Tom,

I appreciate your respect of me and my knowlege and I am happy to answer your questions. Since you are not familar with my work, I hope you will go to my website and I think it will be clear as to who I am and what my intentions are.




1. You said: “First you said in the past few years Bergara has come around to producing a better product. So that implies that their product prior to this "few years" might have been inferior?? So in your opinion does this denote a track record?? Or not??” What I said was: “However, in the past few years, CVA has become very focused on producing products to compete with the upper end TC rifles, and are doing just that.” Bergara is owned by BPI (Black Powder Incorporated) as is CVA. Bergara simply supplies the barrels for CVA rifles. What I’m implying is that in the past CVA has been viewed as a value brand muzzleloader, not as a premium brand muzzleloader. By producing the Accura and Apex, CVA is now doing a very good job at providing the muzzleloading consumer with a rifle that competes with or surpasses their competitors (whoever that might be).

2. You said: “Secondly you say the bore on the TC needs a good lapping?? That may be true. However I lap every barrel I buy(except one Krieger). But wouldn't shooting the barrel for a couple hundred shots do the same thing??” Yes, it most certainly would. I say that in my videos on the TC products. Truth be known, any rifle barrel, muzzleloader or centerfire, by any manufacturer will get better with age by being shot. But it costs us between $2 - $2.75 each and every time we pull the trigger on a muzzleloader. The TC rifles are already pretty pricey compared to the other options, don’t you think they should perform accordingly? So, should consumers be expected pay another $200 plus dollars just to get their TC, or any other rifle, to perform? If you look at all muzzleloader manufacturers marketing, they will lead you to believe that you can expect minute-of-angle accuracy out-of-the-box. All I’m saying is that the CVA rifles I have tested perform better than TC rifles I’ve tested off-the-shelf.

3. You said: “My question is this. Do you honestly believe the Bergara barrel shoots so much better than a TC barrel that it is worth ignoring the Bergera track record??” To start with, I would like to point out that I know of no negative track record with Bergara at all. The only negative track record that anyone might have could be with CVA, not Bergara. It is no secret, and CVA will tell you, that in 1995 and 1996 CVA voluntarily recalled a certain model of rifle. That was an isolated incident that to my knowledge has been corrected and was back when they were under different ownership. I want to go on record as saying: There are no current safety issues or any other quality issues that I’m aware of with CVA, Bergara or any other BPI product.

4. You said: “And it out shoots the TC barrel so much that it replaces the customer service of TC??” The lack of proper customer service from Thompson Center is what has put me in the business of what I am doing right now in the muzzleloader industry. When I purchased my first TC Encore 9 years ago, I was appalled at the lack of accuracy that the rifle would produce. After numerous calls to TC attempting to get the accuracy problem fixed, I ended up pulling from my past experience in ballistics, accuracy and marksmanship and ended up solving the problem myself. Read the quote below from my website (and a book that will be released to the public in the next few weeks).

“M.A.X. was created when Russell had a poor experience with an upper-end, inline muzzleloader around 2003. Despite repeated phone calls, the manufacturer of the rifle was not a lot of help on fixing the accuracy problem, so Russell took matters into his own hands. Utilizing his past professional experience with shooting, ballistics, rifles and marksmanship to achieve precision, long-range accuracy, Russell took his knowledge and resolved that situation. Realizing that everyone did not have the extensive background he had, Russell began to share his experience with others so that they might get the same results from their muzzleloaders. And M.A.X. was born.”

I appreciate your respect of me and my post in this forum and I hope that I have answered all your questions.

Thanks,

Russell
MAX Muzzleloader
www.maxmuzzleloader.com