Editor’s Note: Outdoor TV personality Chad Schearer of Great Falls, Montana, has guided clients to mule deer and elk each season as well as hunted on his own. Today, he’s the host of the “Shoot Straight with Chad Schearer” television show presented by CVA that airs on the Sportsman Channel, Fox Sports South, the Lonestar Network and CBS Montana.

Question: Chad, you hunt all over the West. When you owned Central Montana Outfitters, you guided hunters to elk, as well as mule deer. What gun and powder charge do you recommend for taking elk?

Schearer: I suggest using either the CVA Accura V2 or the CVA Apex. But if you’re looking for a less-expensive Muzzleloader, you can take elk with a CVA Optima or even a CVA Wolf. One of the advantages CVA has over many other Muzzleloading-rifle companies is CVA has quality, accurate rifles to accommodate every hunter. The load I suggest for elk is 150 grains of powder. However, I once took a moose with only…

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Editor’s Note: Chad Schearer of Great Falls, Montana, former owner and operator of Central Montana Outfitters, guided clients to mule deer and elk each season as well as hunted on his own. Today, Schearer is host of the “Shoot Straight with Chad Schearer” television show presented by CVA that airs on the Sportsman Channel, Fox Sports South, the Lonestar Network and CBS Montana.

 Question: Chad, which CVA rifle are you hunting with now, and how are you loading it?

Schearer: The situation and the game I’m hunting dictate the rifle I use. I hunt with the CVA Apex quite a bit, because it allows me to change barrels and keep the same rifle frame. With the Apex, I can hunt for deer or varmints, just by using different barrels. But when I’m using the Apex as a muzzleloader, I’ll load with either 100- or 150-grain PowerBelt bullets. I like IMR White Hots pellets. If I’m doing a whitetail hunt, I’ll use either a 245- up to a 295-grain PowerBelt bullet. If I’m hunting elk and shooting a .45 barrel, I’ll use a 275-grain bullet. If I’m shooting the .50 barrel, I’ll use either a 295- to as large as a 348-grain bullet. I like either the PowerBelt or the PowerBelt Platinum bullets the best, and I really like the Winchester 777 Primer. I’ve experimented with all different types of primers, and the Winchester primers give me the most-consistent ignitions. I’ve been extremely successful using that primer the last several years.

 Question: One of the selling points with the CVA rifles is the Bergara barrels and the accuracy they deliver, even out to extended ranges. What’s the longest shot you’ve ever taken successfully with a CVA rifle?

Schearer: The longest shot I’ve ever seen with a CVA rifle was made by….

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Editor’s Note: Carlos Vilorio of Vass, North Carolina, is an avid Muzzle loading shooter and hunter who truly loves the CVA Accura Muzzleloader.

Question: Carlos, in previous blogs, you’ve mentioned the types of groups the CVA Accura and the Bergara barrels deliver. But the real test of a blackpowder Muzzleloading rifle for most hunters is how well the rifle performs in the field. What type of results have you and your customers had with these rifles and barrels?

Vilorio: I was hunting last deer season here in North Carolina, and one morning, while sitting in a tree stand, I saw a number of does early. At 9:55 am, I decided to leave my tree stand and go home. But I thought I’d give the stand at least 10-more minutes. In a few minutes, I looked to my left and saw this really-nice-sized buck coming out of the woods in a shooting lane. I ranged him at about 250 yards. I made the decision not to shoot that far. The buck started to cross the shooting lane, but then saw the does, stopped and started walking down the lane straight toward me. When he was at 225 yards, he started feeding. All I could see was his rear end. I thought, “Carlos, either you’ll let this buck walk off, or you’ll have to take the shot through his rear end.”

About that time, the buck turned around and faced me. I checked him with my rangefinder and learned the buck was at 220 yards. I knew from shooting the CVA Accura on the rifle range that I could make the shot at that distance. I cocked the hammer and was ready to shoot when a doe stepped in front of the buck. I waited until she cleared the buck and then pulled the trigger. When the smoke cleared, I didn’t see my buck lying on the ground. I thought, “I can’t believe I missed that deer.” I got out of my tree stand, went to the spot where the buck had been standing and found a blood trail. The buck had run 50 yards and piled-up. He was a really-nice-sized 9-point buck. The bullet went through the left shoulder, destroyed the heart and came out the right shoulder. I didn’t hesitate to take the shot, because I’d seen the types of groups the Accura could produce at that range. So, I learned that the Accura not only would punch tight groups on paper on a rifle range, but that same rifle would deliver the same accuracy in the woods when a deer was in front of you.

