I just got a brand new CVA Apex, and took it out to sight it in today. I started at 25 yards, using 120 grains of loose 777, and 200 grain Hornady SST's in crush rib sabots. It would not sight in, with shots scattered 8-10 inches all over the target. I thought it was the scope, so double checked the mounts, and swapped the scope out for another one, but it was doing the same thing. I then changed to 2 50 grain 777 pellets, and had it sighted in, with the original scope, in 3-4 shots. Any body have any idea why it was so squirrelly with the loose 777? I've had it for a while, so maybe degradation of the powder?

because thats a massive amount of powder and it did not like it. Load Development! It takes time and patience to fine tune your rifle.

I know it was a heavy load, but it is a load I've had good success with in several other new production CVA's. I know that some rifles really dislike some loads, but that is the worst case I ever saw.

Like said it was to much powder Go down to 100 gr may work a lot better but my guess is 90 gr

250 XTP over 90 gr of powder works fine in my Optima Pro mag. Still could be the powder.

I've had them not even hit the target paper let alone the backboard behind it when I first started out. It only took me about 1 year of shooting to land really good solid 3 shot group MOA at 100 yards in 2 different guns.

Nothing beats heading to the gun range about every weekend....LOL

I'm not new to muzzleloaders, been shooting them for at least 25 years. This one was just the oddest time I've had with one. I also heard from someone, on another forum, that the sabots I was using (blue Harvester crush rib 50/40)fail a lot with heavy loads. This was the 1st time I've ever used them, so that may be the problem. As far as going to the range every weekend, that's a lot of unnecessary work. I can just go out on my porch any day............

one of my friends bought a muzzleloader online somewhere a few years back.
thing would barely hit a 2x2 ft square cardboard target at 50 yards. sent it back, but had to eat the shipping.

figured out later he was shooting hollow base (minie`) lead bullets in sabots, not a good combination. read somewhere that it would cut the sabots every time when the skirt expanded on firing.
sure didn't shoot very well, and he never tried anything else.

I always use 3F 777 much more consistence than 2F in all my Muzzle Loaders

I feel much better, now. After I finally got my new BH breech plug, I took my Apex out this morning to sight it in. I tried it with 77 grains by weight (110 grains volume), with some T/C 250 grain Shock Waves. It loved that load, and was putting them in one hole at 25 yards, so I do believe it's the load I'll stick with. According to the Blackhorn data sheet, that should be pushing out around 2,000 fps.

It seems like the sabot guns are much more picky as to what they like for a load. I run an old .54 cal. CVA Hawkins with .530 patched round balls. 90 grains of FF, any patch and solvent yields 1" groups at 50 yards, 3" groups at 100 yards. My son runs a CVA Buckhorn in .50 cal., and it took us all fall to find a load that really worked in that gun. We must have tried a good 15 to 20 different combos with that gun to get it to shoot. Ended up with those Powerbelts and Pyrodex. Work with your loads. If time's of the essence for this year, just find and acceptable load, but if you do have time, work, work, work with different combos. You'll likely hit on what it likes. 120 grains of powder seems a bit on the heavy side.