With the holidays, I've had some to time to actually get out and shoot my CVA Kodiak. I've put nearly 100 rounds through it and tried seven different bullets in the past week. With two small kids and a wife that works, this is a real treat for me. I'm lucky enough to own just enough ground to be able to safely shoot out to 75 yds so I've been zeroing the scope at 25 and then moving out to 75 and adjusting for groups there. I thought I would share some of my observations from this range time.

1)I think that 777 loose reacts differently in cold weather vs. even fall temperatures. I was getting crud rings earlier this fall so bad that I could not load another round even with swabbing between shots and had abandoned 777 if favor of RS. Well, its been in the 20's and low 30's here and the crud ring problem seems to be minimized for whatever reason. Swabbing between shots is sufficient to allow easy loading of follow-up shots with tight fitting Knight green sabots and 270 gr. .44 cal. Gold Dots.

2)In my gun, 100 gr. of RS and 90 gr. of 777 2f group in nearly identical locations.

3)I was getting a ton of blowback after shooting 100 gr. of RS for a couple of days, which is unusual for my gun. Closer inspection last night revealed that the primer pocket of the breech plug had enough of a channel through it that I was having no problem with ignition, but was almost completed clogged with carbon. I had been cleaning from the flash hole side with a nipple pick and thought I was doing okay. It takes a 7/64" drill bit (used by hand twisting with fingers only) from the primer side of the breech plug to clean out all that fouling. Amazing what was caked inside of there! Should help with accuracy I would guess.

4)The 270 gr. Buffalo Ball-ets are the only conicals I have tried, but boy are they accurate and consistent. Too bad they are getting really hard to find. I think they would be an excellent bullet out to about 125 yds. I can get sub 1" groups at 75 yds. with them over either 85 gr. of RS or 777.

5)Striving for groups can be frustrating, until at the end of the day you go back and really look at what your shooting means. I shot seven different bullet/sabot combinations at 75 yards and the worst group I had (five shots) was right at about 4". I knew that load would not group well because the combination of a 270 gr. .44 cal. .429 Gold Dot and a black TC Mag Express sabot literally fell down the barrel. I'm thinking now that these sabots must be for .451 bullets.

What I am trying to say is that I don't think I would have any trouble killing a deer out to 100 yds. with any of the loads I tried. I'm a little OCD, so I am trying to find that magic tack driving load for my gun that will give me a max PBR and good groups out to 175 yds. Haven't found it yet, but my shooting doesn't suck either.

6)My hunting load this year is going to be 90gr. of 777 2f loose and a 240 gr. TC Cheap Shot. Last load I tried last night and got a 1" three shot group, 1" high at 75 yds. That should be moving at around 1800 fps. and good enough for as far as I care to shoot.

7)If you don't have one, do yourself a favor and get a rest for sighting in. My brother got me a Shooters Ridge Deluxe Rest for Christmas and man does it make a difference. I haven't even added weight to it yet, but you don't feel any recoil. Downside to that is I tend to burn through powder and bullets much more quickly. One tip though, find something more stable than a card table to put it on. There is too much flex in the card table legs and top and when you settle in on the gun, everything changes and you have to readjust the rest.

8)Just get out and shoot! Its fun, relaxing and rewarding! One of those "why don't I do this more often" things...

Sorry if this got long, but I pick up little things from nearly every post on this forum and thought I might be able to give a little back.

Best wishes to you and yours in the new year!

On the sabots, I believe that the one you need is green; using a .451 sabot with a .429 or .430 bullet can let the bullet slide right down the barrel while the sabot stays put ,this is then a barrel obstruction and could cause damage to the gun at the least and possable injury or death at most. Please be careful of this situation.
As for the build up in the flash hole portion of the breach plug there are several guns that have this problem; I have it with a TC Triumph if I use the Win 777 209 or the Ren muzzleloader 209, I can use the win regulas 209 for loading shot shells with out the problem.
And the horrable crud ring, it does not get real cold where I am living now so I can not say much about that , however I did find out by polishing the barrel that the higher polish will not crud ring near as much as an unpolished barrel it [follows that as a gun becomes polished from break in and use it should improve this is my assumption any how I have polished the only one that got it right away so I am only guessing about this] I know some get it and some dont in very similar guns and how polished they are from the factory and how polished they become from a deliberate polishing or use will have an effect on it for sure.
If you continue to have the breach plug problem keeping an old fashioned hand crank drill for small drills makes life much easier.
Hope to have helped or at least given food for thought. Lee

A couple of others that I'll add:

9)I have a 2.5x7 Cabelas Pine Ridge scope on my Kodiak, it is the first scope I have owned. Windage adjustments are responsive and easily accomplished. Elevation adjustments are elusive, at least for me. It always seem to take a lot more "clicks" than it should to get the desired effect. On the bright side, the optics seem good so far.

10)Here are the load combinations I tried and some comments:

270 gr. Speer Gold Dot softnose flat point/Knight green sabot/100gr. RS and 90gr. 777 2f- takes two hands on the ramrod to load with a lot of pressure. I really want to find a combination that works with this bullet as I think it has a lot to offer. I ran out of sabots before finding the correct elevation adjustment to get me where I wanted to be at 75 yds. Will produce sub-1" three shot groups and 1-1/2" five shot groups if I do my part but I started getting vertical stringing when I adjusted for elevation. The green Knight sabots are very stiff and the bullets do not seem to "seat" comfortably inside of them, but they were all I could find for .44 bullets. Recovered sabots are only about 1/3-1/2 open.

Same bullet paired with a TC Mag Express sabot (black). I was thinking that the Cheap Shots and XTP's that come with this sabot were .430 bullets, but they must be .451. Bullet fits beautifully in the sabot but simply falls down the barrel, too scared to shoot more than two of them!

TC Mag Express 240gr. XTP with black sabot/90gr. 777 2f- grouped about 2-3"@75yds with some flyers. Didn't appear too consistent, but then again, I didn't shoot many of them either. Recovered sabots were at very inconsistent distances and conditions. Some were 10 yards, some 25. Some were flared wide open, some were nearly closed.

Knight 260gr. all lead/black sabot/90gr. 777 2f- found these in my Dad's old BP stuff purchased in the late 80's and decided to try them. They load hard but produced a 1-1/2" group 4" high at 75 yds. I only have a handful of them, but they look promising. They make a larger, ragged hole in the target- could they be keyhole-ing? The recoved sabots were within 1' of each other five yards from the gun, all in the exact same fully opened condition. Pretty sure you can't buy these anymore.

240gr. TC Cheapshot/90gr. 777 2f-last load of the day/night. Three shots, sub 1" group, 1" high. Loading not bad, but a little more difficult than I remember. They were the first sabots I bought when I got the Kodiak and I had gotten 1-1/2" groups at 50 yds with them with open sights and 85 gr. RS. I'm going to hunt with this one.

270gr. Buffalo Ball-et/85gr. 777 2f- shot three of these for effect as I was considering using them as an easy loading follow-up shot while hunting. They shot 4" low and 4" left but produced a 1" three shot group. Don't need a short starter with these! I wish I could find more of them but my normal suppliers are sold out.

You take great field notes, and that is great, because you will find your MAGIC combination of right bullet, sabot, and powder to give you an excellent load. Keep it up, I do note you like inexpensive bullets, and I use to be the same way, now I use inexpenisve bullets for target and expensive bullets for hunting. Chap Gleason