OK, I am hooked

[S.S.]

I seriously doubt my high powered rifles will come out of the cabinet much this year !
I love this CVA "Optima" ...
So, My question is, DOES ANY ONE MAKE AN INLINE FOR SMALL GAME?
A .32 or .36 caliber would be great for Rabbits and such!
I have .32 side hammers, But an inline would be interesting too!

[simonkenton]

Some guys on the Savage forum were messing around with reduced loads.
They were loading a .457 round ball into the sabot. They were shooting a very reduced load of smokeless powder, I can't remember what type. You have to reduce the load by about 75 per cent, or the little ball will skip the rifling.
You might try it in the Optima with 20 to 30 grains of powder.
It would be like a high powered cap and ball pistol.
I guess that .44 ball might be a little rough on a rabbit. If it was real accurate, you could shoot him in the head.

[snicker]

Thompson Center made the .32 caliber in their Firehawk and System 1.  Both are inlines and are getting hard to find.  The Firehawk was only made one or two years and is a sweet little gun but like all Firehawks does not have a breech plug.  They System 1 has a breech plug and came in .32 cal or if you had one in 50 cal you could get an accessory barrel (if you can find one).  Green Mountain Barrels currently makes one based on the Knight Disc Action but also costs $800 (You can see it on their web sight).  If it didn't cost so much I would get one.  I wish T/C would make a .32 cal barrel for their G2 Contender but don't forsee that happening any time soon but it would make a sweet little rifle.  Anyhow the .32 Firehawk and System 1 are nice rifles and shoot really well.  Hope that helps.

[Smokepole cowboy]

RMC sports makes a 32 caliber flintlock. $525 for single trigger, and $599 for double set trigger.

[simonkenton]

I now recall, there is a sabot for the .50 rifle that holds a .40 caliber slug.
You might play around with that with a round ball. Find a round ball that is real tight, the soft lead will engrave itself on the rifling when  you load it.
Even if you had to go down to 15 grains of powder to make it accurate, I bet it would still be good on squirrels and rabbits.

[equinoxbuilders]

you can get a .45 inline and use .357 bullets in an MMP blue sabot.
play with a powder, bullet combo that works in that gun.

My daughter is using a Rossi .45 youth stainless with blue MMP sabots around Hornady .357 XTP's with 50 to 70 grains Triple7 or Pyrodex.
50 grains is equal to magnum  70 grains is pushing .357 maximum velocities. 
Plenty for taking big deer at 20 yrds, and not overkill on rabbit and such.

I am really suprised at how well this thing shoots.
It's not up to the long distance shooting of a TC or CVA Optima, but very accurate to 25 yrds.  I can make one hole with it consistantly at those ranges.
This Rossi is hers and comes with a recoil pad, but I bought another recoil pad to extend the butt for me.  Makes a perfect featherweight/carbine style rifle for lugging around allday