CVA Muzzle Loaders - Keep'em Clean

Does your Accura, Optima, Accura V2 or Wolf, look like the picture on the left?

I can't even tell you how many times i have opened my CVA Accura, Optima,Wolf and found the face of the frame covered with black primer soot. Not only is it ugly to look at, it can be a down right pain in the neck getting it off. At times it will come off with a simple cleaner like windex, hoppes, butches bore shine. At times, even those will not remove it! So we use a tiny ball of 0000 steel wool and end up taking not only the Primer Soot off, but the Nickle plating as well.

Well after playing around and trying to figure out an easy way to take care of this issue i finally found it. And the best part, All it takes is a proper fitting screw driver and some patience.

Tools you will need:

• Proper fitting screw driver
• White Teflon tape
• Feeler gauge with assorted thicknesses

First thing you will need to do is get your rifle up onto a rest if you have one available. I am using the Tipton Best Gun Vise which makes scoping, cleaning, modifying my rifles/Muzzleloaders a real charm. If you don't have something like this, you can use a card board box and cut out some slits for the rifles frame to fit into and hold it snug.

Once you have your rest all set up, go a head and remove the barrel from the stock and remount your frame to your vise.

Now that your rifle is snug in the vise, Go a head and get your screw driver set. I use the Wheeler 26 piece set that i bought from the local gun shop for $16. When working on a muzzle loader or any gun in general, you NEED a good assortment of screw driver sizes.



"Left" Notice on your Factory CVA muzzle loader that the Firing pin bushing sits flush with the frame:

Visually inspect and find the Firing Pin Bushing. This Bushing holds a TINY spring and of course the metal firing pin striker.

Use the proper fitting screw driver and Remove these parts and put them into a plastic ziplock bag to prevent you from losing them. Especially that spring!

Once the Bushing is out, Go and clean it free of any grease / debris. Follow up by cutting a 1" long piece of White Teflon "Plumbers" Tape. You will then need to wrap the threads of the Firing Pin bushing with this Tape as it will give it a tighter hold while installed. Once taped, reinstall Firing Pin - Spring and Bushing. Snug up the bushing and then back it off just a touch.

Now this is the part that gets tricky!

We need to take a look at the primer you will mainly be using. Primers come in all kinds of lengths. The set up i use is both the CCI 209M primers and Winchester W209 primers. Federal 209A primers are also close in length to the other Two. The CCI 209M primers are the shortest of the "hot" primers. With these primers you will need use your feeler gauge and pull out anywhere from the .014 all the way up to .016" thickness gauge.

Shorter Primers such as the cooler Winchester 777 primers, Remington Kleanbore Primers,CCI Inline MZL primers may work best with the .016 as these primers are shorter. These Three primers are the Nastiest primers to use on a factory CVA rifle as the mess they leave behind is just terrible from all the blow by.

Now to skip back a bit, I want to show you what a factory CVA Accura looks like after shooting the CCI 209m primers and the firing pin screwed in all of the way.

On the left side we have CCI 209M primers fired in a factory set up CVA Accura. You can see that one half is pitch black and the other side is fairly clean. Why is this? My only guess is that when the rifle is fired, the primer blows back due to the gap between the firing pin bushing and primer, Once the primer hits the bushing, the pressure then puts force onto the primer and cocks it at an angle therefore leaving us one one filthy side and one clean side.

Now the primers on the right are Winchester W209 primers fired from the a CVA Accura after its firing pin was adjusted .016" out. Super clean and a simple Q tip at the end of the day to clean up inside the frame.

Now getting back to what needs to be done for a spotless CVA Break action Muzzleloader.

I shoot mainly Blackhorn209 with the CCI 209M primers. So for this set up, i will use the .016" feeler gauge and grabbing my screw driver, back the firing pin bushing out until its level with the .016" feel gauge. Once that's done, i will re-install the barrel.

Making SURE that there is no Charge in the barrel, install your primer into the breech plug and just gently close it. DO NOT SLAM IT! If adjusted correctly, there should be about a .008" gap between the frame and the Quick Release Breech plug. If you shoot a Pre-2010 you'll see the gap quite a bit easier.

Once you see this gap, burn it into memory. After that, break the action open again and then time, give it a good solid slam shut. Doing this will cause a "Crush" fit of the primer for basically a 100% blow back free Primer to Frame fit. You will no longer have a mess to clean, you will now get Consistent pressure into your main charge.

If you are using the Shorter primers mentioned earlier, just experiment and make adjustments as you see fit until its completely blow by free.

On This CVA Accura V2, the Firing Pin bushing has now been adjusted outward .016" and is 100% blow by free of primer soot.

An assortment of CCI 209M primers and Winchester W209 primers.

UPDATE!! April 20th 2012 <---CLICK!

How To Video: