybody still swabbed their barrels the same way. Everybody still compared notes on the wind. Everybody still told stories about the one that got away.

The tools had changed. The talk hadn’t. So here’s to fifty years of Pyrodex — born from Pawlak’s lab work, carried into the field by Hodgdon, and debated ever since by folks who care deeply about doing things right, whether “right” means hand-measured grains or factory-pressed pellets. Similar to talk about long bows, recurve bows, compound bows and crossbows. Who can argue with debate?

Peter would’ve poured it from a flask if you gave him the chance. But he’d have made room for you at the bench either way. And these days? You can probably leave the umbrella in the truck.

Gotta love the outdoors.

Outdoors Calendar

April 11: NYS Hunter Education Course, Carroll Rod & Gun, 1111 Frew Run Rd., Frewsburg, NY, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m.: students register online: https://dec.ny.gov; students must complete homework prior to class. Info: 716-569-4337.

April 11: NYS Hunter Education Course, 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m., Wolcott Guns, 3052 Broadway, Lancaster, NY; students register online: https://dec.ny.gov. Students must complete homework prior to class. Info: 716-901-7807.

April 11: NYS Hunter Education Course, 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Springville Field and Stream, 8900 Chaise Rd., Springville, students register online: https://dec.ny.gov. must complete homework prior to class. Info: 716-592-7941.

April 12: Muzzleloader Shoot, West Falls Conservation, 55 Bridge St., West Falls, 10 a.m. start, $5 members/ $8 non-members, metal swinging targets.

April 14: Children in the Stream, Youth Fly Fishing program, free, Costello Room, Rockefeller Art Center, SUNY Fredonia, 7-8:30 p.m., 12yrs old and older, info: 716-410-7003 (Alberto Rey).

April 16: Southtowns Walleye Association, monthly meeting, 7 p.m., 5895 Southwestern Blvd, Hamburg. Submit calendar items to forrestfisher35@yahoo.com at least 10 days in advance.