Help Fixing Up Inherited Muzzleloaders

[Rifleman1776]

Their barrels were excellent

My first ml rifle was a CVA 'kentucky'. The barrel was two piece and the riflings ran in opposite directions. "excellent"? When I said El Cheapo I was being kind.

 

[MTMountainman]

Just a quick thought about the $80 price. I remember gas going up to $ 0.85 a gallon and decimating a climbing trip budget to Washington and Oregon. I had also just started teaching high school (It turns out I collect occupations) and was making about $7,000 a year so.. $80 was a good bit of cash.
Room and board at a state university in 1975 was $140 a month.

You're making me feel old today. I can remember gas at $0.27/gallon and when there was a gas war it went for $0.15/gallon!

 

[FPDoc]

I've have had good results in the past with "cleaning up" several ML triggers. I cleaned up, deburred, smoothed rough places. The results were improved function and feel to the point they were no longer gritty draggy triggers. They are not F Class triggers (what ever those are.. grin) but good, solid, functional triggers that don't make me cringe whenever I use the rifle.

 

[FPDoc]

You're making me feel old today. I can remember gas at $0.27/gallon and when there was a gas war it went for $0.15/gallon!

The midwestern town where I went to high school would have gas wars between stations and I remember prices as low as $0.10-$0.12/gallon for a few days but usually $0.25/gallon range. When cruising around town if everyone chipped in a quarter you could ride around all evening. On the other hand at our after school and weekend jobs we would pull in about $0.60/hr.. then taxes out of that. So.. be careful of what you wish for.

P.S. 1960's so mostly massive Detroit iron from 1950's, British sports cars and motorcycles (the kids whose dad's owned car dealerships had the newest muscle cars) so we did NOT get 30-40 MPG either.

 

[ppg1949]

Just a quick thought about the $80 price. I remember gas going up to $ 0.85 a gallon and decimating a climbing trip budget to Washington and Oregon. I had also just started teaching high school (It turns out I collect occupations) and was making about $7,000 a year so.. $80 was a good bit of cash.
Room and board at a state university in 1975 was $140 a month.

Your right that $80 was a chunk of change in the late ‘70’s but the CVA’s were $40-$50 cheaper than the T/C guns of the same era.

 

[Dave Dworshak]

HUNTED WITH MY KIT CVA FOR 40 YEARS

 

[1942farmall]

I sure wouldn't send the barrel off to be blued, it is too easy to do yourself and the result isn't half bad with cold blue.

Here is a Renegade kit barrel that was in the white when I bought it off eBay.

Start;

View attachment 109543

Finished with cold blue;

View attachment 109544

I made a Renegade from random parts including an L&R RPL lock. Here is the finished gun.

View attachment 109545

Eric, which cold blue are you using?

 

[Eric Krewson]

Oxpho blue and Birchwood Casey super blue, I liked the Birchwood Casey the best. Sand your barrel to 220 grit sand paper, use a sanding block to keep from rounding the corners of the flats off. I have found if you clean the barrel with acetone before you apply the bluing solution you get a much darker finish, it takes several coats to get an even finish. I get the best results putting the bluing solution on with a piece of 000 steel wool, use a clean piece every time you dip it in you solution and cover another area of the barrel.

 

[ohio ramrod]

Hey everything - Thanks for the replies. A little bit of an update for the day: The trigger assembly was gummed up from years and years of oil (I'm almost positive it was coated in kroil.) After disassembly, cleaning, and oiling the trigger mechanism is working great, BUT, the trigger pull is unreal! It almost seems like I have to apply pressure to the bottom 1/4 of the trigger otherwise it binds up.

Is there anything I can do to lighten up this trigger? (Hopefully the video does it justice)

The early CVA locks can have the trigger pull reduced by two methods. The simplist is to adjust the screw in the tumbler. All of the early CVA locks that I have worked on had the contact angle on the tumbler for the sear/tumbler contact less then 90 degrees. This ment you had to "fight " the mainspring to release the tumbler. You want the angle to be exactly 90 degrees, less then 90 degrees you fight the main spring, greater than 90 degrees the tumbler will" push off" the sear and not hold. I believe that this was intentional since it prevented the gun from firing too easily there fore a safety factor A simple method to check for this set the lock on full cock and slowly pull back on the trigger and watch the hammer. If the hammer moves back before releasing the angle is less than 90 degrees. This can be corrected by disassembling the lock and using a fine tool stone to hone the notch so that the contact angle is correct.

 

[Packrat]

Does anyone think it is time to De-Value the dollar? What good if $15.00 an hour if it won’t pay the rent
I bought my first hide, 1970, fir a little over $15m , my second, 1874, bit over $35 k
The only party making out when our wages are high is the government since they tax at different rates fir higher wage earners
My third house was $115k in , 1984
My daughter, in Portland just bought for 1/3 million
It’s not nicer than my second house
Today’s money is a joke

 

[torpedo]

You're making me feel old today. I can remember gas at $0.27/gallon and when there was a gas war it went for $0.15/gallon!

I remember going to the local military base with my mom and getting premium for $ .24 a gallon, in 1970.

