few cva hawken ??'s

[lindner115]

Finally got to shoot my .50 hawken i bought used. the only rounds balls i could find locally are Hornaday .480, I patched with a .010. shooting 70grn of FF pyrodex. At 35yds i can group in a 3" circle about 3" right and 3" low. At 65 yds it looks like most are 3" right and 6" low. I've got some .020 patches i have not tried yet. Since i'm low i thought about bumping powder up to 90grn and using a .020 patch. I'm a hunter first and foremost so i'd like to target shoot with a hunting load. Sorry for rambling,

Oh yeah darn nipple would take 2 hits to go off every time, what do you recommend on a low budget. Trying to get by with what i got.

It sure felt good to get back into it. Thanks.

 

[richard123]

There's probably a quick fix to your ignition problem. Either the caps you are using are too small or the hammer doesn't have enough thrust to pop the cap. If the first is the case, than larger caps should seat properly. The second may require adjustment in the lock mechanism or a new spring.

 

[ebiggs1]

Not knowing anything specific about your rifle, here is what I would do.
490 Hornady RBs---------don’t know if 480 was a typo
Pyrodex “RS” or Goex Pinnacle 2f or 3f using 70 grs
CCI or Remington caps
018 pillow patches with Bore Butter-------wetter being better than dryer
Oh, BTW clean to gun toughly, I mean thoughly, before shooting and by all means get a new nipple.

 

[paulvallandigham]

You are probably burning the patches, as they are way too thin. The patches need to be about 1.5 x the depth of the rifling in thickness. So, if the grooves are .010" deep, you need at least a .015" patch. Go with a .018 to .020" patch and see if they don't shrink the groups.

Don't know anything about your sights or sight picture, so can't advise on moving the groups. First you have to tighten those groups. Only when you have a better load that shoots a one hole group at 25 yds, and then 2 inches at 50 yds, do you get around to moving sights to " zero" the sights at a given distance.

You need to correct the powder/ball combination to that bore, FIRST, before changing powder charges, IMHO. You can buy mattress ticking at a local fabric store and cut your own patches, usually cheaper than buying pre-cut and pre-lubed patches. Take a micrometer, or caliper to the store to measure the thickness. Mattress ticking, or pocket drill tend to be the best choices for patches. Use pure cotton, flannel fabric for cleaning patches. The cleaning patch should be larger- 2.5-3" square-- and the material is both thinner, and of lighter weave, than the material used to patch the RB.

If you don't have your own micrometer, or caliper, you can buy a dial caliper at Harbor Freight, or from some of the suppliers listed here in the "Links" section, for under $30.00. The cheap ones work as well as the expensive ones.

Old micrometers show up in yard sales, pawn shops, and even "antique" stores as left- overs from estate auctions all the time, at prices well below retail. The store owners will look for one at a price you want to pay if you leave your name and phone number to contact you when they find one.

OR, borrow them from a friend, or from the local auto or machine shops.

SOLVE the problem. You are not the only person living on a tight budget these days. :hmm: :thumbsup:

 

[lindner115]

.480 is not a typo, that's all the shop had.

 

[rafterob]

Knowing the CVA rifles and your described ignition problem, I would say buy a new nipple. You need 6:1mm, cheap fix, other than if its mail order you pay shipping. Deer creek will mail small items like that and charge actual postage vs. Dixie who will charge their minimum order shipping fee $15?

 

[paulvallandigham]

A .480" diameter ball is too small a diameter to use in that gun. Check the diameter with a micrometer, or caliper, before spending more money. I also am not a fan of the swaged balls sold by Hornady. They are using the same alloy lead they use to produce birdshot. It has antimony in the lead, making it much harder, so that it does not upset as well as pure lead balls will.

That means you have to use MORE POWDER behind the ball, and a faster burning powder, to get the ball to upset reliably enough that accuracy becomes minimally acceptable.

If you measure the diameter of these swaged balls you will find, typically, that up to 1/3 of them are either too big, or too small, and that the weights vary much wider than you want for best accuracy. You end up setting these out of dimension balls aside to use for " plinking".

Frankly, its cheaper to buy a good mold, and a plumber's pot, and a lead "dipper" to cast your own, and be saving money after the first 200 balls, having paid for the equipment with the savings you got with those first 200 balls.

