Last year I bought my Dad a CVA wolf for a starter ML. We only shot it a few times since Christmas was two days before ML season here in Ohio and I can not remember any problems with it from last year. But this year I bought him some of the hornady Bullets with the red sabot, that is what I shoot out of my knight and I like them so I figured we would try them in his rifle. The problem is they are real tight going in. The barrel is clean, nice and glossy. The only thing this gun has shot has been triple seven. I can load them, they are tight but I can get them down, hand will hurt when done, but can do it,they shoot great. just as good as my knight, which loads normal. Dad is 63 I think and he cant do it with out bumping the rod against something, and that is not good. My question is what is a good load that he should be able to load with no problems? The gun shop told me that alot of guys cant load the red honady's and use the power belts. But I also remember alot of guys on here saying the power belts do not have good weight retention. Any comments on this would be great. Sorry I don't get over here much, spend most of my time in the CB forum. Happy hunting.

Hotburn76,

Powerbelts are designed for CVA barrels. They should shoot well. Other considerations are Hornady GP's, Buffalo Ballets, and also in sabots, Buffalo SSB's (which load with only a ramrod in 501 bores). With any of these bullets, an appropriate and totally sufficient quantity of BP or Pyro is 80 grains. Good luck.

My buddy and I both got CVA inlines last year, and both experienced hard loading with Powerbelts. Everything goes fine until you get to within about 3" above the powder charge, and then it gets tight. You need to continually bounce the ramrod until it rebounds off the compacted charge.
I don't understand what the problem is, and we both have it in our Wolfs.

Thats it right there! Its tight at first, but you can do it. Then that last three or four is whats bad. I thought it was a crud ring and started informing dad on how to clean his gun, but when I pulled the breach plug, nice and glossy the entire way down. So even your CVA loaded power belts hard? Thats good to hear since I have not bought any yet! Thanks so far guys!

Hotburn76

Normally Hornady bullets come with a thicker sabot, they work really well in the older Knights but dot work to well in the newer guns which seem to have a tighter bore. By shanging the sabots to a TC Mag Express sabot or an MMP HPH-24 sabot you will probably solve your problem.

Today Knight which owns Green Mountain Barrels are using the tighter barrels also.

The gun shop guy is right that is why a lot of people switch to powerbelts. The load and the bullet you are using is just fine just switch sabots - basically there are 3 thicknesses of sabots just find the one for your bore...

hope this helps

I shoot 295gr powerbelts with 95gr of loose Triple Se7en and the loads go down easy. However, I also use the Thompson Center bore butter when I store the rifle. Run several dry patches down to remove all the "butter" and it loads super easy.

Have not yet tried any other loads yet.

found the exact same thing with my dads Wolf (actually had 2 ofthem with same issue). first powerbelt goes in easy. after the shots the next loads go increasingly harder. we ended up clean after 2-3 shots. seems to shoot good. I have a Rossi and cna shoot several without even thinging of cleaning and loads go in "easy".