[txcookie]

Been in the market and love the prices but fear all the stuff I have read about them exploding.

[arcticap]

One of the early CVA inline models was recalled many years ago. But besides that one there haven't been any CVA guns with any widely known defects to worry about. Especially their most modern guns which seem to be better and safer than ever.

[velojym]

I read somewhere that 150gr loads were bad juju, but I've never used more than 100 anyway.

[Zombiphobia]

I have one that works just fine. Accuracy was superb up until my father banged the barrel against a rail board and now it shoots about 6 inches right at 25 yards. Not the gun's fault though. It's the CVA buckhorn or staghorn or whatever model. The cheapo budget one

[zimmerstutzen]

I think that several of the incidents of failures we read about have come about as a result of the ridiculous notion that in-lines are high power magnum guns and that if a little powder is good, more must be better. Stuffing 23 pellets of "Nu Whupbutt Purple" powder down a shoulderable firearm and propelling a $7.38 cent Lucite tipped 350 grain Elephant Skinner bullet is asking for a final trip by pallbearers. Some Hunters who are so incredibly careful about handloads for their centerfire rifles suddenly ride the short bus when it comes to muzzleloaders.

CVA sold some of the best production guns for round ball shooting for 30 years. Their early in-lines had some weaknesses that were predisposed to failure when stupidity was added. Even Knight rifles has had recalls. Remington is facing some problems about some of it's line and those problems were known for decades depending on who you believe. No matter how "fool proof" a product is made, there is an enterprising fool who will blunder into a way to make it explode.

If you shoot reasonable loads and stay within the gun's limitations, there is nothing to fear. No amount of modern substitute powder and fancy tuned bullet will turn a production in-line into a half mile gopher gun. Buffalo hunters had one shot kills at 400 yards and rarely if ever used 100 grain loads. Generally the loads were 70 to 90 grains and the bullets ran about 450 to 550 grains. Why some folks think white tails require elephant loads just escapes logic.

[Jaymo]

What zimmerstutzen said.

[mykeal]

Except for the insult about special education children.

[MCgunner]

My CVA wolf is a tack driver. It's rated for 150 grains BP, but I shoot 90 with a 360 grain cast Lee REAL bullet. I don''t think I'll blow it up. :rolleyes: Haven't yet, anyhow. I love shooting the thing. I kinda think of it as a 50/90 sharps without the brass case. :D Still waiting for something to walk out i can put in the freezer with it. I got it last year.

[stanger04]

I had a CVA for years, it was a cheap Wal-Mart one. The only proble I had was with the caps as it wasn't an in-line. I never over loaded it and as long as you know what the max load is and never push it you are golden. That like others have said basically is the problem with most black powder firearms. Too many people think "well it's just black powder" and then Newton's law kicks in.

[Arkansas Paul]

I've had an Optima Elite for about five years now. Love it. Would buy another in a heartbeat. The only thing I'd do different is I wouldn't go with the Elite. I'd get a regular Optima. I got the Elite because of the ability to change barrels and then never got any more barrells. Go figure.

[Shultzhaus]

CVA Buckhorn model 2008. Has two mounting screws instead of one. Standard fiber optic sights. I load 60 Gr. 777, or 70 Gr. Goex, and a Hornady SST-ML 250 Gr sabot, and it is one of my most accurate rifles. I do not own a telescopic sight on anything. Ditto on the other posts - keep the loads reasonable and safe.

[OH_Spartan]

I have 3 CVAs. Two 50-cal inlines and a cap & ball pistol. I love them all. I have the CVA optima with a Nikon scope and I would trust a shot at a deer from 200 yds. At 100, it will put 3 round balls in about a 1" group.

I don't know why anyone would use 150 grains of loose powder. Why punish yourself? 100-125 g of Pyrodex will perform day in and day out without dislocating a shoulder.

IMHO....I prefer CVA to Thomson Center. The guns are just as nice, accurate and less $$

[Adam123]

Except for the insult about special education children.

He insulted "special education children"? I doubt it. Perhaps you should read his post again.

[Loyalist Dave]

suddenly ride the short bus when it comes to muzzleloaders. This infers that folks who do overload their inline rifle fall into the category of persons who do have challenges, and actually rode in a smaller bus to special education classes, and thus this insults special education kids (adults too btw). I don't think it was intended as such, but it can reasonably be taken that way.

