CVA APEX 45-70 finally ready to shoot

[Griz44mag]

All the pieces of the puzzle have finally arrived.
I plan on shooting a buffalo with this rig late this year or early next year.

The rifle is a CVA APEX chambered in 45-70 Govt.
Scope rail is a modified Evolution Gun Works rail.
The rings are Leupold QRW 30mm medium height.
The scope is a Mueller APT
The brass in new Starline
The primer is CCI LRM
The powder is Varget
The projectile is NOE 460-405 cast with 15BHN range lead-WW mix with 1% added tin, sized to .459 and lubed with 45% BW-45% LOX-10% CR
Book says it will go 1600-1675 FPS. I will shoot it over a chrony and see.

[CPL Lou]

Sweet setup !
Keep us updated on your results. I'm interested in the same rifle and I'm curious as to how well it performs.
I have a CVA Accura ( old style) that shoots 1.5" 5 shot groups at 100 yards using BH 209 powder and a 300 grain PT Gold bullet.

[35 shooter]

Nice looking rig. I've been curious about the apex since they were first supposed to come out but in my area at least they were slow getting there. I finally went with the encore and it's been a good choice for me.
Still interested in the Apex tho so i for one hope you report back when you've had a chance to test it out.

Good luck with it
35 shooter

[lkydvl]

sure wish they made it in 30-30...

[Griz44mag]

sure wish they made it in 30-30...

I will ask Ken at CVA what it takes to get an APEX barrel. Since they do make .308 rifled barrels, seems simple enough to just use a 30-30 reamer, which they do have and use to chamber other Bergara barrels for.

[Griz44mag]

Range Report: Not so good
I guess I may have started a little aggressive.
First set of loads with the 405 grain NOE bullet were a lot less than stellar.
The first batch were sized at .459, and should have fit like a good tight glove
I started at 50 grains of Varget, got 5-6" sized groups at 100 yards.
At 51 grains they became erratic, high, then low, then left, then off the paper.
At 52 grains the spread went all to all corners of the earth.
At 53 grains, I gave up even trying to see where they went, outer space for all I know.
I ran an optic fiber down the barrel when I got home, no leading, at all. Zilch, nada, none. That's good.
Carefully worming down the barrel, it looks like the boolits were skidding down the pipe with no spin at all.
The lube tracks were straight down the barrel. No spin, or very little spin, from what I think I am seeing.
Is this bullet just too heavy for the speed imposed on it?
Do I need a slower powder to give the boolit time to spin up?
Do I need to slow then down a bunch?
50 grains should have been somewhere around 1600 fps, 55 grains somewhere around 1775 fps.
According to the Lyman Cast Bullet Handbook, they get excellent results from this weight/powder combo.
And if it helps, yes I slugged the bore before starting, sized appropriately, lubed with 45% BW -45% Lox -10% CR
I could sure use some advise from the 45-70 cast experts here.

[Dragoon 45]

Not an expert, but I shoot a lot of cast in the .45-70, both single shots and lever guns. What type of rifling does the barrel have? If you have something similiar to the Micro-groove rifling that could be a major part of the problem. What you are describing matches a friends experience trying to shoot cast lead out of a .44 Mag micro-groove barrel. He had to go to .44 Special load levels to get the rifle to shoot and even then did not get the results he wanted.

If you have the deep cut rifling in that barrel, I would try sizing the bullet a little larger, .460-.461" and lower the powder charge to give around 1300-1400 fps and see it shoots at those slower velocities and then work up from there if warranted.

Most folks who use Varget with Cast Bullets have pretty good luck with it, so I am not sure changing to a different powder is something I would try yet. I would eliminate other factors before changing powder.

[Griz44mag]

Dragoon,
Pretty much what I was thinking, a little bigger, and slower.
The barrel is a full contour fluted stainless, has good sharp rifling, and a 1:20 twist rate.
I shoot Varget with 55gr cast in my MVP 5.56 and it is excellent.
I shoot Varget with 180gr cast in my 308 Remington 700 VSF with excellent results also.
I am going to back off the loads, bring the contact from the L&G back to around 25 thousandths, and basically start a full ladder workup from 1200fps up.
Now, off to the 4500 to size the next round of boolits!

[Griz44mag]

Well, today I got the CVA back to the range with another batch of handloads.
I did nothing to the rifle, and did the following to the ammo:
First, I backed off the pressure and speed.
Powder: Varget, 42 gr, still used the same .459 x 405gr NOE flat nose. That should put the speed down around 1250fps.
I also backed the OAL down to .030 off the rifling for a longer jump. This put the entire crimp groove into the case, so no roll crimp was done, just tapered it to be straight sided with the rest of the round.
The accuracy tightened up considerably. Who would have guessed? The groups at 100 yards shrank down to 2", very consistently.
I worked the powder up to 45gr in .5gr increments (in 10 shot groups), and the accuracy started falling apart after 44.5gr. This should be in the 1400-1450 fps territory.
I also think that after 60 rounds, the barrel might have started junking up enough to be part of the accuracy degradation.
I will know that next week when I go back with a clean barrel and reshoot 44gr-45gr loads to double check the results.

Since I had a few left at the end of the serious test session, I shot a 5 shot group of 42gr, 43, gr and 44 gr at 200 yards.
The 45-70 suffers some pretty serious drop in trajectory over that added 100 yards, but I was still getting some decent "minute of deer" accuracy from it. If the round still has enough energy at that distance, I would have no qualms shooting a deer with it at 200 yards.
.
So the question is, is this still adequate for a large bodied animal like a bison?

[vabeachman]

I got the same gun. Shoots really well with factory loads. 2 inches or less at 100 yards. Has a better trigger than my Weatherby Vanguard 2.

[Griz44mag]

Has a better trigger than my Weatherby Vanguard 2.

I was also impressed with the trigger. Very crisp and breaks clean. It's adjustable as well, but I saw no need to touch it.

[725]

Does your powder require the magnum primer you have indicated? I'd try a standard primer and expect better performance.