It seems I can get a complete rifle in the CVA Optima pro Line for less the a T/C encore Barrel. The CVA has a longer 29" barrel. Is this a good selling point or not? What would you do?? This will be my 1st Muzzle loader.

By the way - I already have the T/C encore action.

Impossible to answer but I would include an NEF Sidekick with SS barrel among your choices.

American made, quality steel, and shoot most anything you try with decent to great results. Some quirks but they all have them. Certainly I would choose it over an Optima. About the same price as an Encore barrel and you have a whole nudder rifle.

That's a no brainier, the Encore is the way to go. JMHO

Encore. No question. You are already used to the action, the trigger and the stock, and it's easy enough to bring along an extra barrel or two for birds or small game for camp fare. You will find it noticably more accurate than either the NEF (a good rugged design) or the CVA (which I don't think is well enough made to stand up to serious use, and wouldn't have one as a gift, but that's just my opinion YMMV).

Well I don't have an Optima, so I can't comment on that. My brother has and likes one, but I'm not reallyl familiar with it. However, I can say that it doesn't compare in quality to my Encore. Obviously, this is all subjective, but if I had it to do again, I'd still buy the Encore, even at twice the price (and you already have the action which, as another fella said, makes this a no-brainer).

I have CVA's 4 of them ! shoot like lazers ! conicals or sabots , as for T/C Their people are store clerks ! warrenty is worthless ! They don't know what a bad barrel is ! and their process for making barrels needs improvements .

Sure don't know where the negative comments about T/C came from. The statements seem to relate more to CVA than to T/C. I have had great response from T/C on two different occasions and my Omega seems to have a really fine barrel which can shoot minute of angle when I do all my part correctly. CVA extruded barrels are the ones that are in question as to how safe they are not forged button rifled T/C barrels.

That concho fella reads too much into the quality of the T/C's.
The Encore has had a remarkable share of loyal followers including me that have killed many deer with one. Mine is VERY accurate and deadly.
Some folks have a bad time with a certain gun and then badmouth them based on their experience. That is the case with concho and a handfull of others.
The CVA is not in the same league as the T/C Encore and will never be. The bbls on the CVA's are not of the same quality as the Encore muzzleloader bbls. The centerfire rifle bbls are a different ball of wax.

quote:

Originally posted by concho:
I have CVA's 4 of them ! shoot like lazers ! conicals or sabots , as for T/C Their people are store clerks ! warrenty is worthless ! They don't know what a bad barrel is ! and their process for making barrels needs improvements .

I could not disagree with you more. I have had nothing but good results with my T/C Encores. I have also had great dealings with T/C customer service. What you wrote in your post sounds like a lot of CVA owners. I think you got it mixed up.

I have 2 CVAs and both are very accurate. The Kodiak I have is like the Omega and I like it very much. The other is the older Staghorn Mag and I put a scope on it for where that is allowed. I also get excellent accuracy from it. I would do either again.

I do not have a T/C, but I hear nothing but good things about them either. I think the Encore barrel would be my choice, if I was you, only because you already have the frame.

I have had CVA Hawkin and Kentucky style BP guns in the past some were quite good while others were junk. I have no experience with the CVA Optima Pro, but I did see a fellow shooting one at the Gun Range and he was not impressed with the accuracy. After buying several brands of inline BP Rifles I like the T/C encore the most. IMHO (In My Humble Opinion)

GET AN encore and when it strings bullets you can send it back to the store clerks and have them tell you that the barrel is ok ! when looking threw it it has 3 broken lines ! and any novice who read field and stream knows that a barrel with 3 lines or shodows is a imporperly stressed relieved barrel OR JUNK ! from The Great T/C Co. Who Has clerks for Gunsmiths , Yea I know Yours is Great ! well good for you I'm Happy for you ! as for my experience I won't ever buy another barrel from them .

quote:

Originally posted by concho:
I have CVA's 4 of them ! shoot like lazers ! conicals or sabots , as for T/C Their people are store clerks ! warrenty is worthless ! They don't know what a bad barrel is ! and their process for making barrels needs improvements .

CVA barrels are made in Spain, in the rain, on the plains.
Get the encore barrel

quote:

Originally posted by concho:
GET AN encore and when it strings bullets you can send it back to the store clerks and have them tell you that the barrel is ok ! when looking threw it it has 3 broken lines ! and any novice who read field and stream knows that a barrel with 3 lines or shodows is a imporperly stressed relieved barrel OR JUNK ! from The Great T/C Co. Who Has clerks for Gunsmiths , Yea I know Yours is Great ! well good for you I'm Happy for you ! as for my experience I won't ever buy another barrel from them .

OK, you had a bad experience. But the odds are most are good. No need to try to convince us the have no problems to agree with you.

