oldsmellhound

Walmpus,

I have a .45 CVA (Magbolt) that took me a long time to get dialed in. From my experience, probably your biggest problem is that you are shooting pellets. I NEVER got good accuracy with pellets - 6" groups were the norm.

I needed to switch to loose powder and play around with the charges quite a bit to find the "sweet spot". This was a typical group from the "bad old days" at 100 yards:

oldsmellhound

I switched over to loose 777, and immediately my groups improved, but they were still more like a 3.5" average. Later, I switched to loose 777 FFFG instead of the FFG that I was using before, and worked with different powder charges, varying it in 5 grain increments. Doing this really shrunk the groups. Here's one of my better ones:



For some strange reason, this rifle LOVES 95 grains of 777 FFFG. I can consistently shoot 3 shot groups in the 1.5 - 1.75" range with either the 200 grain XTP or the 200 grain SST/Shockwave with 95 grains FFFG.

If I lower the charge to 90 grains, groups start to open up, a lot - like 2.5"+, and if I raise it to 100 grains, I start to get flyers all the time.

My advice - buy a powder measure and a pound of both 777 FFG & FFFG and start playing around with different charges. You can try Powerbelts if you want, but I think some other people have already had very good results with the Kodiak .45 and the 200 grain SST/Shockwave, so that might be a good place to start. Hope this helps!

walmpus

Thanks for all the tips. I feel a little better knowing I am not the only one who had trouble with a .45. I am going to try the 300 grain bullet with 2 pellest for the sake of hoping to keep things simple. If that doesnt work then I will try some loose powder and if I cant dial it in with that then I'll send it to frontier gander to keep myself from wrapping it around a tree! Once I find the sweet spot what type of accuracy is typical ofa .45? Can I expect 2" groups at 100 yards? One thing that makes it hard to shoot is that my kodiak has such a heavy trigger. Not sure it thats typical of CVA guns or what. I need to get a trigger job for it. Now I just need to get to range again. I am not sure how I would know how to act if it started shooting decent.

bowbender6

Here is what I have tried and the groups I have got with my .45 Kodiak since I got it in Feb. There several combo's that shoot under 2". I need to play a little more but the groups seem to get better or at least not worse as the speed goes up.
Yards Goup MOA" Date Powder Load FPS Ave Bullet Gr. Type
90 0.8 08/18/08 BH209 80 1840 200 SW BCR
90 0.8 08/18/08 BH209 80 1788 223 Powerbelt Platinum
90 1.1 08/18/08 BH209 120 2209 200 SW BCR
90 1.4 07/06/08 BH209 150 2291 195 Knight Red Hot
82 1.5 02/04/08 T7 FF 100 2030 175 Power Belt AT
82 1.6 02/17/08 80 #DIV/0! 180 T-Shock
90 1.7 07/05/08 BH209 150 2442 175 Knight Red Hot
90 1.8 07/05/08 BH209 100 2175 175 Knight Red Hot
82 1.9 02/17/08 140 #DIV/0! 180 T-Shock
90 1.9 08/18/08 BH209 80 1667 275 Powerbelt AT
90 2.0 07/06/08 BH209 85 1925 195 Knight Red Hot
82 2.0 02/17/08 80 #DIV/0! 275 Power Belt AT
90 2.1 07/06/08 BH209 85 1956 175 Knight Red Hot
82 2.2 02/23/08 T7 FF 100 195 Barnes MZ
2.3 02/23/08 100 180 QT
82 2.4 02/24/08 100 #DIV/0! 200 T-Shock
82 2.5 02/23/08 135 2350 175 Red Hot
82 2.7 02/17/08 100 #DIV/0! 175 Dead center
2.8 02/23/08 100 175 Power Belt AT
82 2.8 02/17/08 140 #DIV/0! 200 T-Shock
82 2.9 02/23/08 100 2084 175 Red Hot
82 3.3 02/17/08 140 #DIV/0! 175 Dead center
82 3.6 02/04/08 T7 FF 120 2198 195 Barnes MZ
82 3.8 02/17/08 80 #DIV/0! 223 Power Belt AT
170 3.8 07/05/08 BH209 150 2488 175 Knight Red Hot
82 4.0 02/23/08 100 #DIV/0! 180 T-Shock
90 4.1 08/18/08 BH209 80 1817 195 Powerbelt AT
82 4.4 02/05/08 T7 FF 85 #DIV/0! 200 Shockwave
82 4.5 02/04/08 T7 FF 100 2000 195 Barnes MZ
82 4.5 02/04/08 T7 FF 100 1964 195 Power Belt AT
82 4.7 02/17/08 140 2330 180 QT
82 4.7 02/05/08 T7 FF 85 #DIV/0! 195 Barnes MZ
90 7.1 08/18/08 BH209 80 1879 175 Powerbelt AT
82 8.0 02/04/08 T7 FF 100 2050 175 Dead center

frontier gander

Heavy trigger can be taken care of by emailing or calling cva and tell them about it. They will have you send the rifle in and will adjust it to 3 - 3.5lbs trigger pull.

Before doing that, buy some Birchwood Casey Molly Lube in the spray bottle and spray down the insides of the trigger and work it a few times and do one more coat. This always smooths out my triggers!

But CVA will lighten the trigger free of charge.

walmpus

Thanks for all the posted info again. I'll be sure to try the molly lube. I'll have to give CVA a call..........I think all the reps know me by name now. Got everything ready and made it to the range and it was closed down. The ranger was there and he told me it was closed down due to an "accidental" shooting. He could not give me any details, but someone was accidentlly shoot and killed at the range and it is closed until they complete an investigation. Couldn't believe it.........Puts my complaints about a lousy shooting muzzleloader in perspective for sure...