Editor’s Note: A former sniper in the U.S. Marine Corps and shooter in matches and trainer of personnel in shooting for the Armed Services, Russell Lynch of South Carolina, the owner of M.A.X. (Muzzleloader Accuracy Xperts, LLC), has learned to shoot accurately with muzzleloader guns from 300 yards out to 1,000 yards. Russell has recently been working closely with CVA Muzzleloaders to help its customers improve there shooting experience.

Question: Russell, you’ve said one of the questions you’re often asked is, “If you’re hunting for elk, are you going to shoot a magnum charge, or will you shoot a powder charge? You won’t know at what range you’ll be shooting. So, do you go with a magnum load that’s 150 grains of pellets, or do you prefer an accuracy load – 110 grains of loose powder?”
Lynch: My answer is if you’ve ever hunted elk or ever read about hunting elk, then you know that you may get a closer-range shot like bowhunters, or you may get a long-range shot like the centerfire rifle hunters have at elk. But generally most of your shots will be at extended ranges. Given the choice between knockdown power with a magnum charge of pellets or an accuracy charge with loose powder, I’ll take the loose powder over the pellets every time. If I’m shooting in the West, I don’t want my groups to be 2-1/2- inches or more at …

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Editor’s Note: Longtime muzzleloader hunter Chad Schearer of Great Falls, Montana, host of the TV show “Shoot Straight with Chad Schearer” on the Sportsman Channel, tells us about the trophy mountain caribou he took with his CVA Accura V2.

Question: Chad, tell us about the really-big mountain caribou you took this season.
Schearer: On this hunt with McKenzie Mountain Outfitters in Dawson Creek, British Columbia, my guide, Stan Stevens, was very picky about the caribou he wanted me to take. Because I’ve been a guide and an outfitter for many years, I’ve learned that to take the best animal you can, you have to listen to your guide and do what he says. On the first day of the hunt, I saw a beautiful mountain caribou. I was ready to take that animal, but my guide said, “No, let’s not shoot this caribou. I think I can find you a better one.” On the second day of the hunt, I had a good chance to take a Boone & Crockett caribou. When I saw that caribou, I told my guide I wanted to take it, but he said, “No, we can do better than him.” I turned to him and said, “Hey, I’m an outdoor writer and a TV host, and I don’t really need to be passing-up Boone and Crocket size caribou.” The guide looked back at me, smiled and said, “Chad, trust me.” Another hunter in camp took that caribou which scored 383 inches. Of course, I kidded my guide about not taking that caribou afterward. Two or three more days passed, and I didn’t see a caribou that was as big as either of the two I’d already passed-up. Finally, on the fifth or the sixth day of that hunt, using a spotting scope, I spotted a huge caribou about 5-miles from our hunting site. Through the spotting scope, we could tell that this particular bull was a monster. When the guide saw the bull in the scope, he announced, “Now that’s the caribou you want to take. When you can tell the size of the caribou from this far away, then you know you want to take him.”

We spotted this caribou at 4:00 pm and then started walking 5-miles across the tundra to reach this big bull. Walking on tundra is like having to walk on 10 or 20 bowling balls resting on top of a waterbed to reach your destination. We were carrying our rifle, packs and camera gear. We didn’t reach the spot where we could take the caribou until about 10:30 pm. In northern Canada, where I was hunting, darkness didn’t fall until about 11:30 pm. As we got-in close to the caribou, he went over a ridge and bedded-down below us. When we reached the top of the ridge and looked-down at the caribou, all I could see was this massive rack. Although we moved-up to about 120 yards of the caribou, there still was no way I could take the shot. All I could see was the big bull’s rack. My guide said, “Get ready to take the shot.” The guide made a caribou call, the big mountain caribou stood up, and I took the shot with my CVA Accura V2. The caribou took the PowerBelt Bullet and went about 40 yards before he dropped. We green-scored the caribou’s rack at more than 400 inches. I don’t have the official score on this caribou yet, because to have a rack officially scored, it has to dry for a certain period. However, from his green score, we believe this mountain caribou will be in the top-five all-time B&C record book for caribou taken with a muzzleloader.