Question: Carlos, you spend a lot of time on the rifle range developing loads and sighting-in rifles. Have any of the customers at Ed’s Gun Shop, where you’re the assistant manager, taken deer with CVA Accura rifles you’ve sighted-in for them?

Vilorio: Yes, they have – quite a few actually. I had a customer who said he’d be hunting central North Carolina when muzzleloading season started in November. The season began on Saturday, and this customer came in on Tuesday. I showed him the different muzzleloaders I had, and the patterns they’d shoot. He chose the CVA Accura and the Bushnell Dead On Arrival (DOA) 250 riflescope. He asked me to set-up and sight-in the rifle for him. I’m off on Wednesdays, and that’s generally when I go hunting in another area of North Carolina where the season starts early. I didn’t really want to give up a day of hunting to sight-in this guy’s rifle, but he wouldn’t buy the Accura, unless I put it together with the scope, sighted it in and had it ready to hunt. So, I decided to hunt Wednesday morning and then sight-in this customer’s Accura. Then he’d have it ready to hunt with on Saturday. The rifle was shooting a three-bullet group at 0.485 at 100 yards. I took it back to the shop on Thursday, the customer picked it up, and I told him to shoot the rifle himself before he went hunting. He came in the following Monday with a picture of a huge buck he’d taken at 180 yards with the CVA Accura I’d set-up for him. I asked the hunter where the bullet hit. He said, “Well, the deer wouldn’t turn sideways, and he was facing me head-on, so I shot him through the front. You can see where the bullet hole went through the front of his chest. When the bullet hit him, he dropped dead in his tracks.”

Question: Do you have another customer story?

Vilorio: I sure do. I have a customer who helps me out at gun shows sometimes. He selected a stainless-steel, camouflaged Accura with a thumbhole-type stock. I took it home, mounted the scope and sighted-in the gun for him. That gun shot a three-shot group that measured 0.3085. This customer took the gun home and shot it to make sure it was dead-on before he went hunting. About 2-weeks later, he took a monster 10-point buck with his CVA Accura at 150 yards. The shot went through the buck’s shoulder. The customer told me the buck only traveled about 10 yards before he piled-up. The Accura certainly can prove itself on a bench at a rifle range, but the real test of the gun is in the woods when you have a monster buck standing in front of you. I’ve learned, as my customers have, that you can bet-on the CVA Accura when that buck of a lifetime appears in your sights.

Editor’s Note: Carlos Vilorio of Vass, North Carolina, an assistant manager and salesman at Ed’s Gun Shop, sights-in CVA muzzle loader rifles for customers.

Question: Carlos, you’ve mentioned that you can shoot 1-inch groups at 200 yards with a CVA Accura. You’ve also mentioned that you can shoot groups tighter than 1 inch at 100 yards with the Accura. How do you load the CVA Accura to get groups that tight?

Vilorio: I use 110 grains of Blackhorn 209 powder with a Barnes Spit-Fire T-EZ bullet and a Fiocchi primer.

Question: Why do you like the Fiocchi primer?

Vilorio: I read an article by Russell Lynch where he reported that primers can develop a lot of pressure when they’re fired and push the load forward before the powder ignites, which can affect your accuracy. Since I like to try to shoot as accurately as I can, I decided to conduct my own primer test. I put the ramrod in the barrel without a bullet or a powder charge and placed some packing behind the rod in the barrel. I wanted to measure how far the primer would push that ramrod up, which would tell me how far the primer could push the powder before the powder ignited. The Fiocchi primer only pushed the rod out of the barrel about 3 inches. The Winchester primer pushed the rod out of the barrel 10 inches. The Remington primers pushed the rod out 13 inches out of the barrel. No other primer I tested pushed the rod any less than the Fiocchi primer. So, through my primer test, I learned that the Fiocchi primer had enough fire to light the powder without pushing the powder charge too far out of the barrel before the powder ignited. I also learned that I could shoot much-tighter patterns with the Fiocchi primer than I could with other primers and that by using the Fiocchi primer, I could shoot consistent patterns shot after shot. That’s the reason I now exclusively shoot the Fiocchi primer.

