I borrowed a friend's CVA Optima last year for ML elk season and it shot very well with .50 Harvester "crushrib" sabots (a godsend for easy loading -- I've been shooting sabots for many years) and Harvester 330 gr. hardcast bullets. Could shoot 8 or 9 shots without any cleaning, using 110 gr. vol. of Blackhorn 209 (77 gr. by wt.), and then needed only modest bore-wipe. Believe I posted about that on the forum.
Notably, the brand new palm-saver ramrod suddenly lost its large end at a shot, due to the significant-weight palm-saver snapping off from its slim threaded portion ( most likely 10-32 threads like lots of jags and brushes, , not slimmer8-32 which is also common). I believe the rod moved slightly forward, exposing more of the palm-saver, and the 90 degree muzzleblast against it from that much Blackhorn was too much for an embrittled brass that was not well annealed. I talked to CVA and told them about this problem, and that it was a bit difficult for me to back out the remnant threaded portion from the ramrod, but possible. They immediately sent me the an entire new ramrod at no charge, because they did not have just the separate palm-saver end as a replacement. And yes, the ramrod extension for the ramrod is highly useful.
For those of you who quickly anger and blame such issues on greed or not-caring, I politely suggest you put yourself in the maker's place in today's world of ever-increasing inflation, low profit-margins, supply chain nightmares, large inventories of something that proves to have an apparent flaw (embrittled brass that would likely have been no problem, ever, with an ordinary jag, but when subjected to heavy side pressure at the muzzle with the palm saver ball and today's heavy loads, it sometimes snaps off) and more and more of this turns up from buyers. Sometimes, under such circumstances, it is impossible to inform all the dealers, plus all the public, plus all the writers, and the only option is to discontinue the troublemaking part that seemed so cool and helpful at first, and caused no problem in testing because the test pieces had more resilient brass.
I found the CVA rep very helpful and a good listener when I called, and asked him to pass the information, as to what I believed the problem was, up the line in management. I suggest some of you now call CVA and try, nicely, to get some more information to post here. Let them know about the forum bad-mouthing and how it is bad for business, and who knows what you may learn if you say you will post it.
Aloha, Ka'imiloa
