Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Cooper Arms 22ML

Anyone have experience with the Cooper Arms 22ML? Curious how it stacks up against the Remington muzzle loader?

I tested one out this summer. I haven't muzzy hunted since I was 10 years old. 25 years later and the muzzy world had changed a ton. I had a tag for Colorado mule deer and had to use a conical, can't use sabots there. The gun would shoot half moa with some loads I tried. With the 250 grain Aerolite on top of 100, 110, or 120 grains of BH209 all the combo's were 1.25 moa or better. I honestly didn't have to do much for load development since the gun was so accurate with whatever I stuffed down the barrel. I ended up using the 250 Aerolite with 120 grains of BH209 going 2358 fps. Sighted dead on at 140 yards I was about 2" high at 75 yards and 4.5" low at 200 yards. Able to hold almost dead on from 0-200 with a muzzy is kind of cheating haha.

Here is my Colorado buck and the Cooper


Here is the rifle while working on the load this summer.


Here are targets from different bullets or powder charges that I used.




I haven't heard much about the Cooper 22ML. But from my sample of 1 I am extremely impressed. The rifle is accurate and super easy to shoot. It has a nice stock, trigger tech trigger, and it's way more accurate then I am. The test target Cooper sent with it was almost 1 hole. They used a sabot but like I said I wasn't allowed to in Colorado. I have no clue about the Remington muzzy. But it would take a lot to get me to switch to a different muzzy after seeing how accurate this cooper is.

Wow, that is some crazy high fps for that load. Ive never seen anything close to that using 120gr of BH209 and any 250gr projectile.

As far as the Cooper, one of the best shooters at Friendship wasnt all that impressed with his. A nearly bone stock Knight would out shoot his custom ordered Cooper. The Knight cost around half as much and he has won many events with that rifle. He was never able to get his Cooper to shoot well enough for competition. Another owner had some minor issues with the stock inletting and breach plug. Cooper took care of him and got the rifle upto par. Personally a $2k rifle imo should have never left the factory in that condition considering its basically a custom rifle.

However the vast majority of Cooper owners ive seen have been very pleased. They should be for $2k a pop. You can build a Rem700 with a Brux barrel for that kind of change. Under $900 for the Rem UML with a B&C stock and about $900 for a Remage barrel or less. The RemBrux option would allow you to shoot powders that would far exceed what BH209 can achieve.

That is a sharp looking rig Tuff!

I'm considering a Knights Ultra-Lite as well. The Coopers look appealing but I can't seem to even find one. There's one on GunBroker for $2200 which is more than I want to pay.

If you wait a little longer a new rifle is soon to be released from CVA called the Paramount. It will be a bolt action based on the Bergara B14 line of rifles. Rumor has it that it will cost around $600msrp and rated for similar charges as the Rem Ultimate. Call Cooper if you really want one. Glenn can help you out finding one. They also offer it in the Excalibur model with a synthetic stock and all SS if you have not seen it. That is a very pretty rifle.

There are a couple on the auction sites but they are going for over $2200

What kind of accuracy would you expect from the Cooper out to 300 and 500 yards? Do you think that would be comparable to the Knight UL?

I don't have a lot of experience with muzzleloading, especially out at those distances. From a .50 cal, assuming accuracy was a non-factor, what would you say is the max effective range on deer and elk, that would allow for sufficient energy?

I ask because I do see some muzzleloaders advertised as 500+ yards guns but I'm not sure if they have sufficient knock down power at those ranges.

The Knight Ultralite is not a long range ML. You want a Mountaineer in 45cal with the 1-20 twist for long range. Those cost about a grand but can be found much cheaper sometimes. A lot of states though dont allow 45cal for elk. New Mexico does iirc. Generally speaking, 50cal with sabots is a poor choice past 200-250 yards. Sabots are the weak link in long range and many of the high BC 45cal bullets dont work well in sabots especially in a typical 1-28 twist. A 1-24 would be a bit better in 50cal. Both of those issues are easy to overcome in a 45cal. Either with shooting sabotless or by using one of the newer 40cal bullets with sabots. Just take one look at what has won at Friendship the last few years in the inline matches. Pretty much all 45cals 1-20 twist shooting sabotless. Not a single 50cal has even been in the top 5 for several years now.

Ultimate Firearms used to compete but now they get spanked silly by Knight 45s that cost much less. These 45s are not shooting wimpy loads either. All the guys i know are shooting max 120gr BH209 loads because that is the most allowed by NMLRA. Before they changed the rules some guys were shooting close to 150gr loads in custom builds. One of the best scores of all time was set by such a load.

Thanks!

Is there a website that shows the results from the Friendship competition shoot and what rifles, loads, bullets, etc were used? Admittedly, I'm not familiar with that match. I've perused the web but haven't found much.

Paste this into a Google search.
jeff fisk NMLRA site:www.modernmuzzleloader.com

They usually post on dougsmessage board and a lot on modernmuzzleloader forum. Jeff Fisk and his brother, Doug Schwartz, Rick Weber and Bob Wetzler are among some of the top shooters. 4 of them post on the MML forum. Only 2 post on Dougs. The Hunter match which is more of a standard rifle match is dominated by the Knight Mountaineer 45 1-20 and the old Knight Super Disc 1-20. Customs and Knight 500s pretty much take the unlimited match.

Yea I was surprised it was that fast. I was measuring by volume and then I used the BH209 tubes to hold a few pre measured loads and they were all either above or below the 120 mark on the tubes depending on how I tapped on the tubes or shook them. At first I thought something must be wrong with my powder measure. But after measuring then dumping them into the tubes and them being close to the 120 mark I figured the powder measure was accurate. I could have been off a little since they weren't measured on a scale but I figured close enough as well as it shot.

This I believe was with a 225 grain bullet.


Here is the 250 grain bullet with 110 and 120 BH209

Thats around 300fps faster than ive ever seen posted including directly from CVA's Powerbelt site and muzzle-loaders.com. I have seen over 100fps increase between similar rifles that just had different brands of barrels. One of my customs shoots a load around 150fps faster than is commonly been tested but that barrel was very expensive. Toby Bridges has a lot of data for his Cooper and it seems to confirm other load data although i havent seen any from him shooting Aerolites. The CVAs he has reviewed and shot them in pretty much matches up with the others. I always weigh Blackhorn so i can only guess your volume is off on the high side and the Wilson barrel is giving a bit more fps too. Possibly the breach plug is a tiny bit better igniting it.

Another Fantastic Buck Branden!!! You've quite the rifle! Congrats on both fronts!!!

I still have some of the loads measured out in the quick load tubes. Now I'm curious so when I get time I am going to dump a couple of them on the scale and see where that ends up.

Thanks Shag. It was a hard but good hunt.

I would be having that chronograph checked. Just sayin.