By Dudley McGarity

If you found this article while surfing the web or in a Google Search, you may have also noticed some other articles that present an extremely negative picture of both Blackpowder Products, Inc. and our CVA muzzleloading brand.  Unfortunately, this is nothing new to us, as most of it relates to Connecticut Valley Arms, Inc.’s Voluntary Recall — which was initiated way back in 1997.  Most of these negative “articles” are actually several years old, but it seems that every so often they resurface and cause a rash of new internet chatter.  As the CEO of BPI, I’d like to provide you with a little background information that will give you some insight as to why these persons would practice this “internet terrorism” against our company.

 You’ll notice that all of these “hit pieces” originate from one of two individuals.   One of them has been engaged in an internet smear campaign against BPI and our CVA brand for several years now.  Interestingly, the last time we checked, he works part-time for one of our competitors, Savage Arms Company.  As for the other, he is a private investigator employed by a law firm that specializes in product liability lawsuits. Over the past several years, both of these men have essentially been working together for this law firm, apparently in the pursuit of clients for whom the firm can potentially file gun accident lawsuits against BPI.   As a part of this effort, the private investigator has recently set up a website on which he publishes, for the most part, information from the various court filings that were made in relation to accidents that occurred during the use of these recalled CVA guns – guns that were made in 1995 and 1996.  Needless to say, neither of these “gentlemen” could be considered unbiased commentators on CVA products.  To the contrary, both have a financial interest in publicizing only the information — be it selected, partial, distorted, and/or blatantly false — that would provide some sort of advantage to their law firm and/or publicly damage the reputation and business of BPI/CVA.    

 As for the recall, it is certainly no secret that, way back in 1997, Connecticut Valley Arms, Inc. did in fact initiate a voluntary recall of one design of an in-line gun that was made in 1995 and 1996.  And, it is also no secret that a number of people were injured with these guns.  However, Connecticut Valley Arms, Inc. took responsibility at that time by issuing the recall, and BPI (the current owner of the CVA brand) is continuing the recall effort in an attempt to find all of these guns.  So far, about 96% of the approximately 55,000 recalled guns have been accounted for.  The CVA Voluntary Recall is still in effect, and BPI continues to mention this in our CVA catalogs and on our CVA web page, and will be until every recall gun is found.  Other than the voluntary recall of these 1995 and 1996 guns, no other CVA gun model has ever been recalled for any reason.   

 Now, in regard to the present rather than the past, the guns that are marketed under the CVA brand today bear little if any design similarity to those that were recalled in 1997.  In fact, none of the barrels we use today are sourced from outside vendors.  Rather, they are all made in the Bergara Barrels factory, a facility that is wholly owned by our parent company.  In addition to building the barrels for all CVA guns, Bergara Barrels also makes some of the most respected after market barrels available today, as well as providing barrels to many other highly reputed gun manufacturers throughout the world.  Because of our direct control over the barrel making processes, today’s CVA guns, when used as instructed, are as safe as any muzzleloader on the market.  Also, in terms of materials and construction, they are of equal, if not superior, quality to those of any of our competitors.  This fact has been illustrated by the success that the CVA brand has enjoyed for the better part of a decade now – as the # 1 selling muzzleloader brand in the world.   

 As a potential or present CVA owner, it is essential that you are able to use our guns with total confidence.  And, certainly, reading the ramblings of characters like those I mention above can understandably shake that confidence.  While there is nothing we can ever do that will erase the history of a product recall from 15 years ago, I do hope that I have provided you with a balancing perspective that will counter the misinformation that you may read about our company on the internet.

If you’d like to learn more about today’s CVA guns, and why they are now taking the market by storm, please check out our website at www.cva.com.

Hunted in South Texas this week about 50 miles below San Antonio near a little town called Tilden.   It’s a pleasant little place; one town in the county, one restaurant, one gas station, no grocery store but plenty of game.   And although we did not harvest a Rio Grande, we did a couple of Javalinas and some hogs.  We were using a new CVA APEX Muzzleloader with a new KonusPro Scope and a 270 grain Platinum PowerBelt bullet and White Hots.   The Rios tricked us every time which sounds suspect considering our history with Rios but it certainly proved what Tom Kelly says about one of the talents of hunting turkeys you have to practice, you have to know the lay of the land.   We were guests and had not hunted turkeys there so had a learning curve on that subject.   At every turn over a couple of days, when a Gobbler was answering but would not come over and play, we were to discover later that there was a fence or creek or tank, something objectionable between us and the bird.   When we suspected a strutting zone was nearby, when we got there, it surely was and was already in use.  The wiley birds left and that zone was ruined for the afternoon.  There goes that one.   Next, when I had a big old Gobbler headed my way and was only 100 yards distant, an easy killing distant for the CVA  APEX Muzzleloader, and on a road straight to me, the ranch hand drove over with a load of feed in his pickup sending the bird elsewhere and not in my direction.   It went on and on and resulted in an empty game bag.