LD

[DANNY-L]

A friend of my brothers had a cva wolf for his boy that did actually explode with 100gr.pyrodex and powerbelts the gun was over a year old and been fired many times with the same load. They contacted cva and was told if they send it to them they would receive new higher qaulity rifle in place of it. They did and what they got was a scoped optima. I think they prevented a potential lawsuit. The kid had a small cut on his face and another on his trigger hand. It even snapped the bushnell scope inhalf between the mounts. I know of a quite a few others with cva and they have had nothing but good to say about the way they perform.

[scythefwd]

I have a cva optima elite. I have a .308 barrel for it and a 20ga shotgun barrel in addition to he .50 cal bp barrel. All are accurate enough. The manuals say that the BP barrel is rated for 150 grains of black powder (150 grans of triple 7 is overloading it). I have shot it with the powerbelts, and they aren't a super tight fitting bullet. My shockwaves, which are VERY tight, i'll keep below 100 gr of powder (the tighter the round, the more pressure it takes to get it moving).There is a webpage for the cva guns that blew up... you'll notice that very few of those are break action guns. Most on that website are guns made from 95-96, which are recalled, and the owner still shot them. I question the intelligence of anybody who shoots a recalled gun on their own volition.

There are 4 cases on cvaguncases.com that involved break action guns. 4 cases filed out of how many of them sold?? We're talking thousands of rifles. Both of these failed in the same way, barrel exploding right in front of the breach plug. Probably what would happen if they didn't seat the charge correctly. Of those 4 cases, NONE of them included the guns that use bergara barrels. It every one of them was the barrel blowing up. 2 were optima pros, the other two were wolfs.

ArkansasPaul - they have the 20ga barrels for <60 right now. The scope mount is canted. I ground it off and cold blued the area underneath. Looks ugly, but will group slugs nicely. Just installed a "universal" fiber optic bead up front. Cannot beat a 60 dollar shotgun. It'll come with an extended turkey choke. It'll use invector chokes and anything compatible with them (mossberg chokes, winchokes, etc.)

Danny-L - Your brother turned down the chance at a six figure settlement and accepted a gun from the same company who made the gun that just blew up in his hands? He's a better man than I.

[zimmerstutzen]

re not seating the bullet. Exactly, we don't know what is any problems existed. Whether the gun had been overloaded, subjected to too much heat, short started bullet, scope mount holes drilled too deep by a home gun smith, bore corrosion from improper cleaning, or a flaw in the machining at the factory, a flaw in the alloy, etc.


I know of at least one CVA case involving an older round ball rifle. A 15 yr old kid had been repeatedly been loading duplex loads and the barrel eventually blew up. Chemical analysis of the fouling showed the story. microscopic examination showed a lot of minute cracks and work hardening.

[txcookie]

So far still fearful to get one. I am flat broke 1/2 the time but would rather save up for a TC or somthing and have that sense of safety.

[frontiergander]

It appears that someone read Wakemans scare tactic articles LOL.

No, you nor should anyone else be afraid of CVA's. They have come a long way and are still looking to increase their products quality.

Back in 95 and 96 they had a big slip up and let some barrels come in and be sold that were not quality and could have safety issues of the breech plug blowing out into the face of the shooter.

Follow the guide lines in the manual, if you are unsure about something you either call the Manf and ask and even go onto the forums like you did now and seek help when you just are not certain of something.

I fire THOUSANDS of rounds each and every year out of my CVA's and not one in all these years have i ever experienced a safety concern with a CVA.

Check this out, It shows you what happens when YOU the shooter, fudge up and forget one step in loading your muzzle loader.
http://gandersmuzzleloadingblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/rush-it-this-could-happen-to-you.html

[Montenegrin]

No,it won't explode,but if you have CVA flintlock,you will get it to spark hard.

[scythefwd]

txcookie (Texas or Transmit... I could see reasoning behind either in that handle:) ?? ) -

The amount of guns CVA sells exceeds every other manufacturer by a fairly large margin. The fact that there were <100 cases brought, and many of those on guns that had been recalled, states at how safe they really are. We are talking <.001%. If you think that CVA has sold less than 100k black powder guns, you're misinformed. People accept worse reliability than than on their defensive handguns.

Think of it this way, when you load a BP rifle, it's about equivalent to reloading a cartridge for a handgun. There's has been lots of kabooms from glocks, but the reload is always blamed. There haven't been a bunch of kabooms with cva guns, but people try to blame the gun instead of the load.