 

[Buckskinquin]

Those CVA 'Kentucky' rifles were the original El Cheapos in the 1970s. I wouldn't spend much, if any, money trying to restore them.

Get some Prozac Man!

 

[Hatman/2nd line]

Bacarper, don't let the nay sayers get to you, those old CVA rifles may be a sows ear but they are solid basic good shooters. They can be slicked up and made pretty, it only takes time and imagination and a willingness to go to that level. Doing this may not increase value because those rifles were built to a price point and there isn't much value to em. But they are usually very accurate rifles and be quite handsome if you put in a little elbow grease.

Nice job of a re-do, you did put some elbow grease to it!

 

[Hawthorn1213]

It never fails to amaze me how helpful and nice everyone is here! Thank you so much!

It's been a while but here is an update on the Kentucky (also should I be posting all of this in the builders forum?)

Ordered all the parts I need from Deer Creek.

Fixed up the trigger pull based on everyone's advice here: Messed around with the set screw and polished anywhere that metal contacts metal. It's pretty good for now but I may get back in there and do a little more polishing

Cleaned up the barrel to 300 grit and I'm more and more convinced this was never fired.

Started polishing all the brass hardware (I have a affinity for self punishment via step sanding and mirror polished brass.)

Rifle is completely disassembled and I'm now fixing up the stock joint. The holes for the stock joining pins weren't originally drilled straight so I plugged them up and plan on re-drilling today. (The two stock pieces wouldn't line up straight due to the angled holes)

Next step after that is to drill out the barrel pins.

 

[Hawthorn1213]

Oxpho blue and Birchwood Casey super blue, I liked the Birchwood Casey the best. Sand your barrel to 220 grit sand paper, use a sanding block to keep from rounding the corners of the flats off. I have found if you clean the barrel with acetone before you apply the bluing solution you get a much darker finish, it takes several coats to get an even finish. I get the best results putting the bluing solution on with a piece of 000 steel wool, use a clean piece every time you dip it in you solution and cover another area of the barrel.

I've never been the biggest fan of cold bluing. For whatever reason it never seems to hold up for me or quite look the same as factory. I did some looking around and there's a local guy who can do hot bluing. I've been looking into browning and may give that a shot on the Derringers I have.

 

[Hatman/2nd line]

Bacarper, don't let the nay sayers get to you, those old CVA rifles may be a sows ear but they are solid basic good shooters. They can be slicked up and made pretty, it only takes time and imagination and a willingness to go to that level. Doing this may not increase value because those rifles were built to a price point and there isn't much value to em. But they are usually very accurate rifles and be quite handsome if you put in a little elbow grease.

Nice job!!

 

[geb324]

Brown the barrel more authentic and what they did way back.

 

[davidmc62]

It never fails to amaze me how helpful and nice everyone is here! Thank you so much!

It's been a while but here is an update on the Kentucky (also should I be posting all of this in the builders forum?)

Ordered all the parts I need from Deer Creek.

Fixed up the trigger pull based on everyone's advice here: Messed around with the set screw and polished anywhere that metal contacts metal. It's pretty good for now but I may get back in there and do a little more polishing

Cleaned up the barrel to 300 grit and I'm more and more convinced this was never fired.

Started polishing all the brass hardware (I have a affinity for self punishment via step sanding and mirror polished brass.)

Rifle is completely disassembled and I'm now fixing up the stock joint. The holes for the stock joining pins weren't originally drilled straight so I plugged them up and plan on re-drilling today. (The two stock pieces wouldn't line up straight due to the angled holes)

Next step after that is to drill out the barrel pins.

I chose to do the same thing with my CVA Kentucky rifle rebuild, the pin holes were off enough to make the barrel channel offset by just a small amount. terrible production standards, must have been done on a monday. But it can be fixed! I chose to join the two stock pieces together without the ugly brass spacer. If you choose to do that, be prepared to move, plug, re-drill for the pins and nose cap as they wont fit the "pre drilled" locations on the barrel anymore. I did a LOT of rework, shortened the fore stock area between the lock and first ramrod pipe which resulted of making the gun "appear" to have a longer barrel length. This in turn meant I had to "respace" the ramrod pipe locations for my liking. I used a different nose cap and trigger guard, but everything else was the CVA parts that came on the rifle. Good luck and most of all have fun with it.

 

[Hawthorn1213]

I have this same question over on the builders forum but I figured I post it here too: The barrel pins from Deer Creek are a little too big (.135 vs the .116 I've seen in the manuals.) I'm half tempted to actually go down to a 3/32 pin, but trying to get some opinions on the safety of undersizng the pins.

 

[davidmc62]

I have this same question over on the builders forum but I figured I post it here too: The barrel pins from Deer Creek are a little too big (.135 vs the .116 I've seen in the manuals.) I'm half tempted to actually go down to a 3/32 pin, but trying to get some opinions on the safety of undersizng the pins.

I ordered some from track of the wolf, don't recall the size but 3/32 sounds right, if I recall I think I order a few blank barrel tennons as well so I could drill the correct size hole for the pins. Your right I didn't like those huge CVA pins either. You can always make your own from some round stock of your choice. I even have heard of some who use nails as pins.