CVA Hawken 50 & 54 Cal.

[adiochiro3]

After a fair amount of cajoling, I finally acquired a friend's CVA Hawken with 2 barrels and joined the ML community (something I've wanted to do for a number of years). My friend was convinced the gun was pretty much a lost cause because the 54 barrel had an old charge in it and the rifle had been left out in the rain once on a hunting trip. The 54 muzzle had a little rust visible, but the 50 cal. barrel was still in the white and had never been fired. I thought it was worth a shot when he finally agreed to trade me the gun for a K&P tobacco pipe. (Kind of appropriate trading a smoking pipe for a smoke pole, no?)

My first concern was the old charge in the 54 barrel. I poured some penetrating oil down the barrel and into the drum and let everything marinate overnight. One good burst from my air compressor and the load flew right out. The barrel looked pretty nasty, but I had not yet acquired my bore light. Based on my buddy's testimony, I fully expected to junk this barrel.

I blued and fitted the 50 cal. barrel, cleaned and checked the lock and trigger assemblies and got everything in good working order. Then got to thinking about the 54 again thanks to this forum. I read about cleaning and lapping rusted pitted barrels, and thought I should give it a good cleaning and really evaluate the internal condition.

Soap, water, and some scrubbing followed by dry patches (a whole big pile of them!), and more soap and water and dry patches -- and I'll be darned if that 54 doesn't look pretty much like the brand new 50 barrel on the inside when I dropped the bore light down it! I showed it to a ML buddy of mine, and he also thinks it looks great and ready to shoot. He's bringing me some of his cast 54's for my inaugural shoot this weekend, so I'll get to try both barrels.

I'll let y'all know how everything goes. Thanks for all of the info & wisdom & tips I've picked up reading through the forums! Thanks to many of you, I am off to a good smokepole start.

 

[flahipneck]

Those cva's are pretty sweet. Have fun!

 

[William O.]

I think you are off to a great start, welcome to muzzle loading and have fun.

 

[AllenHawken]

Great to read about bringing that 54 back to life. Looking forward to hearing about the first few rounds you send down range. Be sure to use a big enough black powder load to leave a few bruises on your shoulder so you know you experienced the full physical enjoyment of firing that big thumper. I have a .54 Hawken I built from an InvestArm kit. I love the huge WHOMP, big smoke, and enormous holes it leaves in stuff. :thumbsup:

 

[Loyalist Dave]

My buddy Gus had the same setup, in a kit. Not sure why they marketed two barrels in such close calibers. .50/.58 or .36/.54 would've made more sense to me, but I'm sure there were manufacturing decisions involved that the average consumer is ignorant about. Perhaps they simply had lots of both caliber barrels and wanted to get rid of some stock, or perhaps they wanted the customer to be able to use a caliber based on ammunition or deer vs. elk? I wish I had bought one when Gus got his.

I had an aquaintance about 20 years ago with the same CVS setup (which is why I convinced Gus' wife to get him the same thing in a kit for Christmas...,) and that feller got so into the rondy shoots, that he had a gunsmith ream out the .50 barrel to 28 gauge, and he removed the rear sight so he could shoot "tradegun" matches, and of course hunt a squirrel or two or bunnies with shot.

Well done on your new gun! :thumbsup:

LD

 

[Ron_T.]

Sounds like you got lucky... VERY lucky, in fact!!! :v

I have an older CVA Hawken cap-lock in .50 caliber with a 28 inch barrel (1:48 twist) that I found at a pawn shop and walked out the door with it for $25 due to a lot of surface rust on the barrel. However, the bore looked like new!

A careful rub of the barrel with some 0000 steel wool and some WD40 made all the rust go away and left the blued barrel looking almost like new.

This rifle loves a "target load" 47 grains of Swiss FFFg, a .490 Hornady swaged rifle ball and 16/1000ths" cotton patch lubed with a mixture of bee's wax and Crisco Oil fired with a #11 CCI percussion cap and shoots three shot groups at 25 yards (off the bench-rest with iron sights) that often are just 3 inter-locking holes.

Oddly enough, my .50 caliber CVA cap-lock, Hawken Carbine that I use for deer hunting which has only a 24 inch barrel (1:48 twist) also loves that same 47 grain load of Swiss FFFg and shoots just as well off the bench at 25 yards as the longer barreled Hawken and is more handy in the woods than the longer-barreled Hawken rifle.

If you're shooting Goex, you will need to "up" the powder charge about 10% to get the same terrific performance outta your rifle, but it's well-worth the effort when the rifle balls make a 3-leaf clover-like hole in the 10 ring.

Give that load a "try"... your CVA Hawken may love it as well!

Make GOOD smoke... :thumbsup:

Strength & Honor...

Ron T.