First outing with CVA hawkins

[autofix4u]

Some months agao I traded for a gently used CVA Hawkins in 50 cal. I got a chance to try it out today, and I must say I'm impressed. I shot my first cloverleaf group today. 4 balls in one ragged hole. Ok so it was just at 25yrds. I wish I could post pics. Anyhow to get to my questions. The load was 50grs of Pyrodex RS with a lyman .490 round ball and Ox Yoke .010 prelubed patches. The cap I have are RWS of an unknown age. They didn't seem to want to light the charge well, it took 2-3 caps for each load. Is the pyro just hard to light or do I have bad caps? I did install a new stainless nipple and checked the (flashway?) before I attemped to fire. Do I need to to ditch the Pyrodex & find some real black or just live with it?. thanks for any input, Josh DeLozier

[docone31]

I had the same issues with mine.
You stated it was a lightly used rifle. You might consider cleaning it thoroughly. Black powder, and the alternatives deposit crud in the bolster and nipple track. Also, your RWS caps might be 10.5, and just a little snug. Also, just because it was gentle fired, how many times was it dry fired? The nipple might have a ridge, preventing the cap from going all the way on the nipple. Same with the interior of the hammer! I cannot tell you how many times just a little crud got on the hammer face. That recquired several hits on the cap.
My CVA recquired I reduce the length of the threads on the nipple. That helped me to eliminate most of the mis fires. I filed a little material from the end. The cap projected too far into the bolster. It trapped the flame from the cap.
Sounds like good shooting!
The refinement begins!
There are things to look for. Crud on the hammer, bulge on the nipple, crud in the flame channel. Once those things are gone, they fire quite well.

[frontier gander]

All right!!! I have owned a couple of cva hawkens and they are shooters! My brother still has one.

Now your nipple problem!! Or i should say, 2-3 caps to fire the charge.

Go check out the cabelas website: What you need to look for are the Stainless Steel Spitfire nipples with the Hollow base! These are awesome. My brothers hawken used to hangfire all of the time till i replace his nipple.

#2 Get you some .018 ( Blue and white stripe) Patch material ( Pre-cut - Pre-lubed is also fine)

RWS caps are fine. If you are unsure of the age either pick up a fresh tin of RWS's are CCI #11 Mags.

For a hunting load, up your charge between 80-90gr RS.

After you pour your charge down the barrel, you want to lay the rifle onto its side (Lock side pointing to your feet) & Then give the opposite side of the lock, a few Firm wraps to help shift the powder over and into the drum ( Drum = The round piece of steel that the nipple screws into)

Carefully set the rifle down onto the buttplate, while keeping the lockside Outwards of your body. It should not be nearest to your body. Keep rifle tilted to the lock side as you prepare the patch and ball.

Those Hawkens are some excellent shooters!

[autofix4u]

Well I just went & checked, the caps I have are #1075? I am a total newby to the front stuffers as this is my first one. I have fired my brothers a couple of times. I gues its time to find some caps & another new nipple. I hadent planed on keeping this one, but its so much fun!!!

[frontier gander]

if you dont plan on keeping it, give me a heads up. maybe we can work out a trade. ive been wanting another hawken.

[725]

docone31 & frontier gander have excellent advice for you. Anytime a cap gun is dry fired, the nipple/hammer face gets crunched and eventually it affects the function. I use 4 CVA sidelocks in a summer kids camp to teach muzzleloading and they have held up amazingly well. Any malfunctions with them (and it's a truely rare event, indeed) is usually traced back to a bad nipple or crud in the bolster. Clean it diligently after each use and I like to finish up with penetrating oil in the breach to work back into the breach threads. Just dry patch it before use. Many have a good point that oil and front stuffers don't go together well, but I don't care. I soak the breach threads with kroil and leave it good and wet until it's used next. I do this everyday, all summer long, and each day I grab the rifles and dry patch them and start them on the line. Classes usually shoot for a couple hours, as fast as they can, and I never have any problems. Enjoy your new CVA.

[725]

Those 1075's are just a might small. Go find some #11's instead of those 10 3/4's. Remington #11's work best for me, but CVA's #11's work good too. PS: When cleaning, I use a welder's oriface file to clean out the nipple. They work good in the tiny hole.

[jim4065]

Sometimes I'm stupider than at other times, but it never occurred to me that 1075 stood for 10 3/4. Thank you!

[725]

jim4065,
I never saw it wrote down anywhere, but it made sense to me when they are just a little small. Somebody around here can probably give a knowledgeable answer about the origins of the number system. Seems random to me.

