I was wanting to workup a heavier load for this season so, not too long ago, I picked up a box of Great Plains 410 gr. conicals to play with. I got to the range this morning and started at 50 yards to get things zero'd, then moved it back to 100 yards to fine tune things. After tweaking powder charges a little bit, I believe I found the sweet spot. I'm shooting a CVA Optima with a 26" barrel. The load is a 410 gr. Great Plains conical on top of 90 gr. of Triple Seven and the new Triple Seven primers by Winchester. I like shooting 2 shot groups with the muzzleloader. This gives me a good idea of the first shot and how a follow-up shot will impact. At 100 yards, I'm getting 2 shot groups of 1.5 inches. My best two shot group today was 1.25 inches. Surprisingly, recoil isn't bad either.

After final adjustment on thescope, I ended up with this:


Yep, I'm happy
Also, I can highly recommend the new Triple Seven primers. I shot 18 rounds a the range today with absoulutely zero crud ring. I even did one 5 shot string and the fifth bullet was just as easy to get down the barrel as the first. When I swabbed the barrel out, there was just a little bit of fouliing. A far cry from what I experienced last year with the Remington Klean Bore primers.