Question: What did you learn from this hunt?
Schearer: I learned that to get the best results from your guide, listen to him and do whatever he recommends. He knows the animals in his area far better than you do and the type of animals he can produce. So, if you follow his advice, you drastically increase your odds for taking that animal of a lifetime. My guide was the outfitter’s son, so he’d hunted this area most his life. Even though we weren’t spotting large numbers of caribou bulls, we did see extremely-large bulls. When I finally put my hands on the rack of this monster caribou, I was so excited. When I went up to Canada to hunt the Dall’s sheep, deep down I really wanted a big caribou. When I took this bull, he more than met my expectations. My CVA Accura V2, 270-grain PowerBelt Platinum Series Bullet and 150 grains of IMR White Hots Powder delivered the hunt of a lifetime and two trophies of a lifetime.

To hunt with McKenzie Mountain Outfitters, visit www.mmo-stanstevens.com, call 1-250-786-5118, or email mmostanstevens@gmail.com.

Editor’s Note: The owner of M.A.X. (Muzzleloader Accuracy Xperts, LLC), in South Carolina, former U.S. Marine Corps sniper Russell Lynch produces videos and customizes muzzleloader rifles to determine the best primer, shot and load for each individual muzzleloader rifle he’s asked to evaluate and to improve shooting accuracy. Russell has recently been working closely with CVA Muzzleloaders to help its customers improve there shooting experience.

Some muzzleloader hunters believe that having really-big bullets and shooting magnum charges will result in more game taken. But hunters used muzzleloader rifles for many years before we had 209 primers and breech-action muzzleloaders. Those early hunters took a lot of big game, often with not much more than 100 grains of black powder or blackpowder substitutes. The idea of shooting 150 grains of pellets (magnum charge) helps to sell a lot of rifles, and that magnum charge certainly has its place in the muzzleloader industry where folks will use a magnum charge. There are even some circumstances where I may use a magnum charge, but the only place in North America where I’ll hunt with that big of a powder charge is when I’m hunting in thick areas. I have been in some really-thick places before where I may hunt with a magnum charge when I know I’ll have to shoot through some brush and take a big animal at close range (120 yards or less).

On most bear hunts I’ve ever been on, a 100-yard shot is a really….

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Editor’s Note: Tony Smotherman is on CVA’s Pro Staff, and he hunts all over the nation throughout hunting season. We asked him to share with us some of his most-interesting muzzleloader hunts.

Question: Tony, we know that Illinois is one of your favorite states to hunt. How did you do there this year?
Smotherman: Illinois isn’t too far from my Tennessee farm, and this state has some giant whitetails. I like to hunt the west-central area of Illinois in the Brown County area. This is one of the Golden Triangle counties, and I’ve taken nice deer there every year since 1998. I hunt with a good buddy of mine, Toby Stay of Illinois Connection, who lives in Brown County and operates Illinois Connection in Mount Sterling, Ill. I took my CVA Apex, and this time I was using my .50 barrel. I went for 2 weeks during the second gun season and the muzzleloading season. The second gun season started the weekend after Thanksgiving, and it was a 4-day season.

I’d sent some Moultrie trail cameras up there before my hunt, and some of my friends had put them out all-around this farm where I hunted. I had several whitetail bucks on my hit list that I would take if I saw them. Two or three of these bucks were 160 inches or better. But there was one buck that I called the Big 7. He had a 150-inch frame with 5 points on one side, and on the other side he had a big crab claw. I like to hunt odd bucks – bucks that are a little different from the bucks that everyone else hunts. This buck was a 5X2. I’d hunted on this farm several times, and there was one field that was right in the core of this 400-acre farm. In this core area, either I’d always take a big buck or someone I knew would take a big buck. There was a slender agricultural field that was in corn this past deer season. In the winter, every day we went out was cold. The temperature would start-out in single digits each day. Anytime you’re hunting in the Midwest and the weather is cold, cornfields usually will be your best bet. This field had some corn that had already been harvested, and it also had some standing corn left in it.

When I hunted Illinois, I always packed my lunch, went into my stand at daylight and didn’t come-out until dark. The opening day of the season was on a Thursday, and on opening day, we didn’t see much deer movement in the morning. At noon, we had three does come in from our left-hand side that walked right into the field. Behind them, I could see other deer coming in through the field. I used my 10X42 Alpen Rainier binoculars to look at the deer behind the does that we could see. I spotted the Big 7 working his way up the draw toward the cornfield where the does were. I knew if he kept-on coming, I’d have a 100-yard shot with my CVA Apex. But the Big 7 never moved into the field. He stayed about 10-yards inside the timber. This property had been cutover before, and the foliage was too thick for me to try a shot. When the does finally left the field after about 10-15 minutes, the Big 7 vanished, never presenting a shot. We didn’t see the Big 7 the rest of the day.

