Today my father was getting out of his truck, and going to walk into his ground blind. He placed his gun on his front seat after placing a primer in it. Around 25 seconds later while no one was touching it the gun fired into the dash. Thank god my father nor his friend were injured by this. Although it did take out part of the wiring harness of the truck and It will not start now. The gun was not cocked, and in no way modified. It has been properly maintained. Has this been a recent issue with these guns. I am not asking about the older guns that had issues so please refrain from talking about those. Very concerned about the safety of this gun. It is actually my backup muzzleloader, and makes me very nervous and concerned. I am going to call cva Monday morning. Any idea what they will do? I know they will not repair the truck, but what will they do about the gun issue? Any suggestions?

The gun was not cocked and went off that's a new one glad to hear no one was injured in any way.

Could the firing pin become stuck and release on it's own. I was not there for the incident, but he told me he placed the primer in the gun, which will not close if it is cocked, and sat it down and walked to the back of the truck when it went off without anyone within a few feet of it. Said the gun did not fall or anything. What would you do if this happened to you?

Was the primer punched by the firing pin?

May seem like an odd question, but it had to ignite from the primer. If it wasn't punched then I am wondering if friction or electrical impulse may have ignited the primer. Never heard of it happening but this seems odd.

The firing pin may have been stuck as mentioned, then released on it's own..

Also wondering if it may have partially cocked the hammer on the seat when put into the car and slowly pulled lose allowing the hammer to fall...

Crazy stuff, glad no one was hurt.

If the headspace is set too tight, or a longer primer is used that's different from when the headspace was set. It will crush the primer, and it can go off. This is a known issue with CVA's.

However, it goes off when the barrel is slammed shut. Not sure it could happen 25 seconds later.

I had the same thing happen to me ,but mine was a kodiak the firepin was stuck would take 2or 3 shots to go off. The fireing pin was with dirt an powder clean with krol oil an oil up with trammission fluid work great now . all parts need a good cleaning once a year on all guns

How can the firing pin fire without the hammer being cocked?

I was able to get gun in hand tonight after my dad made it back to town. I was able to repeat the firing by closing the breach on a primer with no load in barrel. 2 out of 5 times it fired the primer because the firing pin was sticking out barely. Even when u cocked it and pulled the trigger it would not reset the firing pin. Definitely gonna call cva in morning. They will get a ear full because a faulty gun has now caused a couple thousand dollars damage to my fathers f250. Any idea what I should do other than calling them. This gun has been well maintained and used very little since it was a back up. Only 3 years old and never fired until last fall.

Pictures of gun?

Will get pics up tomorrow for you.

How about giving "polite" a try? Tell them what happened, and that you were able to repeat this several times and then .......listen to what they have to say. Don't interrupt or get antagonistic with them.

After that you can decide if you need legal help. DO NOT TRY TO REPAIR THE GUN OR CLEAN THE FIRING PIN OR RELATED MECHANISMS UNTIL THIS IS SETTLED.

Have you unscrewed the firing pin housing, and cleaned and oiled the firing pin? It sounds like it's clogged up.

I would listen to Dan's advice above. At any rate, if it was my rifle, and it did what it did, I wouldn't care whether a good cleaning fixed the problem, the rifle would be going back.

I cleaned firing pin last year after season, and completely again after checking sights this year. I was finally able to get it apart and the spring inside was broke in 3 places. They are sending a new firing pin kit priority mail to fix the issue. According to the rep I spoke with this is not uncommon. I asked for a complete replacement of gun, but was told that was in no way a option. I also cannot sell the gun due to not wanting to get anyone hurt. So not sure what to do with it other than fix it and try it out. May just put it in back of gun safe and buy something else as my backup. At this point I am not sure what exactly caused the failure of the spring as the gun has been well maintained. Not completely satisfied with the customer service, but I am sure they get calls like this every day from guys who do not clean their guns as they should and cannot replace them all. Still trying to fix the problem with the truck. It's a lesson in safety. Just glad no one was injured and only a truck was shot.

I can understand the firing pin binding up if the spring is broke. That's all the spring does is return the firing pin. What confuses me is if the firing pin didn't return like it should and stuck out. It would fire the gun when the action was closed. How did it fire 25 seconds later? Once the action is close, it would take the hammer hitting it to fire.

Confuses me too. I cannot figure that out myself. Since I was not there when it happened I will never truly know. The gun makes me very nervous now, and for good reason I believe. It's going to back of gun safe and will not be sold since I cannot sell a potentially hazardous gun. Oh well.

If the problem is only the spring, maybe you can get an aftermarket or even a custom spring? Seems like a waste not to use the rifle just because of a $20 part.

If this is a common problem with this rifle, it's amazing that CVA won't step up to the plate.

