Not sure of what I just got

[Eddie2002]

Well, I brought another sorry looking front stuffer home from a Rendezvous. No pictures yet but it looks like a CVA Mountain Rifle with a 32 inch barrel in .50 caliber but doesn't have any ID except CVA on it. It has a steel trigger guard, a set trigger, four screws on the german silver patch box and a silver front sight with a different buckhorn type rear sight. The stock is the original finish which is a high gloss strange green color and has silver wedge plates for the two wedges. Unfortunately it's missing the butt plate which was probably steel also. Both the stock and cap lock are numbered 435 which is something I've never seen before. The barrel cleaned up nicely after pulling a blob of oil soaked patches and old powder out of the breach.
I'm siting on the fence on restoring it and make or buy a proper replacement butt plate or just use a different style brass one which I already have which would require me to trim some wood off the stock.
Any information on when it was built and any back ground would be helpful, it looks like an early one. It only cost a hundred bucks so I'm hoping I got a diamond in the rough. I'll get some pictures posted when I get a chance.
Thanks

[Dimner]

Any chance the barrel was re-purposed and added to a kit of different manufacture? With the people I hang out with at my local club, it's not unheard of to either merge two cappers or buy a stock/lock and hardware kit for a good barrel you already have.

[mooman76]

I have one with a greenish stock. If the nose cap is German silver and flat on the front rather than rounded, that's a dead give away that its a CVA Mountain rifle. They got barrels from at least 2 different places over the years. Some from Spain and some from USA. The USA ones were stamped made in USA and if I remember right Douglas barrels but I have her arguments about that. Anyway they all shot real good and were the best thing to ever come out of CVA. 435 is probably a production number.

[Eddie2002]

Think you hit the nail on the head Moonman, it has a German Silver nose cap that is flat and the rifle looks like a Mountain rifle. The greenish stock also matches your description. The finish is scratched up so I'm planning to refinish it to match my regular CVA Hawken shooter, I need to start working on getting together a steel butt cap next. Guess I picked a good deal even though it needs work. ;)
Any idea of the twist rate, I forgot to check while working on it.

[mooman76]

Mine is 1/66. Its not hard to check it though. I didn't like the green and was going to refinish mine but it kind of grew on me after awhile. Your parts are easily worth more than you paid for it.

[Eddie2002]

Found the correct butt plate on flea bay for under twenty five dollars so went the easy route and ordered it. I'll check the twist next time it makes it to the shop. It's an early one with a five digit serial number and I guess keeping the original finish would be the right thing to do even though it's not very attractive.

[waksupi]

The green color is most likely because of chromium trioxide stain. Looks good when first done, but turns green as grass with age. It was used quite a bit in the '70's-80's.

[indian joe]

Mine is 1/66. Its not hard to check it though. I didn't like the green and was going to refinish mine but it kind of grew on me after awhile. Your parts are easily worth more than you paid for it.

1/66 is a safe bet for that rifle - the spanish made barrels were extra good shooters - if the douglas were better it would take a top 1% shooter to pick it!

[Eddie2002]

Waiting till the butt stock plate to come in before it gets shot, it's ready to go beside that. Got the double trigger cleaned up and adjusted and ran a patch with lapping compound down the barrel a few times to clean up some surface rust. Not planning to do anything else till I see how it shoots and if it shoots OK I'll probably still leave it alone except to give it another good cleaning.

No country of origin on the barrel and it has round steel ramrod sleeves which along with the five digit serial number probably dates it to around 1978 from what I found by searching on the computer. The weird green finish and numbered lock and stock shows that it was a factory build not a kit which is a plus. The butt plate is due in this weekend so I'll take it from there.

[GregLaROCHE]

I wish I could find stuff like that at flea markets. Everything I see is real junk or way overpriced.

[Eddie2002]

Finally got around to taking a picture of the rifle255741 Here it is after it's first cleaning, need to deal with the scuff marks and dings in the stock. It's still missing the butt plate. The color of the stock isn't that bad in the picture.

[hylander]

Cool, I just picked up one as well last week.