Hawkens missfire

[Rebel]

If you bought it new from Cabela's i would contact them about it. They are real good at satisfying their customers. Will probably either send you the part or most likely have you return the rifle for an exchange for a new one. They will then sell yours in the Bargain Cave.

 

[bradmartin]

That's good to know. I'll make the call in the morning. Thanks.

 

[John Taylor]

Something that has not been brought up yet. A drop of oil placed on the pivot where the hammer is mounted and another drop on the internals might make the differance. I have had many come into the shop that the hammer is dragging just enough to make for a light hammer blow. Do not use WD 40, it is not a lube. This stuff will get gummy in a short time. The WD stands for water displacement and is used to dry out electrical parts.

 

[Spring]

I have a Lyman Great Plains Rifle. These are made by Investarms. Right out of the box I had exactly the situation you describe. The culprit was the nipple. The factory nipple is enough oversize at the top that No.11 caps don't fit properly. Sure you can mash them down with your ball starter but that could be risky. Alternatively you could have a rifle that only fires every second or third shot after they've been driven onto the nipple by the hammer.

The cure can be either of two things. The easiest is to replace the nipple with a Thompson Centre. Yes you can find them with the proper metric thread. They are the correct size at the top to properly fit a No.11 cap.

Alternatively you could remove the supplied nipple, wrap the threads to protect them, chuck it in a drill, spin it, while holding an emery cloth to it.

Either way, I'm pretty sure size is the problem. Fix that, and my guess is you'll be good to go.

Cheers!

 

[Spring]

Oooops! Disregard my previous post. Re-reading I see that seating caps with the ball starter didn't help.

Sorry about that.

Cheers!

 

[Dave K]

Just a thought. How tight do you have the screw that holds the lock? I have seen some so tight that they are distorting the lock and making the hammer bind and fall a little lazy like.

 

[strongarm]

Remove vent screw and nipple and with a pipe cleaner saturated with No 13 cleaner or moose milk go in as far as you can abuout 5 times. Then repeat with a dry one. I like to use the pipe cleaners with bristles, they work better. I have both a .50 and .54 and fouling tends to back up into the flash hole and one must routinely clean that out everytime you clean the rifle.

 

[bradmartin]

I checked the hammer and it was not over tight. My flinter was, but not the Hawkens.
I remove the nipple and small screw when I clean my rifles. I'll be off to the range this weekend with a little luck. We'll see what happens.
Thanks for all the help.