Update: For those of you who don't like reading, the gun shot noticeably cleaner today but I think I still can get it a little better. I took it out and shot it in the conditions I will be hunting in. It was 5 degrees outside this morning. I did take it directly from the house to the truck for about a 30min ride inside the truck, took it out into the cold, and immediately loaded/shot it. This could be a variable that slightly skewed my results, but I think it would be minimal. Before this trip I changed the bolt nose spring with the new one that CVA sent me, added more synthetic grease to the plug, and put the breech plug in truly finger tight. I truly think the most important factor today was that for the first time I took the solid, one piece rod CVA sends with the gun, tipped with the Powerbelt included orange plastic loading jag. Before I always used the carbon foldable rod with the fixed aluminum jag on the end. I felt like I did get a little bit of suction with the plastic jag when I seated the bullet, but I sightly turned the ramrod and it released just fine. To my surprise, I did get a better powder burn. After this approaching week long blizzard passes by, I will give another update if I can get the powder to burn even better. Thanks for the ideas everyone.