|
Looks Good! Feels Good! Shoots Great! | | Apex stainless steel .308 Win. with Burris 6x24 Signature scope in Durasight Integral mounts. |
|
| | "It's the people" that make the difference. Comments about the Apex would not be complete without the people behind it. |
| Meet the top management and technical team building the Apex in Bergara, Spain. | It was a true honor to be in the presence of so much firearms talent.
Preferring to focus on their work and leave the public relations to me, the BPI vice president seated to my left and the Bergara crew wish to not be named.
From the left front is the gentleman whose title I do not know but who was working on a match grade rifle and as his apron suggests, also displaying his Basque culinary skills that evening. Next is me, Mike Bellm the one with the gray beard. On my left is the vice president of BPI in charge of technical development. Across the back are one of the key setup men, the main quality control man. In the blue plaid shirt is the head engineer, across from me his subordinate engineer, and lastly, John, whose title I have forgotten. |
|
| The first of November, 2009, I was invited once again to the BPI/CVA facilities at Norcross, Georgia. This time the trip extended all the way to Bergara, Spain to meet the engineers at DIKAR, parent company of BPI, tour the plant, and discuss topics on our website.
It was a privilege to meet and work with these very accomplished firearms manufacturers as a representative of the US TC shooters, first, with a serious eye toward the future of the new CVA Apex rifle which was in production while I was there. |
| | I took a lot of photos at the plant, but nothing I took tops their video tour: |
| Video Tour of the DIKAR plant making Bergara barrels and CVA guns
Take a look! Comments by Ed Shilen, barrel manufacturing advisor. Tour of the high tech, highly automated processes used in this state of the art facility. |
|
Pertinent dimensions of this stainless steel Apex with black synthetic stock and fluted stainless steel barrels:
First barrels being tested, .308 Win. and .270 Win.
Out of the box weight of gun with sling, no scope or mount, 7 1/4 pounds.
Barrel diameter at the breech just under 1.1", about .1" larger in diameter than the TC Encore.
Muzzle diameter .750"
Barrel length 25".
Deep, meaningful, fluting more symmetrical than the shallower fluting on TC's Pro Hunter barrels.
Hinge pin diameter 10mm, .394".
Hinge pin length 1.220" , .160" longer than TC Encore's pin due to the Apex frame being .160" wider than the Encore frame at the hinge. As a result the Apex frame or action sides are .080" thicker than the Encore frame and thus more rigid.
Nice, neat, clean picture perfect barrel-to-lug welds.
Beautiful crown with each land and groove profile distinctly visible.
|
| Barrel changes like the Encore
Remove the two forend screws & tap out the hinge pin, just like the Encore. |
| Chamber of the first .308 Win. barrel installed on the Apex action.
Throat diameter appears about typical for a production chamber, but the alignment with the bore is excellent.
Measured headspace with new Winchester brass is .001", perfect! |
| Forend
Synthetic with functional pillar bedding.
Attaches to the barrel with two No. 8x40 screws.
More readily available No. 8x36 screws would have made replacing screws easier using common, off the shelf standard screws, but the 40 threads per inch gives more thread contact in the limited depth of the forward screw hole. |
| Ambidextrous stock, close up.
Excellent stock design for both right and left handed shooters!
The slope of the cheekpiece is a major factor in perceived recoil. If the forward end of the cheekpiece is higher than the rear end, the cheekpiece hits the front of the shooters cheekbone. The shooter feels discomfort shooting more than just at the shoulder.
If the cheekpiece is more parallel to the bore and movement of the gun, the cheekpiece then either slides back below the shooter's cheekbone or with stocks with low (forward) "point of comb," the cheek piece actually slides back from behind the cheekbone.
The slope of the Apex cheekpiece appears pretty close to parallel to the bore for shooter comfort at the cheekbone combined with the very effective CrushZone recoil pad.
Cheekpiece is at the right height for scope use. |
| Trigger..... new patented design, safer, less prone to bumping off if dropped or bumped.
Very smooth, about 3 pounds. Lighter would be better for varmint shooting, but it is excellent for general use as is.
The Apex trigger does not have an overtravel adjustment, and this is something we will probably add as a custom option. |
| Low profile Apex hammer
Lower set than the Encore's hammer, very natural easy to access location with very functional hammer extension projecting at a right angle to the hammer for a positive grip, unlike the Encore's swing hammer that is angled back, too close to the scope, and does not provide as secure grip on the hammer.
The Apex hammer has no spur to the rear, only a screw in extension that can be mounted either on the left side or the right side.
Since most people put the extension on the right hand side, the extension has left hand threads so that pressure back cocking the hammer rotates the extension threads counterclockwise, continually tightening it with each use.
Very smooth and easy to operate. Safe, rebounding type so hammer is off the firing pin after the trigger is released, similar to the Encore's function.
The Apex hammer makes perfect sense! |
| Scope mounting
4 widely spaced No. 8x40 screws for REAL strength.
Different spacing than TC's. The Apex requires a different scope base entirely from the Encore. No cross over with most Encore-only bases. However see the Durasight Integral mounts information below!
Rifle comes with a 50% stronger than aluminum Durasight Weaver type scope base.
|
| A "non-standard" custom scope mount for the Apex
While the Durasight Integral scope mount is made for a wide variety of various makes of 1" diameter muzzle loader barrels and Encore barrels, and the Apex barrel is .1" larger in diameter, mating the two results in a sort of V-block arrangement such that the base contacts the barrel at the outside edges with just a faint gap in the middle.
Starting out with just one scope base and three barrels, just for grins I set a Durasight Integral scope ring/base made for the Encore (and a number of muzzle loader barrels as noted) on the Apex to see if any of the three holes in the bases matched the barrel holes.
Bingo!
The two outside holes match the Apex hole spacing.
The extremely versatile Durasight Integral mount comes with both No. 6x48 screws AND No. 8x40s, including a clever "shoulder bolt" type screw design that provides a snug fit of No. 6 screw in the No. 8 size holes in the base.
However, the countersinks in the base part of the mounts only permit 3 threads of thread contact, not enough for No. 8 screws and thus would be prone to stripping out.
Deepening the countersinks for 5 full turns' worth of thread contact equals the No. 8 screw diameter, meeting the rule that screw depth should be at least equal to screw diameter.
All screw holes, including the forend screw holes, were not tapped all the way to the bottom for maximum thread contact, which is common in production barrels. As I do with most all screw holes, I chased the threads with a dead bottom tap thereby picking up maximum thread contact in each hole.
This Durasight conversion makes for REALLY stout scope mounting!
You have bigger screws with full thread contact and no joint between scope ring and base, so no potential for rings to slip and slide on the scope base or work loose as often happens when a muzzle brake is added. Attachment to the barrel is rock solid.
|
| | |
|
