My new to me BP rifle. Asking for info on it.

[crackerjack57]

What can anyone tell me about this new to me BP hawkin rifle it says ardesa Spain .54 cal. Is it a kit gun or ready made? How old roughly? Reviews? Any info and what is max powder load. Best projectiles for it. I'm thinking to use just round ball.

Thanx and happy easter to all!!
dan

[bubba.50]

nobody will really be able to tell ya how old it is. as to yer other questions, a better description & pictures would help. and for what it's worth, a 54cal roundball will effectively take down anything on the North American continent.

[Omnivore]

You might want to determine the rifling twist rate. 48 to 70" should work well for a patched round ball. A shorter ("faster") twist would indicate that it was intended for conicals, but might still do OK with patched ball. If it's called a "Hawken" then it probably has twist of 48" or much longer. Find a good fitting patch and ball combination and try it.

**Assuming** it's in good and proper condition it will safely take 100 grains or more of 2F black powder or an equal volume of a black powder substitute, but it may shoot more accurately with somewhat less. If you can't get the job done with 110 grains of 2F and a round ball then you need a bigger caliber or longer bullets, not more powder. It's sort of up to the shooter to find what works for the individual rifle, but it's hard to go wrong with a tight-fitting, patched ball and between 60 and about 110 grains of 2F. Generally, the harder you push a patched ball, the tighter the fit you should have, I believe. Some guns have been known to strip the patch on the rifling and rip the patch otherwise. Your patches should come out largely intact.

In my Italian "Hawken-esque" 50 cal with 48" twist barrel my hunting load is 110 grains 2F and a very tight, lubed patched round ball. It kills the hell out of our Northwest U.S. White Tail Deer. That's about a 100 yard proposition (if I can't hit a pie plate at 100 yards from any shooting position then I certainly screwed up) and it'll usually clover-leaf at 50 yards, but others have concocted paper-patched conical loads for similar rifles and have managed realistic 200+ yard capability (see the “sticky” thread in this section on paper-patched). Also most people shooting patched ball will use somewhat less than 110 grains of powder, 60 to 90 being more in the ballpark, sometimes going down in granulation to 3F for the lighter charges in a 50 cal and I've heard of people using 3F in a 54. Again; it's whatever works in your rifle.

I swab between shots but that's because I use that very tight patched ball for hunting. It gets extremely hard to load if there's much fouling in the bore, and anyway in hunting you're going to make your One Big Shot from a cold, clean bore, and so I practice shooting from a cold, clean bore essentially. For target shooting where you're firing a lot of shots you'd want to find a combination that loads and shoots well without having to stop and swab every shot.

I have observed that the trajectory will change with the condition of the bore, meaning that for best accuracy the bore is shot from the same condition (amount of fouling and/or lube, etc.) for every shot. For example; if I swab and then rin a lubed patch down the bore before loading, the guns shoots to a different POI (lower in this case) at 100 yards than if I just swab and don't lube.

[pietro]

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Ardesa S. A. is a Spanish black powder firearm manufacturer, that made both barrels and complete rifles for US importation since the late 1960's (IIRC), and continued to at least the past 5 years.

Ardesa made the barreled actions for Austin & Halleck, the Traditions import lines and sold/supplied their Genesis action for Remington (which Traditions actually imports for Remington.)

Your "Hawkin" (Hawken) pattern could have either completely made by Ardessa, or imported & assembled by Traditions - but lacking a "Traditions" stamping, I would think the former to be true.

If you remove the stock, there might be a manufacturing date code stamped into the underside of the barrel (normally hidden by the stock), as well as Spanish proofmarks, both of which could help you determine it's age.


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[crackerjack57]

I looked underneath and there are no markings there. what would that mean?? might any of you BP shooters had one of these rifles? if so, are they any good? any pointers you can give me? also i have already stripped everything down and all seems to be fine and i doubt this rifle has had even 100 rounds through it. I cant for the life of me figure out how the breach plug comes out. i can see that its threaded and I let it soak in wd40 for 3-4 days. the only thing i don't know is if the part that screws into the side of the barrel where the breach plug threads into needs to be removed and then the breach plug comes out. if so i wouldn't want to damage or scratch up that part. im not sure what the name of that part is. the bore has a little bit of rust in it but I wd40'd the barrel and ran a brass bore brush through it. its not perfect but way better then before. im thinking after 40-50 shots it should be pretty free from rust. obviously the standard BP cleaning every 2-3 shots.

Any other input......... Im all ears!!

Dan

[mooman76]

I have one but it is not a Hawken rifle. Mine I believe was called a Ranger and is 36 cal. Do not try to remove the breech plug. They weren't made for removal and only should be if absolutely necessary and it can damage some guns. Mine has the proof marks stamped on the right side very lightly. The original owner could have removed them. Yours being a 54 should be good up to around 110gr of 2f. I'd start at about 55gr and work up in 5 gr increments to find your best load. Being a Hawken it also is probably a 1-48 twist but may not be. It should shoot RBs real well and shorter conicals too. You can figure out the twist rate by pushing a cleaning rod with a tight patched jag down the bore. I/2 turn of the rod in 24 inches would be a 1-48 twist. I wouldn't get too caught up trying to get info on your particular gun. There were allot of different BP guns made with slightly different modifications giving them different names and made for allot of different importers. Just shoot and enjoy.

[Fly]

I would not advise trying to remove the breach plug. You will most likely do more harm than good.

Fly

[bubba.50]

Do not try to remove that drum & breechplug.

[pietro]

the part that screws into the side of the barrel where the breach plug threads

im not sure what the name of that part is.




Like the hip bone is connected to the thigh bone, the nipple screws into the bolster/drum - which itself would be threaded into the breechplug, or directly into the powder chamber.

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[RhodeHunter]

I finally found some good drawings of breech types (scroll down halfway down the web page):
http://americanlongrifles.org/forum/index.php?topic=32002.0