Help! My Hawken is beating me up!

[Newf]

Don't get me wrong, I love my .50 T/C Hawken dearly. I wanted one for years and finally took the plunge this summer. She's beautiful, elegant and groups like a champ. Trouble is, she pounds the cheek bone clear off me.
Seems I have to scrunch my head down too low to get the sights lined up properly. I have tried raising the rear sight, but I pretty well maxed it out to get it to where I feel comfortable. The sight was also very unstable at that height, and looked foolish too.
Any suggestions?
I won't sell her. I'm too attached to her now to let her go. But this abusive relationship has got to stop.

 

[musketman]

Any suggestions?

Suggestion #1: Reducing the powder charge and/or pad the cheek area could make it more user friendly...

Suggestion #2: Put tang sights on it...

Extream answer: Sand the cheak rest off and refinish the stock...

 

[roundball]

Don't get me wrong, I love my .50 T/C Hawken dearly. I wanted one for years and finally took the plunge this summer. She's beautiful, elegant and groups like a champ. Trouble is, she pounds the cheek bone clear off me.
Seems I have to scrunch my head down too low to get the sights lined up properly. I have tried raising the rear sight, but I pretty well maxed it out to get it to where I feel comfortable. The sight was also very unstable at that height, and looked foolish too.
Any suggestions?
I won't sell her. I'm too attached to her now to let her go. But this abusive relationship has got to stop.

Be curious to know what powder charge and projectile you're using...heavy powder charges and conicals for hunting can give a sharp recoil jolt for sure...lighter patched balls are mild by comparison, even with max hunting charges.
For weekend plinking I just use 50grns Goex 3F with patched balls and there's hardly any recoli at all.
But if you're using stout charges of 3F, at least switching to the slightly slower buring 2F should soften the sharpness of the recoil a tad.

Also, if the rifle is new, and most of your shooting has been hunkered down over it while shooting off of a bench rest so far, the recoil from most rifles can be punishing while doing that, and does not really reflect the recoil you'll feel from other shooting positions...especially since we usually can't get our heads far enough back on the stock when bent over at a bench.

By contrast, I shoot most every weekend and do 99% of my shooting sitting in a small chair to simulate hunting from a treestand or being on the ground leaning against a tree, and sometimes standing offhand...all those positions allow me to get my head further back on the stock, and those positions let the body push backwards more easily with the recoil push, instead of forcing the rifle to jump vertically...even with full power hunting loads.

 

[lonewolf5347]

http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a380/lonewolf5347/P1010002.jpg
Here my set up on the hawkens
What I have found with the cheek piece on the stock is not to roll over it otherwise the cheek bone will take a licking @ try to shoot a little back on the stock seem the closer you try to get to the tang that were the problem starts .I do not have any problems when it comes to shooting RB with 100 grains of 3f.I do catch it onces in a while shooting conical with 320 REALS and 95 grains of 3f but when I reduce the charge to 85 grain there is no problems

 

[ryoung14]

Hi Newf,
You're not alone. My Hawken beats me up the same way. I'd have more T/C Hawkens were it not for this quirk, because otherwise I love the gun. High cheekbones and/or a broad face don't seem to mix with that stock design. For me the Renegade, with its slightly shorter pull, is even worse.

But I've noticed it bothers alot less if I shoot offhand, as opposed to from the bench. Shooting roundball instead of conicals helps alot too. For me, shooting roundball offhand pretty much eliminates the problem. If roundball is satisfactory for you, going to one of the longer, heavier, slow twist roundball barrels might help a little also. The extra weight would further reduce the recoil.

I've toyed with the idea of adding a recoil pad to the stock to get a longer pull. That would allow me to get the eye down far enough to see through the sights without having such firm contact between my cheekbone and the comb of the stock. But that upward sloping comb would still come back into the cheekbone on recoil. I just don't have the heart to take a wood rasp to that lovely hunk of wood.

Look around for one of the old plain-jane T/C New Englanders. Their stocks have a lower, level comb that eliminates the cheekbone crunch. Greyhawks, Black Mountain Magnums, and the Firestorms have the same stock design. Not nearly as pretty as the Hawken, but more functional for me.
FWIW
Bob

 

[rabbit03]

