how to figure out what year my cva optoma is

For a beginning muzzleloader, the CVA Optima Pro makes a good impression in the field. Its features make information technology easy to use when that special muzzleloader season rolls around.

The story backside this week's Field Gun – a CVA Optima Pro – involves 2 whitetails, neither of which I killed. The start, a tardily-flavor shed-antler buck, was taken in eastern Iowa by 15-year-old Tannor Peska, a immature neighbor on his inaugural deer hunt. The shot was fabricated at approximately 40 yards in an open field; the 295-grain PowerBelt hollow point put the buck down as if the proverbial rug had been pulled out from underneath him. No chasing that i – and mayhap all-time was we could drive right to the fallen whitetail, and load him up simple as that. Every bit one ages, factors such as that become quite pregnant.

The second, I'm lamentable to say, was accomplished in my absence; yet, I was able to relive each and every 2d of the chase via the hunter's father. As the story goes, this immature hunter dropped the hammer on his whitetail, as well his first, at an estimated 70 yards. Though the shot was a chip high, the large Iowa doe nonetheless dropped on the spot, the PowerBelt – this one a solid AeroTip style – performing perfectly.

Impressive, yes, that these two young men did and then well; yet, equally as impressive was the performance of the rifle in the hands of these young nimrods. The gun was a .50 quotient Connecticut Valley Arms (CVA) Optima Pro muzzleloader, which I more than happily loaned the boys. This gun is equally fine an introductory frontstuffer as has come downward the expressway in recent years. Oh, and did I mention accurate?

Technically Speaking

Earlier I brainstorm, let me throw out one important annotation about this detail muzzleloader – it's no longer available. Now earlier you throw your hands up and shout "What!" allow me to explain. The Optima Pro, i.e. the one I currently own, is no longer available; however, a new version is on the shelves, and doing quite well.

"We first introduced the Optima in 2003," said Dudley McGarity, CEO for the Georgia-based Blackpowder Products, Inc. (BPI), umbrella company to CVA. "This was the turning indicate for CVA in terms of unit sales. Lesser line is the Optima rifles were the right guns at the right fourth dimension."

And, it seems, at the right prices, as the company's dollar sales doubled between 2002 and the introduction of the gun in 2003. But all expert things, as they say, come up to an end. "The original Optimas were put out to pasture in late 2009," continued McGarity, "and the new Optima presented to the public at the 2010 SHOT Show." New applied science, as is oft the case, was the crusade for the demise of the original Optima. "We decided it was time to update the Optima before it got stale in the marketplace," he said. "But we still inventory all the parts for the original guns."

My personal Optima, aka The Old Gun, is fundamentally as simple as they come. Technically, she's a pause-action. Think Topper unmarried-shot xx-gauge but as an in-line .50 caliber muzzleloader, with a 1-in-28 twist.

A grooved barrel release, or breeching lever, located at the rear of the trigger guard opens the gun, revealing a removable breech plug into which a #209 shotgun primer fits. Cocking the hammer, extension included, is the last act prior to firing the piece; an internal transfer bar style condom prevents and accidental discharge. Both the ambidextrous Monte Carol stock and forearm are of composite, and the barrel is lightly scored with five thirteen.v-inch flutes. Fiber optic front end and rear sights are standard, equally are integral sling swivels.

The new Optima differs from the sometime largely in aesthetics and niceties; options such as a stainless steel finish, thumbhole stock, and standard DuraSight scope mounts (thumbhole stock only) being but 3. There are, withal, 3 pregnant changes to the new model. These include BPI's patented Quick Release Breech Plug (QRBP), which allows the plug to be removed without tools – fingers only – after the gun has been fired.

Other easy-out plugs exist; however, removing them after the rifle has been fired has, until now, been questionable or impossible. Secondly, the breeching lever has been relocated to the front of the trigger guard, while the third is a slight redesign of the hammer. Take these modifications created a better brute? If conveniences translate into improvements, then mayhap the answer is yes.