I'm surprised CVA said it was not uncommon. WTF?? CVA doesn't seem to be bothered by lawsuits.

On the Omega I used this year during the Colorado season all of a sudden I couldn't close the breach.

I kept trying to slam it shut before I noticed the firing pin was stuck forward and it was hitting the primer, the primer had a little dent in it, scared me straight.

Glad I read this thread! I have an Optima and I will definatley be watching for this from now on! Scary chit there!

Glad nobody was hurt!

I'm the same have the same gun and will not tell anyone how great they are anymore but will tell them about the gun will go off when every it what's. ?????????????????????

Most inlines have blowback unless care is taken to seal the primer channel. A friend of mine had to send his muzzleloader (not a CVA) back just this summer to have the firing pin replaced. His was rusted and would not strike the primer.

The CVA in this thread has the most user friendly firing pin assembly in the industry. The bushing can be taken out and the firing pin and firing pin spring can be cleaned and inspected.

It is very easy to care for the firing pin on this gun, and I did it quite regularly. For some reason I still had a catastophic failure. If you are not cleaning yours, you better. Learn from our expensive ordeal. I was disappointed with cva customer service, and think that I should have been offered a full replacement. Oh well. I have a apex that I love and will continue to use. I could understand this happening if I did not do appropriate and thorough cleaning, but I did.

Thanks for the safety reminder, sorry about the truck.

So, what was the problem, did the busshing work loose?

It was a combo of bad gun cleaning practices and the nearly Biblical rains we had. The firing pins was just stuck, I fought it the whole season as I didn't have anything with me to fix it.

I don't think that you can get any simpler than my TC woods rifle. miles

LOL, I hunted in those biblical rains too. Had a misfire the morning before I got the shot at my elk, luckily I was just firing to clean and reload.

You had a misfire with your Triumph? Did the primer fire?

Not sure if I'm reading your response correctly here but it seems like you are tossing sarcasm my way for saying I will watch for a stuck firing pin in my gun now due to the OP's experience. To me that's reading and comprehension 101. If someone posts a legit safety concern for the same make and model weapon you own, it's common sense to watch for it. No????????????????????

His post didn't make sense anyway.

Yup. The powder (BH209) got wet. I got rained on pretty hard, and had black tape over the muzzle. I think what happened was, if you carry the rifle muzzle down, water runs down the outside of the barrel and collects in the tape. Then when you turn it muzzle up, the water runs into the bore. The primer lit, the powder went "ppffffffft" and the bullet blooped out and hit the ground about 20 feet away.

Oh ok. You sure it didn't get in the breech anywhere. I have a Triumph too, and more than likely will get some rain in ML season.

I usually use saran wrap on the muzzle with a rubber band. I was thinking of trying those condoms that go over the muzzle, but i'm not sure that they don't change the POI when shot through.

http://www.gandermountain.com/modperl/product/details.cgi?i=402648

I was gonna try those condoms, but I heard that with a condom, the animal isn't really dead.

No. It really didn't.

I have heard condoms will fail occasionally also....just saying

And then your firing pin having a failure, it's time to seek professional help....

Are you referring to my OP as "not making since"? If so I would be more than glad to explain what happened and why it happened again.

I was talking about blackhorn's post on the 3rd page.

Kevin, Mauser was talking about blackhorn's post.

I have not had a chance to look at my Optima since this was posted but I would be grateful if you could kind of explain how to thoroughly clean the firing pin.

Or is it pretty self explanatory once you have the gun in front of you?

Remove the ramrod and forearm and then remove the barrel. The firing pin bushing is slotted for a flat blade screwdriver. Remove the bushing and the firing pin and spring come out. Clean any residue in the firing pin recess and clean the spring and firing pin.

Also, a lot of the firing pins have ridges on them. They don't slide through the firing pin housing as they should. I take some emery cloth, and smooth them out.

Should Have bought a Chevy...the Sabot would have bounced off.

So, where is your Dad's new vent hole located?

The bullet entered the electrical junction box as I was informed it is called, destroying that, and ended up behind the door hinge with no exit hole to the outside. If I did not show you the entrance you would never see it. But it was a one shot DRT due to the computer and wiring. Haha.

Lucky you didn't have a fire with the wiring shorting out.

I'm heading home Kevin, will get a new Iphone tomorrow. Or try have this one repaired if possible.

I seen a guy shoot a hole thru his Blazer floorboard into the transmission few yrs back.

Why you heading back already. Thought you staying and hunting 2 bucks up there.

24 below next 3 days...f*ck that. Moved it till next year. Plus it seems your having trouble killing a nice 9 point, guess I'll have to help.

Can't believe I dropped my new Iphone 5 into a cup of coffee.... what is the chance of that happening.

obviously very good.

