My wife gave me a CVA OPTIMA V2 Muzzle Loader pistol for Christmas. North Carolina made it legal to hunt deer with this a couple of years ago.

The gun has a 14 inch SS barrel with a quick release breech plug.

This gun will shoot. I have seen reviews showing 1 1/2 inch groups at 50 yards.

The first thing I did was to replace the original breech plug with a Blackhorn 209 breech plug. I had seen reviews saying that this gun shot better groups using loose powder than when id did using pellets. You can adjust your loads a lot better with loose powder.

The only loose powder I could find at that time was Jim Shockey's Gold FFG so I bought a pound of it.

Later at the shooting range I was able to shoot three shot groups, without cleaning the barrel between shots, of 1 7/8 inch at 25 yards using 80 gr of Jim Shockey;s with a 240 gr Hornady XTP with sabot.

After cleaning the gun I went back to the range and tried the same bullet with 90 gr of powder and was able to shoot three shot groups of 1 1/8 inches at 25 yards again without cleaning the barrel between shots.

This is the load I plan to deer hunt with this season so the next trip to the range I sighted the gun in 1 inch high at 25 yards. Then I dropped back to 50 yards and shot it. The shot printed almost perfectly 2 1/2 inches high. I think this should be good to maybe 100 yards.

I believe I am ready to hunt now.

I would love to see Whitworth do a article about hunting deer with this gun.