Oh well, keep huntin’

O’Neill Williams

Editor’s Note: Many southern and western states permit coyote hunting year-round. In other states where there’s a coyote season, you can talk with a landowner, who can apply for and receive a crop depredation permit, which will allow the removal of predators out of season. Here at CVA, we want to inform you of more ways to use your CVA Muzzleloaders and Center-fire Rifles and the latest research that can provide more days of hunting for you.

But rather than tell you the whole story, let me introduce you to Cory VanGilder and let him explain his research project and the results to understand why if you’re not a predator hunter with your CVA rifle, you should be.

VanGilder of Exeter, Missouri, has a master’s degree in wildlife management from the University of Georgia and specializes in managing land for wildlife. Currently he’s the ranch manager and wildlife biologist for Big Horn Ranch in southwest Missouri (http://www.thebighornranch.com/old/). His job is to identify factors that affect the game populations on the ranch and determine the most-effective ways to influence those factors to produce more and bigger deer, turkeys and other game animals for his hunters. VanGilder has learned that predator hunters can be an effective tool in deer management, especially trophy-deer management. Most hunters don’t realize the impact of coyotes on their deer herds, because the coyotes do the most damage during the spring of the year when few, if any, deer hunters are in the woods. At this time of year, young, helpless fawns are born across much of the United States, although many southern deer aren’t born until August. Female coyotes also have tremendous needs for a large quantity of food to recover from birthing their pups in the springtime and to feed those pups as they begin to grow in the spring. VanGilder’s study has revealed a definite need for more predator hunters to take more coyotes, especially in areas where landowners and hunting clubs manage their deer herds for quality or trophy bucks.

How and Why VanGilder Conducted His Research:

VanGilder’s conducted his research on 2,000 acres of deer-rich territory in northeast Alabama. VanGilder collected information from trail cameras and hunter observations to estimate the ratio of fawns produced by the does on the property before implementing an intensive predator-removal program. The predator removal resulted in an increase in the fawn-to-doe ratio by 189%. Before the removal of predators from the property, the fawn-to-doe ratio was low, which might have been caused by the 10-year intensive management of the property based on quality deer-management guidelines. During that time, the landowner had held a major doe harvest to reduce the deer density on the property, which although normally advantageous to growing bigger and better bucks, caused the fawn-to-doe ratio to drastically decrease. “This drastic drop in doe-to-fawn production may have been the result of having both high deer and coyote-predator densities on the property,” VanGilder explains. “When the landowner reduced the number of deer on the property, he still had a high number of predators, primarily coyotes and bobcats, taking the same number of fawns as when the deer numbers were higher, causing the doe-to-fawn ratio (the number of fawns that survived after birth) to drop dramatically. After the predators were removed, the doe-to-fawn ratio increased, with each doe producing at least one fawn per year and some does producing two fawns per year.” From studying the scat collected from woods roads on the property, VanGilder and his team of scientists named the coyote as the number-one predator of the fawns with some bobcat predation. “We found very-little deer hair at all in the bobcat’s scat,” mentions VanGilder.

How the Predators Were Removed:

To remove the predators from the study area, the landowner hired a professional group of predator trappers, who trapped the property for predators after trapping season. In 6 months, 22 coyotes and 10 bobcats were removed from the 2,000-acre study area.

“Coyotes can replenish a region really fast, especially when there are many transient coyotes in an area and not much empty space without coyotes,” VanGilder comments. “Our study was conducted from February to July, and the fawning period in this section of the United States (Alabama) was in August. We wanted to time our trapping to just before the fawns were born to have the greatest positive impact on fawn production.”

The landowner continued the trapping program, asking hunters to take coyotes on sight. VanGilder returned 1-year later, and a camera survey revealed a large new crop of 1-1/2-year-old bucks and does on the property. “Our study had a positive impact on deer production on the property where we removed the predators,” VanGilder reports. You too can enjoy coyote hunting with your CVA rifle and keep your hunting skills sharp for the upcoming deer-hunting season.