[mooman76]

Pyrodex is a little harder to light but should work fine with any good cap. Try some new caps. The old ones if you don't have another use it is good to light off a few caps before you load to dry out the barrel and you get fewer misfires on the first load.

[725]

moonman76 adds a very important point. Blast a cap or two to clean the nipple of oil and cleaning solvent. Here's how I do it:
Ensure the gun is unloaded. How, when the breach can't be open and viewed? Mark your ram rod when you know it's unloaded and mark it again when there is a load in the breach. Length of the ram rod will then tell you if there is something in there (like a ball and powder).
Take a cleaning rod with a dry patch and run it to the beach, point it in a safe direction, and blast a cap. Any oil etc will be projected onto the patch and you can withdraw it from the gun.
YMMV. Others have a favorite way of accomplishing this same thing, this is just how I do it.
Everytime I pick up a ML to shoot, I do the ram rod inspection to see if it's already loaded or not. Bad things happen if one ball & charge is loaded on top of another ball & charge.

[mooman76]

CVA's arent the best guns and I'm not trying to knock them as I own several. They are cheap and generally do what they are suppose to do and generally they are pretty good shooters. You get your moneys worth with them.

[jim4065]

Never owned a CVA rifle, but have heard they didn't compare well to TC - except in price. My brother had a CVA with a 2-piece stock (junction covered by a brass band). It had severe ignition problems but I ascribe those more to the "drum and nipple" than to the manufacturer. Then he screwed up by trying to pull the breech plug to "clean it good". He didn't pull the drum first and messed it up so bad that it had to be fixed by a gunsmith.

I digress. Always have heard that the CVA Mountain Rifle was of very high quality - and someone told me that it had the best barrel steel of any major manufacturer. :confused:

[mooman76]

I find it hard to believe that CVA mountain rifles have the "best barrel steel" of any manufacturer and would find it also hard to believe they use a special steel just for the mountain rifles. I have one and it is a good gun but seems to be built basically they same as the others except the design is a little different. It is basically a Hawkin by design with some different hardware on it. Maybe it's one of those things where it was a well design that was put together and came out better than the others or something like that. A friend of mine had a problem with his and later on when I picked up one I had the same problem. The hammer would drop at half cock if you bumped it so we had to be a little more careful when it was ready to fire. I don't remember how I figured it out but I solved the problem by putting a washer under the trigger asymbly. The junction was a piece of brass between two pieces of wood. Just something they come up with themselves to make it easier and cheaper to make a full length stock and some even cheaper ones used brass colored plastic.

[Lead Fred]

I find it hard to believe that CVA mountain rifles have the "best barrel steel" of any manufacturer


CVA does not have the best of anything. Im sure Mr Rice or the boys over at Green Mt would be rolling over reading this.

They are and have been the cheapest production built guns for many years.

[frontier gander]

Actually the new CVA's come with an excellent barrel, better than TC in fact. The older cva mountain rifles came with an excellent barrel, USA Made - Douglas. I dont know how good GM is though, I personally feel that their helicoil repair / metric nipple into a American size thread bolster was pretty much a crappy job.

CVA's muzzleloaders are awesome. Check out the Accura and especially the new Apex!

[mooman76]

If I remember correct CVA either stopped importing their guns and now make their own or smomeone bought them out and now American made. I believe the latter is correct. Believe it or not I have seen crappier ones made. I bought a cheap kit for $50 a few years ago with a JC Pennys price sticker on it. It was dated I believe 1974 or so and where the drum is suppose to be is a solid piece connected to a smal octagon piece that screws into the barrel. It also has a perfectly flat and sharp crown. I was concidering taking the sharp edge off but decided to leave it for now as I won't probubly shoot it much. I just bought it because it was a cheap something to do and for the kit practice. I want to build a real nice one some day and it did shoot ok but I only shot it enough to know it works. I just checked it and it was made in Spain and says Hopkins and Allen on it. It was still fun to put together kind of like a model or something and I put a fake tiger striping on it with majic marker and it actually came out pretty good. I thought what the heck it's just a cheap gun.

[frontier gander]

cva stopped making sidelocks, Deer Creek bought all their leftover rifles and parts.

[dualsport]

I have an old CVA Mountain Rifle I got in the early eighties. Shoots great. Placed third in a match against guys with custom handmade guns, kinda ticked 'em off. Goes bang everytime if you load it right, shoots where you point it. Also have an EARLY TC with drum and nipple lock and a flintlock that's interchangeable. The only thing ;wrong' with a drum and nipple is they're weaker, can't load as heavy as a bolster gun. Not really a big problem. They're easier to clean.