I won't make another comment, about the junk and the storekeepers at T/C !

its not a matter of safety in either of these muzzleloaders, to start with CVA has probly sold ten times as many ML as most companies selling them today. there guns shoot fine as do the TC'S. i have seen no more accuratcy in one then the other. i have lots of friends that own both. in my dealings with both companies ,both have ex customer service and warranties. its simply a matter of how much you want to spend.
i personally do not like the idea of the encore
and buying a lot of barrels for one frame.i've found they don't resell as well as whole guns
if you want to sell a frame and a bunch of barrels most times you will have to give half the barrels away to get rid of them. out of all the ML'S on the market today i here more problems from knight owners then any other.
and yes i do at this time own a TC and a CVA.

this sounds like the "savage rifle is junk "thing all over. there were so many savage bashers out there for a while,but most learned the hard way ,after being outshot over and over again.

I was only trying to tell riodot what the service for me with T/C was , and Damn poor at that! so for me to buy another product from so called Gunsmiths who don't know what a bent barrel is at T/C and sending that same barrel back to me telling me it was not bent ! I call that POOR SERVICE FROM STORE CLERKS ! so if someone wants to buy from them do it ! as for me NEVER AGAIN ! what do I want to have a bin full or junk barrels ? everyone who has had good service from them probably had minor things a five year old could do at T/C, Give them a real task and see what your get ! I personally went threw 5 barrels at Gander Mountain and came up with 1 that was acceptable , the manager was beside me while I examened them and I showed him all the bad barrels which he was not aware of , I took that barrel to the range and at 100 yards it shot 3 shots threw the same hole ! 1 out of 5 wow what a great co. to buy from !

Every time I have dealt with T/C over the last 35+ years, I have found their people to be courteous and helpful. When I have had a problem beyond the knowledge of the person I was talking to, I have been immediately referred to someone who did know. I own a lot of T/C products and swear by them, not at them. If you say you got a bad barrel, then you got a bad barrel, but I honestly have a hard time believing that they refused to help you if you approached them in a reasonable manner. I have sent guns back to them with problems three times over the years, and each time they have repaired or replaced with a fast turn around, without charge, and with complete notes on exactly what was done and why. Once was a Contender barrel that was hopelessly inaccurate, and I enclosed a note that said, in part, "I'm curious to see if you will stand behind it, becasus you'd certainly be in no danger standing in front of it". I included my frame so they could check it out, too. Two weeks later I got the barrel back completely rebuilt, all parts replaced (they returned all the old parts and test targets), recrowned, and custom fit and tuned to my frame, into which they had put a new trigger assembly (returned all those parts, too). With it they sent me a complete report on all that they had done and a bill with a big fat zero in the balance due box. That's why I have a hard time believing it.
I really can understand getting a hair across one's ... when poorly served by a company when you've shelled out hard earned cash and got something that doesn't work and they can't or won't fix it, (I nurse a similar one for Taurus, for instance, but don't get me going on that). T/C has always done right by me, and yours is truly the first and only negative report I have ever heard about them. If it were me, I would write a careful and polite letter - not an email, they're too easy to ignore, but an actual hold-it-in-your-hand letter - calmly without sarcasm or rudeness explaining the negative experience with their CS dept. I wouldn't ask them for anything, just see if I had better luck with a different approach. I'd clearly mark the envelope "Attn: Customer Service Supervisor". You have nothing to lose, you might get an idiot (or several) replaced, and, who knows, they might just do right by you.
Having worked on both makes (among others) of M/L's over the years for many customers, the company more wanting in quality of workmanship and materials with a greater frequency of needed repairs is CVA, no comparison. In my professional experience, T/C makes the best production flint and percussion locks available today, and by far the more accurate barrels. Their inlines are right up there, too, especially the Encores. They are rugged, reliable, and versatile platforms unequalled by anything else on the market today. The only negative I have ever had about the company was their old wooden ramrods - but they've been gone for many years, thank god.
Having built M/L barrels for a living though, this is what I suspect may have happened. When a barrel blank is drilled, reamed, rifled, the outsides turned or ground to the proper size, and the muzzle crowned & chamfered, stresses are created in the metal. This causes them to move, bend, and twist sometimes. Then, too, deep hole drills do not always track perfectly, the bores are not always perfectly centered, and there are a certain number rejected if the runout is too great. After initial polishing, but before they are tapped and the breech plugs are installed, the bores are inspected and if needed they are straightened so that the bore is straight. There may be minor inconsistencies in the straightness of the outer surface of some barrels, and this may well be discernable to a careful eye, but ALL production barrels show these same inconsistencies, not just M/L's, and the bigger the bore, the more the liklihood of spotting it. Some are perfect, most are not, and if you lay a machinist's straight edge along the flats or taper, you are going to notice minor differences, NONE of which have the slightest effect upon the accuracy of the barrel.
Dead deer don't as a general rule complain about minor esthetics. For production grade guns, as long as they're within specs, fit properly into the action and stock, and group acceptably, it shouldn't be a big deal. If, however, you are paying several times that for a custom made piece, that's something else again and it is certainly a legitimate gripe. If you are going to charge top dollar, your QC better be darn good, and you should only be choosing the very best, not the merely adequate. But that's for a custom gun.
Note I'm not saying that that is what must have happened to you. But it is a fact about barrels in general and M/L's in particular because of their large bores that many folks don't seem to understand. A quick read through any issue of Gun Tests will tell you how often top dollar production guns come from the factory and don't function properly. Any company that fails to address QC issues won't stay in business in the modern world when one person can comment on a forum like this and affect the buying choices of thousands of potential customers.