Hi guy

Sounds like some good advice here already. My personal knowlege of the TC I had (Regegade) in .54 precussion, it pusnished me for a time. The main reason was that the drop in the stock was very slight and like you said, you had to get way down low to line up the sights. I remember once after about a year or so of having shot my ol' TC .54 I had gotten it ready to go bear hunting in the Adarandack Mts. and began to sight it in again. I was shooting the Buffalo bullets in about 535 grn. and was using what I thought was 90 grn. of 3f (I know but I was very young at the time yall). Well the rifle would climb and knock the Hell out of my cheek and after about 4 of these brutal rounds and it busting my cheek I decided that something was wrong. FINALLY I realized I had been using the 90 grn measurer I had but I had forgotten and thought it was only a 45 grn capacity. So I had been doubling the measurement and had actually been using a 180 grn. of 3F load behind the big 535 grn buffalo bullet all the time. NO WONDER I HAD A MOUSE ON MY CHEEK.!!! What I had been doing I guess was proof testing the barrel! LOL Yes I am lucky to be here I think looking back now. So reducing the powder charge or changing to a slower burning powder is a good idea if you haven't tried it yet. If your shooting a round ball it would seem that would not be too bad since the preasure would not be like a conical, the round ball being lighter and having less bearing surface.

Alot of these fellows on here have some good advice and you should be able to solve your problem with a little of their help. Good luck,

rabbit03

 

[Newf]

Thanks for the advise folks. Looks like I'll either be doing alot more shooting standing up, which I should be doing anyway, or start wearing my goalie mask to the range.
Under no circumstances will I take the file to her..That would be wrong.

 

[roundball]

Thanks for the advise folks. Looks like I'll either be doing alot more shooting standing up, which I should be doing anyway, or start wearing my goalie mask to the range.
Under no circumstances will I take the file to her..That would be wrong.

Getting good accuracy standing offhand is always difficult for me...if you're primarily interested in hunting, you might at least try shooting sitting down...you'll be shocked at how rock solid you'll become sitting still, off elbow braced down against your side or chest...rifle laying on your hand just in front of the trigger guard...very surprising how soild that...and it's how I take 99% of my hunting shots so the practice is excellent...the rare time I ever take a shot standing I'll lean against a tree or something anyway...recoil will be much less in any position other than the bench.

PS: Another reason it's good to practice from these positions is because the POI is usually different from shooting from the bench...usually higher from hunting positions than from the bench...so be sure to at least check, possibly fine tune your zero from the hunting positions you'll most likely be shooting from.

 

[Newf]

This sure is a fine forum for getting your questions answered. I appreciate it Lads. Too bad most of you are too far away for an afternoon of shooot'n.
Newf.

 

[sneakon]

I can confirm what others have suggested in this thread. I started off shooting conicals in my .54 TC Hawken with 90 grains FF. It beat up my cheek. For other reasons, I evolved to patched round ball and a longer (heavier) slower twist GM barrel. Now I can shoot all day, even with a 95 grain FFF load, without ill effect.

 

[Puffer]

Just one additional thing. What is the trigger reach ??
If it is too short,the gun will "bite" you. I am 6' & need at least 14", prefer 14 1/2" - 15" (measured to rear trigger) I have a couple of T/C Hawkens that are 13 3/8" & they bite me w/ 75 -80 gr.s ++. I use them when I train smaller stutured students.

Puffer

 

[roundball]

One other thing...I've gradually replaced all my TC Hawken wooden ramrods with brass ones...a solid brass 3/8 rod is as strong as you can get, and it adds another 1-1.5lbs out under the barrel...does two things:
1) Improves accuracy because the barel just 'hangs' dead still on the target;
2) The added weight really tames recoil;

You'll notice the extra weight if you still hunt a lot and carry the rifle for a few hours, but mostly, I carry my deer rifles into a stad area on a sling, then once on stand the weight is a non-issue anyway.

For the occasional still hunting for deer or squirrels, I have a .45cal rifle and a .54cal smoothbore with tubular brass ramrods...a little lighter for carrying, but still far stronger than the flimsy wooden rods from TC during the past 10 years.

If you intend to sling your Hawken, and not still hunt with it too much, I think you'll really like the solid brass ramrod...plus, being one solid piece of metal, each end is drilled and tapped directly...not ends to pull loose.

 

[graybeard]

Roundball, you are so right. Since I gave up trying to still hunt every deer i've shot has been from a sitting position in a chair. I've had some kind of a rest for the forearm. But hardly anyone will practice that way. I also recommend going out to practice just before dark, or at dawn. That's when most deer are shot and the light is tricky. :redthumb: graybeard

 

[Bear Rider]

Newf,

I have a friend who's idea of a squirrel gun is a .458 Winchester. He gave me a short course in shooting heavy recoil rifles off a bench.

According to him, the biggest mistake that most people make is that the chair is too high in relation to the barrel, causing them to generally lean forward into the gun. This is a cause of "scope" eye and bruises. In your case, it's probably putting your cheek too far forward and over the stock.

Try shouldering the firearm as if you were going to shoot it offhand, then sit down with the rifle still in place. If you have to lower the firearm down to the sandbags, you're sitting too high. Either get a shorter chair or add sandbags.