Question: Why do you shoot 110 grains of Blackhorn powder instead of 100 or 150 grains?

Vilorio: For me, 150 grains delivers a heavy recoil and kicks too much. I shot 120 grains of Blackhorn powder and still got a little kick. With 110 grains of Blackhorn powder, I could get between 2,000 and 2,100 feet per second, which allowed the Bushnell Dead On Accurate (DOA) 250 scope to be accurate at 100, 150, 200 and 250 yards. I formulate my powder so that the multiple crosshairs in my scope are dead-on at 100 and 200 yards.

Question: So, what’s your opinion of the CVA Accura and the Bergara barrels?

Vilorio: I can’t believe you can take a factory-made gun out of the box and consistently shoot tight groups, like the CVA Accura and the Bergara barrels will, especially when they’re loaded with 110 grains of the Blackhorn 209 powder, the Barnes Spit-Fire T-EZ bullets and the Fiocchi primer.

Editor’s Note: Carlos Vilorio of Vass, North Carolina, an assistant manager and salesman at Ed’s Gun Shop, knows the targets he shoots with CVA Accuras for customers and the groups he gets when shooting sell the guns.

Question: Carlos, you told us that the first time you ever shot a CVA rifle, you got a three-shot group at 100 yards that measured 0.485. How did you convince your customers to start buying CVA Accura rifles?

CVA Accura Target

Vilorio: I took the Thompson/Center rifles, the CVA Accura and the Thompson/Center with the Bergara barrel to the range and shot three-shot groups with each. I put the targets in a notebook and labeled them with their respective gun names. When a customer said he or she wanted to buy a blackpowder gun, I’d ask if he wanted a gun with interchangeable barrels or a plain Jane 100% blackpowder rifle. If they wanted just a plain Jane blackpowder rifle, I’d tell them they either could buy a Thompson/Center that cost $700 at that time or a CVA Accura, which cost much less. Then I’d show the customer the targets I’d shot. They could see from the targets that the Accura shot a much-tighter group than the T/C. If they wanted a blackpowder barrel to go on an interchangeable platform, I’d show the customer the three-shot group produced by the Bergara barrel. My customers are always amazed when they look at those targets in my notebook and see how tight the patterns are for both the Bergara barrels and the CVA Accura. When our customers learned how lightweight and comfortable the CVA Accura rifles were, the Accuras started jumping off the shelves, as did the Bergara barrels. I don’t really sell CVA blackpowder rifles or Bergara barrels in our store. The targets in my notebook that show the groups the Accura and the Bergara barrels produce sell them.

 Question: What have you learned about bullets?

Vilorio: I like to shoot the Barnes Spit-fire T-EZ 250-grain bullets. I set-up a CVA Accura with the Bushnell Dead On Accurate (DOA) 250 scope and took it out to the range with the Spit-Fire bullets to test it for a customer who purchased it. It shot 0.271 groups. So, if I’m really shooting for accuracy, I like the Barnes bullets. But for most hunters, the difference between 0.485 and 0.271 is not that important.

Question: Do you set-up all the guns you sell from your store and take them to the range and shoot them?

Vilorio: Most guys prefer to sight-in their own rifles, which really is the best way to sight-in a rifle. But if a customer wants me to take out his rifle and sight it in for him, I will. I really don’t like to sight-in someone else’s rifle because even though it’s driving tacks for me, the customer needs to sight-in his own rifle, so he can make it shoot accurately for him. When I do sight-in a rifle for a customer, I bring the target back and show it to the customer. Then he knows the type of group the rifle, the scope, the bullets, the powder and the cap can deliver. I can’t guarantee that the customer will be able to shoot that type of group, but the gun can.

Question: Do you sight-in these blackpowder guns for 100 and 200 yards, and if so, what types of groups are you shooting out at 200 yards?

Vilorio: Yes, I sight-in for both 100 and 200 yards. With the CVA Accura, I can shoot a 1-inch group at 200 yards. But if I can take the human factor out of the shot and shoot the Accura in a vice with a mechanical trigger pull, I can shoot a 1/2-inch group with the Accura.

Question: Have you shot the Accura at 300 yards, yet?

Vilorio: No, I haven’t. But I’ve just received a new CVA Apex, and I’m going out today to sight-in this rifle. I not only want to see what this gun will do out at 200 yards, but I want to test it at over 200 yards.