Versifier, very well said.

Very well said indeed Versifier ! Way back in 1972 I purchased a T/C Hawken .50 Flinter ! Loved that rifle ! 2004 Aug I shattered my right elbow , arm is cripled and use of right hand has 30 % loss I have a large collection of firearms I have made or aquired new and used over the years , after healing up from accident I found the pistol grip on the Encore to be very comfortable for me to handle , so I purchased one from Gander Mountain .50 & .280 Rem/7mmExp I reload all my ammo , so I went to the range at a club I belong to, The .280 at 100 yards shot Great .500 group off sand bags , I now exchanged barrels and loaded 80 grains Hodgens T/7/3F and at 100 yards sighted in my barrel but it shot an eratic group from center to 1:00 o'clock steadly climbing shot after shot , I knew I had a bad barrel ! I took breach plug out cleaned barrel and set up ramrod 10 ft away so I could look threw the bore at the shadow made from sun light threw barrel, it had 3 broken shadows inside , I'm not upset as I have seen several of these during my 34 years as an avid shooter ! so I took target and barrel back to Gander Mt , their Gunsmith said he could not see the 3 shadows inside the barrel he didn't even know what I was trying to show him buy the Manager who was a super nice person took the barrel and I filled out the paper work they gave me to send the barrel back to T/C I explained in detail & sent target with barrel , as I remember 3 months went by ! I called Gander and barrel was there ! went for new barrel as I was sure anyone with half a brain could see that barrel was bad especially from T/C Having the great people they have ! I have always said exactly the same comments from the other readers in this forum ! Service outstanding !products the same ! I was handed the same barrel and a letter from T/C that they found nothing wrong with it ! I again tried to show the Gunsmith at Gander mt the three shadows inside the barrel but he could not understand what I was telling him ! The manager came and he could see the shadows ! he then went inside and came out with a hand full told gunsmith to take the breach plugs out of as many as I wanted to look threw ! He stayed there while I looked at 5 barrels 1 was exceptable , I thanked him for being so patient and I took that barrel and it shot figure 8's at 100 yards . Now fellas you know the whole story !

Concho, you must have got an inspector that was blind in one eye and couldn't see out of the other! I would still write that letter, though, as you have nothing to lose. (Don't elbow injuries suck! I hope it doesn't pain you too much, nerves take a long time to stabilize. I shattered my left as a young teen and it's never been right, but it kept me out of the service despite enlisting, so it likely saved my life.)
If you have not yet discovered these guys, visit http://www.ottllc.com They don't do m/l barrels as far as I know, but for those of us with a Contender or an Encore, it is a great place to check out.

I'm satisfied with my .50 now and The manager at Gander gave me a $50.00 gift card for my trouble ! As for T/C I stand the same won't deal with them again !as for elbow 7 screws and plate in arm to hold it together , surgeons tell me I'm lucky it works at all , went to 3 different surgeons with x/rays for openions, all agree ! No fixing it ! Don't know your age ? I'm a Nam Vet ! be glad you didn't have to go !

I appreciate all the feedback. It has, for now, raised more questions than answers. Nothing wrong with that. I can get the CVA optima direct from CVA through a Hunter Safety Instructor Program and write it off as a training tool. I may go that way yet.

Get The CVA If You don't like it then think about some other rifle ! Mine shoot great I wouldn't trade them !

concho,
We're of an age. Thank you for what you did, I'm glad you made it home. Burried a lot of friends then, drink with the ones that came back, and always have an ear open for when the nightmares come calling. We all have to do what we can do. Every generation of my family has had at least one that served, some more, mostly navy, but CG and Army, too. They all came back, but all were changed in profound ways. I have to laugh when they start squealing about what they're going to do if it hits the fan, but I notice that those who've been there when it has don't say much - they don't have to, do they? They're putting stars in the windows again, and every so often I see a gold one. Then I feel old, empty.
Can't wait for the the target holders to appear again out of the snow, I feel like digging out the .54 and stinking the range up with some BP!
You know, Riodot,
When you come right down to it, it's not the rifle that matters so much as the fun you have shooting it. The best one is always the one you're holding, (especially if it's twenty or thirty years old), the one that outshoots that fancy new bolt action cartridge rifle with a scope the size of a barbell that the a*****e with the big mouth has been bragging up since last fall. That stupid look on his face with his jaw dropped makes me walk a little straighter as I limp down to change the targets.