My Personal Report Carte du jour

To be brutally honest, I've not had the opportunity to spend whatsoever fourth dimension behind the trigger of the new Optima; however, I have had the model in hand, and take come to one rather unscientific – and perhaps biased – conclusion: I like my Onetime Schoolhouse model much ameliorate. Not, heed you, that there's a world of difference between the two.

Yep, the 2d Generation Optima does feature some dainty-to-have bells and whistles, e.thou. the thumbhole stock option, and a slimmer, more streamlined appearance. And while for some, the quick-release breech plug of the new model might seem an absolute necessity, for me, a fanatical cleaner of guns, information technology's an comeback somewhat lost personally.

By now, all you lot folks know how I feel about firearms and simplicity, and if you don't, my mantra is equally follows – The Simpler, The Improve. And that, I believe, is what I like best about the One-time School Optima, and to damn almost the aforementioned extent, the Second Generation model; they're basic firearms, with very few things to become wrong.

Visually, I similar the looks of the Onetime School gun more than the new. There'south just something, well, ruggedly handsome about it; zippo fancy, gaudy, nor high-tech, but non mud fence homely either.

The barrel flutes, at least to me, add to the appearance, but whether or not they contribute to pregnant heat dissipation is a mystery. As for weight reduction – well, there also, I don't know how much actual metallic has been removed, plus by the time near hunters are finished hanging aftermarket accessories on their Optima, information technology's withal a 10-pound gun, give or take a couple ounces.

Aesthetics bated, though, my personal Optima is an authentic piddling rifle, capable of maintaining regulation baseball-sized, or three-inch, groups at 100 yards when stuffed with 2 50-grain Pyrodex pellets and a 295-grain PowerBelt bullet.

Interestingly enough, bespeak of impact doesn't change between hollow points and the polymer-nosed AeroTip style bullets; I had idea it would, at least to some caste. At 50 yards, my Optima prints two inches high which, according to the company's trajectory tables, brings the 295-grain Atomic number 82 dorsum to nada at not quite 150, or in patently English, plenty of distance for most Midwestern whitetail situations, and so some.

Oh, and as for the bane of many a blackpowder shooter, the cleaning – well, and I mean no boldness here, just if you're capable of changing an ordinary light bulb, and so yous're more than than intellectually suited for maintaining the Optima, erstwhile or new.

A half-inch socket – or the supplied tool – removes the breech plug, which is dropped into a Stonemason jar with a couple inches of #13 black powder solvent. A spritz of bore cleaner, a .50-caliber brass brush, a trivial elbow grease, and a calorie-free coating of Bore Butter tends to the barrel. The breech plug gets scrubbed, the threads lubed with Anti-Seize, and replaced. A final wipe-down of the outside – and peradventure some Viz-Wiz on the scope lenses – and she'south ready for the rack.

Accuracy, aesthetics, simplicity; what more than could a hunter ask for, except perhaps a killer deal? Well, there'southward that, too. Digging around on the Spider web, I found i Onetime School Optima, a .fifty caliber identical to mine, listed on The Sportsman's Guide site (sportsmansguide.com) for a club cost of $197.

Hell, even the non-member price of $249 seems to me a clear cut case of money well-spent. New versions of the Optima range in price from $300 for the gun simply (midwayusa.com) to Bass Pro's (basspro.com) kit that features a scoped and diameter-sighted .50 caliber, plus a padded case, for $400. In this solar day and age, when a tank full of fuel that'due south gone in a calendar week tin price $110, $300 for a firearm that lasts a lifetime is a damn skillful bargain.

By the numbers

Make/Model – Connecticut Valley Artillery Optima Pro
Caliber/Gauge – .50 caliber
Action/Firing machinery – Exposed hammer; break-action
Ignition system – #209 Primer; in-line
Weight – 9.xiii pounds (with telescopic)
Barrel length – 28 inches; fluted
Overall length – 44.25 inches
Trigger pull – two.5 pounds
Sights – Adjustable fiber optics
Telescopic (every bit tested) – Cabela'south Alaskan Premium 3-9×40
Stock length – thirteen.25, with pad
Finish – Matte black
Recoil pad – one-inch;
ventilated rubber
Safety – Transfer bar

This commodity appeared in the February 28, 2011 issue of Gun Assimilate the Mag.

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