If you build a pit fire in a small pit, you can produce enough heat to melt the lead using charcoal and green wood, and maybe blowing on the coals with a tube to dust off the ashes, and raise the temperature a bit. Just dig a narrow trench into two sides of the circular pit, to let air into the fire under your pot, and/or give you a place to run a hose or tube down to the coals to blow on them.

I have even seen fires built in clay flower pots, with couple of extra holes punched into the sides near the bottom to provide air to the coals. The steel pot was put on top of the clay pot, and the clay pot put into a shallow hole in a flower bed to add stability to it. The clay pot holds and focuses the heat onto the bottom of the steel pot, to raise the temperature enough to melt the lead.


Obviously, if you have a BBQ grill, or hibachi, or a Coleman camp stove, you can also "cook" lead on the top of these tools. Just be careful to provide a stable platform for the pot, as you don't want molten lead spilling anywhere! :shocked2: :nono: :surrender: :hmm: :thumbsup:

 

[Zonie]

Welcome to the Forum.

I'm surprised that your getting accuracy that good using a .480 diameter ball and a .010 thick patch!

As the others have suggested, do use a thicker patch, especially with a ball that is .020 smaller than the bore.

Most of the modern "Hawken" guns use a .005 deep rifling groove in an effort to allow the guns to shoot slugs as well as patched roundballs.

As Paul noted the patch must seal not only the bore but the rifling as well to provide the necessary grip on the rifling and to prevent powder gasses from blowing past the ball/patch and burning the patching material.

Your .480 diameter ball plus twice the .010 patch thickness your using equals .500.
This in effect means that nothing is sealing the rifling grooves and I suspect that if you found one of your shot patches it would be burned and torn to shreds.

With roundballs of this size look for a patching that is 100 percent pure cotton and .020 thick.
Even that thickness will be marginal with a .480 diameter ball but it will be better than what your currently using.

As for the cap fit, many used guns have been dry fired. This often mushrooms the upper end of the nipple making it impossible to force the caps down to seat on the nipple like it should.

With the cap only partially seated on the nipple the first hammer blow pounds it down where it should have been in the first place. Then the second hammer blow fires the cap.

A quick fix for this is to place the nipple into the chuck of an electric drill making sure the jaws are clamping on the solid body only. Do not clamp on the threads.
With the drill running and the chuck pointing to the right, use a flat file lightly on the cone of the nipple to remove any mushrooming that might exist. It just takes a little filing to fix this problem so have a cap handy to try.

The cap should fit down on the nipple until the priming compound is against the end of the nipple cone using finger pressure only to install it.
The cap should not be loose so don't overdo the filing.

I suspect that after you've found the proper patching material and fixed the nipple your gun should easily be able to shoot under 1 inch groups at 25 yards and should keep your shots at 50 yards inside a 2 inch circle.

 

[necchi]

Might try lookin real close at the nipple, could be "peened" from the previous owner dry firing.
If it is just take a small file and make the top of the nipple a cone shape again.

Another issue,
,, could be the lock screws are too tight,,to quote paulv, some guy's use a gorilla to tighten those screws,,too much and the lock spring is pulled into the wood and slows down the hammer drop. They need only be tight enough to hold the lock plate in the mortice.

 

[ohio ramrod]

As the man says your nipple is probably "flatened", simple fix with a drill and a file. Put the nipple in the drill chuck and use the file to "sharpen" the nipple. CVA's that I have worked on all had soft stock nipples. All percusion guns require a sharp edge on the nipple to work properly.

 

[rawhide]

I had one of those now I have the same gun in .54 first replace your nipple! maybe all thats wrong. before I'd mess with the lock. the treads on it are 6x1. I think I was shooting 70-80 grains of pyrdox rs. a 490 ball and a .015 patch ben a while sense I had that gun. I know the elk load was 100 grains of rs. and a great plains bullet.

 

[Bill Hall]

All the CVA's I've seen have had pretty weak hammer springs, which means it hits the cap a little too softly. But, as others have suggested, you might fix it by replacing the nipple, or by turning the nipple as per Ohio Ramrod's instuctions, just as a diagnostic step. If it still doesn't work, you might think about getting a replacement lock from L and R. Those stock CVA locks just aren't much to brag about. Bill