Sorry to here about your experience . It sure would scare the hell out of a fella . Glad no one was hurt .
In all honesty though its firearms design . They all can do that not just CVA , not just modern muzzleloaders . In fact not just muzzleloaders .
I had a Marlin 30.30 that started doing just what you describe one year .
I had set the rifle up against a tree turned to take a wiz and BOOM .
Turned out to be the spring . The FP would jam up and while the hammer appeared to be all the way down , it was in fact not . There was just enough pressure still being applied to the fp that when it finally decide to move , it would hit with enough force to set the shell off.
Remington had the same problem with their semi autos .
Back when I was doing my apprenticeship I remember a guy bring one in to the shop .. With that rifle it turned out to be the cold that was effecting it . IE the lube was gumming the works up .
The first round would fire then the gun wouldn�t fire . You could even cycle the gun and she still wouldn�t fire . But set it down and seconds to even minutes later it would go off ..

Anyway , my point is that everything has a invisible self destruct date . doesn�t mater what it is , be it guns , cars , planes , us �. You name it . All we can do is try and put that date of by building and maintain the item . Sometimes however even that doesn�t work and the item fails . Sometimes with catastrophic results

In your case , its not really the design as the firing pin application used , has been around since the old Hammer gun designs . Even longer concerning bolt / plunger actions .
Thus I would say the problem was with the part . Replace it with a new one . If you don�t trust CVA to send you one of better quality , then find an aftermarket one . But frankly those can fail as well .

Its one of those reasons why practice so much gun safety as the only safe gun is on that factually know to be un loaded .

Not having trouble killing him, because so far this year I am batting 1000. I'm having a hard time seeing him to kill him. If I see him he will die. No misses

This forum's turning into Facebook

Your catching on.

Isn't that where nerds hangout? You a member?

LMAO. Sorry to hear that Stoney.

CVAs are JUNK. Always have been. The company knows it and still don't care. Their track record speaks for itself, to anyone wise enough to listen. Their piss poor attitude bothers me even more than their piss poor products. They'd like you to think it was/is only the now infamous recalled rifles that have QC/safety issues. This couldn't be further from the truth............

The hammer IMO was pulled back, most likely from falling and then setting it off. Any time you place a gun on a front seat and then go about doing something else, anything can happen to it. Who knows how it was placed. The story will never get to what actually may have happened.

If you're using one of those condoms it doesn't matter what the load is because you're going to be shooting blanks.

Yeah.

I don't doubt what happened but think it should be pretty easily trouble shot as to the cause.
It is easy to create myths via the internet.

As the story went father to son to us we are at third hand.
Did the OP disassemble the firing pin assembly in his previous cleaning?

Was the broken spring rusted or crushed via assembly?
How would that keep the firing pin protruding tightly?
What was keeping the firing pin protruding a bit?
Was there marring evident on it.
If you look at thing methodically the mystery usually can be dispelled.
But now we have a issue that "can happen at anytime".
Rather than put the rifle in the back of the safe might as well cut it up with a torch so no one is in danger and space isn't taken up

Nobody has come close to explaining how it could have fired 25 seconds after the action was closed. If the hammer was never pulled back after the action was closed.

Heard of cocked guns propped up falling over. Then having to cover your arse.

Guys I have no clue why it took time to go off instead of just firing when breach closed. I did say in the series of posts that the gun and firing pin had been cleaned regularly. The firing pin was stuck and the spring had broken in 2 places. Sometimes it would return and sometimes it would be stuck out. You cannot close the breach if the gun is cocked so you can throw that out. Wasn't cocked. The gun was laying on a front bench seat and was still on bench seat after it fired. I am no gunsmith nor do I pretend to be. Too many variables in play, and I will never know what happened to cause it. The firing pin kit was replaced and the gun does function properly now. I was able to recreate the breach close firing 3 out of 5 times with the gun before fixing it. Just know that you should check your firing pin on your gun very regularly to prevent a accident like this or worse from happening. Very fortunate no one was injured.

This is not meant to be a dig against the OP, but I doubt the the gun has been "properly maintained." I doubt a lot of in-lines are.

Flintlock, percussion cap, in-line.. Black powder, Pyrodex, 777... A muzzle loader, is a muzzle loader, is a muzzle loader, and muzzle loaders are a pain in the ass. In spite of the advertisements, you need to strip the damn things down to parade rest every time you shoot them or they'll start falling apart in no time flat.

Gun had been maintained an cleaned. Is it hard to understand the firing spring pin had broken in 2 places. I originally said three but I was wrong. Not sure you read the posts. This gun has a very easy firing pin mechanism to clean and maintain. Only takes a few minutes to do. Cva recommends it be cleaned regularly but not every time you shoot it. I cleaned it more than they recommend and more than most who use a muzzleloader. No rust or build up when I took it apart.