Of the whopping 59 known cases, only 23 (less than half) are verified to not be recalled guns. 23 guns out of how many have been sold??? I bet we can get at least 1k sales accounted for here on the board by actual owners. I would say that at the worst, the failure rate is .0023 failures per gun. At best case it's probably closer to .000023 failures per gun. When you take into account that there is a lot that can be done on the users end to make a kaboom, you might be looking at an actually much smaller number if you count out user error. Remember, CVA is priced for the beginning of the market...It'll be first time owners, who are much more likely to make a mistake than experienced shooters, who are using these guns just due to market segment.

Frontier - excellent link... .you wouldn't happen to be that "gander" would you?

[frontiergander]

just to give you an idea how many guns CVA sells... In 2009 Thompson Center sold a little over 39,000 long rifles " muzzleloader- centerfire-shotgun".... CVA Sold more Wolf muzzle loaders than all of the long guns that TC produced that year. ONE CVA muzzle loader out sold an entire companies variety of long guns!

[txcookie]

yea that wakemen guy is the main reason I am fearful! Funny thing is I have two trad rifles both packing CVA barrels and they both kick arse.

[frontiergander]

Yes, im that Gander.

[MCgunner]

Oh, heck, I forgot, but I have a CVA Plainsman hawken, very plain, but shoots great! I got that thing for 80 bucks on Gunbroker, plus 20 shipping. man, you can't beat THAT! I wanted it for the 1:48 twist so's I'd have something to shoot round ball with and it does well. My Investarms built hawken hunter carbine has a 1:24 twist and my CVA, I think, is 1:32. They're best with sabots or (my preference) heavy solids or minies. That investarms won't shoot a round ball for squat. I haven't bothered trying one in my CVA Wolf.

I have a CVA .31 Remmy, but it's not BUILT by CVA. I'm not sure any CVA branded revolver was actually built by CVA. Maybe someone could shed some light on this. Mine's a ASM, who is now out of business.

[scythefwd]

txcookie - wakeman also has a grudge out against savage 110ml. Then again, he used to work for savage and his grudge didn't show up till after that. What he says may very well be true... but after I figured out he was the type of person to go after a company and their reputation like a rabid squirrel on crack... I stopped listening to him. It appears that his grudges get too personal, and then he finds a reason to dislike...


gander ... got a link for that sales figure?? It'lll just solidfy my math a bit.

[alsaqr]

i'm familiar with one of the more recent CVA gun blowups. The shooter in that case was injured when he loaded his gun with a large volume measured charge of smokeless powder. Wakeman is in the pockets of a Tulsa, OK lawyer.

Another of the muzzleloader legends is Toby Bridges. Toby Bridges worked for Savage for several years. After Bridges was fired by Savage his Savage muzzleloader suddenly blew up. Bridges blamed the Savage breech plug design.

Bridges got into trouble on the web when he advocated poisoning wolves using Xylitol.

[scythefwd]

http://www.thehighroad.org/archive/index.php/t-473621.html

My old thread with a bit of repeat on this one. This thread even has a comment from a user named CVAMUZZLOADERS. Sounds like it's a person who works for CVA, but this is the interwebs, so consider how much you paid for the comment.

[DANNY-L]

Scythefw you are exactly right about the 6 figure settlement and it was a friend of my brothers who really thought he got a good deal in the long run until it was to late. I didn't mention when we put the wolf back together the best we could (missing some pieces) it appeared it blew right on top of where the pellets were.

[frontiergander]

CVA & Traditions revolvers were built in Italy.

Well this evening we accidentally tested out the strength of CVA's Bergara barrel. I just got a 320gr Lee R.E.A.L conical mold in and so my brother and i decided to go out and start testing them out. Yeah, his V2 got double charged with a total of 190gr Blackhorn209 and 640gr worth of bullets!

He got a good gash over his eye where the scope hit him but other than that, all is well.

[txcookie]

confidence restored. Will rock my sidelocks this season looking for an accura next season or more likely the pursuit XLT!

[frontiergander]

check out the new Optima. I have 2 and they are both shooters and have sweet 2lb triggers right out of the box.

[scythefwd]

d- still could hve been improperly seeted. sorry for spelling, lost the three keys on the right in power surge... :)

it would cre8 uh pressure pocket right behind the bullet, right where you sed it blew out.

[scythefwd]

double tap