Out side of bow hunting I live for Muzzle loaders. I have had a Knight disk extreem rifle. You will find the "bolts" Much more to clean than a break action. TC makes a good gun but it takes a little fine tuning and lapping the barrel and or shooting them at least 50 shots to consitantly get sub 1" goups at 100 yds. (most folks do not care about that though) To me the best muzzle loader on the market today is CVA. They are not the CVA's of yesterday. All come with a Bergarral Barrel. Now that BPI owns them they are top notch. I currently own an Accura V2 in 45 cal and just picked up the APEX in 50 cal. Recently sold my knight because the amount of cleaning compared to CVA. TC (Thompson) By the time you work on the trggers to get a nice pull so it does not make you feel like your pulling a truck and lapping the barrrel it is not the gun for me. Just my opinion. I love my CVA's!
I will add that my T/C does have a custom trigger job and I did hand lap (not fire lap) my barrel. Not sure how a bolt is any cleaner or easier to clean....my Remington ML (bolt) gets just as dirty as my T/C and take ore work to take it apart. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
Someone mentioned powerbelts for ease of loading, as long as you have a good ramrod I haven't found a bullet that was tough to load....besides my Impact has the end of barrel unrifled for ease of loading. Like butter!
Those Hornady xtps I shoot are hollow pts and I've never recovered the bullets as they all have blown right through the deer with gaping exits -none made more than 15yds...easy loading in the encore and the only guns I've cleaned that were easier are my single shot 20ga shotguns(used for rabbit and nighttime predator).
I used to have a Remington 700 ML (bolt action) and it shot great. It was just a pain to clean. I got an Omega a few years ago and it's awesome! I wanted an Encore, but didn't think I would ever change the barrels, so it was hard to justify the extra money for me. I shoot 150 grains of 777 pellets and a 250 grain shockwave and it has always been able to touch bullets at 100 yards as long as I can do my part...
Okay many things: -Blackpintail mentioned Randy Wakeman. While the man knows his stuff...he's also probably one of the most one-sided opinion guys out there. Anything by T/C he likes, anything by CVA he hates...no matter how kindly he words it. Just know he's seemingly been paid for by T/C at times, there are gems in what he reviews though for sure. -Dan...I think the shockwaves are great for deer, but you'd been served better on Elk with a little more punch in a heaver bullet and I would have went with an xtp tip. They have seemed in my experience and the many deer my dad has shot to mushroom but stay together and blow through an animal more that shattered apart. -BShunter....to coin part of your name I call BS :D . My trigger on my stock T/C Impact is ridiculously short...my dad's Omega, while slightly heavier is extremely smooth. Both stock trigger jobs. I will nod along with you that the new CVA lines are slick set ups and one couldn't go wrong with them (their triggers are by no means leaps and bounds better, and I felt the Optima worse a smidge worse when testing a buddy's). Honestly IMO Savage, T/C, Traditions, CVA all put out good guns these days and it's personally preference more than anything and warranty issues that come to play.
Not the bolt style but another vote for the CVA Accura, that said the next one I buy will be the Savage 10 ML. My buddy shoots one and it is unbelievably accurate and clean. If you go with loose powder use the Blackhorn 209. Stay away from Powerbelts, they are crap. Some good bullets mentioned already but I love Harvester Muzzleloading (http://www.harvestermuzzleloading.com/ ) products. Love the Scorpion PT Gold and for those who like the design of the Powerbelt look into the Saber Tooth, it's a belted bullet just not crap. http://www.chuckhawks.com/saber_tooth_bullets.htm http://www.chuckhawks.com/powerbelt_bullets.htm
