By Adam Heggenstaller,
Managing Editor, Shooting Illustrated
I have a split personality when it comes to muzzleloaders. My home woods are in Pennsylvania, which has a post-Christmas deer season limited specifically to flintlocks, and my preferences in smokepoles lean partly toward patch-and-ball, buckskin nostalgia. I own a powder horn. It hangs right beside a couple plastic containers of Pyrodex pellets, revealing a dichotomous affair with the modern in-line. Flintlocks are a lot of fun, but if I really need to kill a deer with a muzzleloader, I’ll trade the 4F for a 209 primer and have no regrets.
Muzzleloader manufacturer CVA is much the same. For decades the company staked its name on building front-stuffers along traditional lines. It even proudly displayed the snail and frizzen of a flintlock at half cock as its logo. All that, including the logo, has changed in recent years, and now CVA prides itself on being one of the most prolific manufacturers of modern in-lines in the world.
The company’s latest muzzleloader, the Accura 209 Magnum, is as modernly styled as blackpowder is ancient. You still have to use a ramrod to load it, but with a break-open action, custom-quality barrel and a trigger that would inspire a benchrest competitor, the Accura demonstrates that the long guns of today’s CVA are far from primitive.
If you think CVA is sending a subliminal message with the Accura’s name, you must have gotten it. Accura. Accurate. Not much difference there phonetically. CVA spokesman Chad Schearer touts the Accura as the most accurate muzzleloader the company has ever built.
Schearer points to the Accura’s premium, stainless steel Bergara barrel as a major factor in the gun’s precision. Made at a multi-million dollar facility in northern Spain with technical guidance from heralded barrelsmith Ed Shilen, Bergara barrels enjoy custom-grade tolerances thanks to high-tech, computer-aided machinery. The bore of each barrel is honed for a highly consistent diameter along its length, and then polished in three stages to result in a smooth finish.
Besides the fluting, I also appreciated the barrel’s Bullet Guiding Muzzle. The last half inch of the bore is free from rifling and slightly oversized to make it easier to start a bullet. The barrel comes with a set of DuraSight fiber-optic sights. I promptly removed the rear one and took advantage of the Accura’s barrel being drilled and tapped, mounting a Bushnell Elite 4200 scope.
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