We went into the same field the next morning and got in a different stand, because the wind had changed. At 11:04 am, the cameraman spotted three does coming into the field. I picked-up my Apex and got in position to shoot, just in case the Big 7 was following the does. After the cameraman had filmed the does, he started looking behind the does and behind me and whispered, “The Big 7 is coming. He’s at 60 yards and coming straight to us.” Instead of coming-in to where the does had been, he’d circled way around, made an 80-yard loop and came in the cornfield from a different area from where the does had come. The does were still within shooting range of me at about 120 yards. When the buck finally came into the field, he began to herd the does out of the field and presented me with a 110-yard shot. When the .50 CVA Apex reported, the Big 7 laid-down where he’d been standing before I squeezed the trigger.

Question: What bullet and powder charge were you using?
Smotherman: I was shooting 120 grains of Blackhorn 209 powder and a new bullet, the 300-grain PowerBelt AeroLite. This bullet was one of the most-impressive bullets I’d ever shot, because when that bullet hit the buck, he just folded-up. He never moved another step after the bullet hit him. The bullet made a clean pass-through. I wish I could have recovered the bullet to see what it had done after it hit the deer. I tried to place the bullet behind the third rib as the buck quartered away from me. The bullet passed through that vital area and went out the off-shoulder, putting the buck down immediately. If you haven’t looked at this new PowerBelt bullet, you really need to check it out.

To hunt with Illinois Connection, visit www.illinoisbowhunting.com, call 404-401-1341, or email doug@benefieldauto.com.

Editor’s Note: On a recent hunting trip to the Ford Ranch near Melvin, Texas, using the .243-caliber CVA Optima Elite, Michelle Kirby, wife of Quaker Boy President Chris Kirby of Orchard Park, New York, took two trophy-sized bucks, while her husband only took one. Michelle’s a serious and accomplished hunter, and has taken deer with her bow, a muzzleloading rifle and a traditional rifle. But she’ll never forget the G-1 she took at the Ford Ranch in early December, 2010, with her .243-caliber CVA Optima Elite.

Question: Michelle, tell us about your hunts at the Ford Ranch.
Kirby: I took my first big deer, hunting with Steve West. But the deer I remember the most is the second buck I took at Ford Ranch. I had a lot of confidence in the .243-caliber CVA Optima Elite, because I’d taken a nice-sized buck with that rifle the day before. I was sitting on my stand when I saw an 8-point buck. There were about 11-other deer around my stand, and then deer started coming from everywhere. When I spotted this 8-point buck 2 afternoons before when we first arrived at the Ford Ranch, he was so close that I could have taken him with my bow.

Forrest Armke, ranch manager at the Ford Ranch, flies-over the 30,000-acre ranch in a helicopter each year and tries to photograph the trophy bucks on the ranch. One of the bucks he photographed had extremely long G-1s that were in a heart shape and almost touched. These G-1s were some of the longest I’d ever seen when Forrest showed us the picture. We asked Armke to show that picture to us several times, because we just couldn’t believe the length of that buck’s G-1s. We named this buck G-1.

When I saw G-1, he wouldn’t stop; instead, he kept walking by my stand and didn’t present a shot. I’d already taken my trophy-sized buck, so I was planning to bag a pencil-horn spike or a doe. But about 15-minutes later, G-1 returned. I looked through my binoculars, and I was confident that this was the deer I’d seen in the photograph. I picked-up my gun and laid it on my lap. I didn’t really want to shoot another trophy buck, but as the deer kept coming, I wrestled with whether to shoot him or not. Then the G-1 buck started walking away, and I thought, “Okay, this is perfect, I don’t have to make a decision.” But, the buck turned-around and came back toward my stand. When G-1 was at 30 yards, I couldn’t stand the pressure anymore. I picked-up my .243-caliber CVA Optima Elite and dropped him where he stood. When I walked-up and saw the deer, I couldn’t believe I’d taken him. Next, I thought about Chris. I didn’t know whether Chris would be happy or upset that I’d taken a second trophy buck, because although this was permissible, you had to pay for a second hunt. Five minutes later, Chris showed-up, and I told him that I took G-1. Chris was really excited for me and proud of the deer I’d taken with my .243-caliber CVA Optima Elite. Although CVA no longer produces the Optima Elite, the company fully supports this gun. CVA has replaced this rifle with the Apex, which also uses interchangeable Bergara barrels.

To learn more about the Ford Ranch, go to www.fordranchhunting.net/, email fordranch@hotmail.com, or call Forrest Armke, ranch manager at 325-286-4572.