CVA Mountain Rifle Tips or Tricks

[Urban Coyote]

It's a .50, I bought her maybe 20 years, fooled with it a bit and decided I was tried of screwing around with the darn thing. A buddy of mine wanted a wall hanger so I gifted the gun to him. From there it ended up loaned to a Hunter's Safety instructor. By the time my friend passed the instructor had returned it and it came back to me. It is a kit gun someone assembled, not great work but I've seen much worse, everything seems to function, the bore is near perfect. I started playing with it again but I'm having trouble finding a flint that allows the lock to function as it should, getting the frizzen to close with a flint in and popping the frizzen open when fired from full cock. So there is apparently this thing about getting the geometry correct to make a flintlock operate correctly, any suggestions? I've tried a number of different flint sizes.

 

[Phil Coffins]

The lock was poorly made to start with, if someone gets it work that’s good luck. I hope you can but a good lock will work for most anyone.

 

[smo]

Those may require a 5/8 or 1/2” flint…

Have you gone that short ?
Bevel up, bevel down will make a difference in where the flint strikes the frizzen..

 

[Trot]

Best thing to do if you really want it to work well is get an L&R replacement lock. What you describe is one of my biggest problems with those locks. You can chip a bit off the back of the flint to get it to where the frizzen will just close, and it may work for you but probably not very reliably. The mainsprings tend to be a bit weak as well.

 

[Art Caputo]

My first flintlock, bought in the late 70’s. I tried just about everything(flint size, position, spring adjustments, etc.etc.) to achieve reliable ignition. I agree fully with Phil Coffins that it is an unreliable, poorly designed lock, and could not be trusted for hunting. However, it was nicely weighted/balanced, and when it did fire, it was exceptionally accurate.

 

[Urban Coyote]

I tried the shortest flints I had, .70", and got one or two to kind of work, can't close the frizzen on half cock yet. I'll try the 1/2" to 5/8" but I figure this lock just ain't worth dealing with. The same conclusion I came to years ago when I gave it away.

Thanks everyone

 

[Trot]

If you really, really like the gun otherwise, about the only thing to do is get one of the L&R replacement locks. I started with a couple of those darn things and some years later got a Lyman Trade rifle flintlock. I kicked myself for waiting so long!