Investarms 50 Cal Hawken

[Rhino6]

Came on this rifle in the worlds longest yard sale in Tennessee. Looks great on the outside, barrel is rough. Pointed that out to the owner and talked him down to $90. It came with a box of old conical lead bullets and some other accessories.

I have been working on the barrel for an hour or so with JB and Kroil, got surface rust off pretty quick and now getting some very black patches now.

When the inside of the barrel is dry it is a light gray color inside with very little rifling showing. I gently put a stainless blade point a little ways down the barrel and lightly scraped. It shows a copper color underneath. Lead over copper fouling?

If this barrel is trash I don't really want to spend a really long time on it, got a lot of other projects.

If I can get minute of deer accuracy at 50 yards or so I would like to keep it. What do you guys think?

 

[necchi]

Welcome to the forum.
This is THE place for all your questions.

Those barrels can take alot of punishment and still have the accuracy your after.
Keep cleaning, till yer tired of it, with patches and the stuff you mention.
there's realy more info about your gun than can be done in a single post.
Spend some time cruiseing around the back pages and reading topics that grab your interest, everything has been covered at one time or another.
I'm sure others will add here, and when yer ready ask some more questions. Alot of folks would love to help ya turn your investment into a success story, :wink:

 

[123.DieselBenz]

I'd plug the nipple, and soak it in kroil over night or two ... Then take a brush to it for starters, then wrap the brush with Copper Chore Boy (test with a magnet to make sure it is not steel) or use some 0000 steel or bronze wool, it should get the lead out!

 

[Amikee]

Hello there

About copper.... Maybe somebody just shoot some copper bullets, like cased or even copper balls. I suggest you try cleaning wire brush then get some patches and balls and try to load it. Maybe it will do nice job. Usually it takes about 100-200 shots to break in the barrel from what I read here, so you never know. You may have super shooter. I invite you to take look at my reviews of my investarms hawken. Good shooting!

 

[necchi]

If you use a brush, just be sure you spin it before ya try to pull it back. Those things git stuck when the bristles hafta bend and break off the rod, and it usually happens down in the bottom,,
,,that's a whole nuther trouble you don't need.

 

[Rhino6]

I found an old Rig Lead-Wipe in my kit, cut it into patch size. It is taking the lead out quick, can see the rifling now. I'm encouraged when I get it cleaned up will hit the range and post the results. Got to buy some components first.

Thanks for the advise, great site...
Ron

 

[BrownBear]

I found an old Rig Lead-Wipe in my kit, cut it into patch size. It is taking the lead out quick, can see the rifling now. I'm encouraged when I get it cleaned up will hit the range and post the results. Got to buy some components first.

Thanks for the advise, great site...
Ron

That's looking like good news, for sure. I've had good luck restoring "shot out" barrels with a good cleaning, but never with that much lead. Patience (and sweat) win the game.

Keep us posted! :thumbsup:

 

[rafterob]

The good thing is that all that leading probably protected the bore from rust pitting. Keep us informed of progress.

 

[leslie]

Thats a good buy, get rid of the conicals and get some .490 roundballs and patches you will find the rifle to be very accurate.Good luck on cleaning it up amazing what a little TLC will do.Let us know how it shoots.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Now that you know that its lead in those grooves, buy some standard lead solvent, like Hoppe's #9, or Shooter's Choice, to chemically remove the lead. It will be a lot faster, and easier on you than using muscle power to scrape it out! :shocked2:


There is a possibility that you will find rust pitting UNDER the lead, since condensation moisture can get under lead and oxidize. Using a chemical Lead Solvent will get you down to bare metal so you can assess all the damage done by the prior owner. :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[Rhino6]

Finally got down to bare metal using Butch's Bore Shine. That stuff will clear it out in a hurry, your sinus's too. Wet it down good and let it go about 30 minutes, 30 strokes of the brush, and about 15 patches and done.

There was a ton of rust under the leading, small pits from end to end, a lot of wear about 2 inches from the muzzle. I am thinking someone in the past was using a steel cleaning rod and did the damage.

In any case I am taking it to the range tomorrow, see if it will group at all. If it does ok thats great, if not I will order a new barrel from Midway, really like the gun.

Bottom line, that Butch's is some powerful stuff, saved me a lot of time. I wish it had turned out better but for the price I still did pretty well I think...

 

[majg1234]

I bought a good TC kit barrel off of e bay for $70 and resurrected my 1970's investarms kit that I built many years ago,I let it rust pretty badly during storage several years ago,a little fitting and barrel underib shortening and she'll be a present to my grandson later this year :grin:

 

[Rafsob]

If you have been working on this barrel so long, you may have to give up. I have two of these guns and both have chrome lined barrels. You can work on them all day for a month of sundays and make little difference. You should consider looking at changing the barrel and starting out from scratch.

I too bought an InvestArms Hawkens with a barrel in really bad shape. I ended up getting rid of the barrel and moving on. Those chrome lined barrels can be great, but not so if they are abused!

 

[Rhino6]

I'm going to shoot it today, if it has acceptable accuracy I will keep it. The only use will be hunting primarily during our one week muzzleloader season, then back to my '06 probably. Where I hunt got about 50 yard max shot so sterling accuracy is not a major issue.
I kinda hate to put a $200 barrel on a rifle I paid $90 for if I don't even know if I like it that much. Other than taking a few shots with my son's Optima, I have never even fired a front end loader. In other words I am a deer hunter more than anything else.
Going to the range and will report back with the results.

 

[Rhino6]

Back from the range, results are a lot better than I thought.
It looks like it shoots better with a fouled bore.
On the second target two went almost in the same hole. Range was 25 yards,recoil very light.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Cleaning it, used boiling water to get out the crud and the front side came loose. Probably someone had super glued it in place and the hot water took it out. Best method to secure it?
I think I will work up in 5gr increments, or maybe leave well enough alone...

 

[BrownBear]

Best method to secure it?

Open the jaws of your vise just wide enough so the blade will drop in and it will hang up on the base with the bottom of the base facing up. Use a punch to dimple the bottom of the base in 4-6 places, and it should raise enough metal to tighten the fit when you push it back into the dovetail. If it's still too loose, just order another from TOW or someone. They're relatively cheap.

 

[William O.]

It can do better than that, try a thicker patch and see what that does with various powder charges. A .010 patch is mighty thin, you will probably get a better seal and improved accuracy going to a .015 or .018

 

[paulvallandigham]

I think you are also using too heavy a powder charge in that gun. 70 grains of RS is the equivalent to about 90 grains of Goex FFFg powder. You don't need that much push to punch paper at 50 yds. Go back down to 48 grains of Pyro. RS, and use an .018" thick patch fabric. The recoil will be more to your liking, and the gun should shoot very accurately. What your targets are telling me is that as the pits in the bore fill in with crud, you get a better gas seal.

Instead, run a cleaning patch Greased with something like Bore Butter( wonderlube), or a homemade mix of Beeswax and olive oil, before you load the gun for the first shot. The grease will begin to fill in the pores of those rust pits. The Grease also prevents more crud from sticking in the barrel, giving a more even and consistent velocity for shot after shot. Once that grease is in those pits/pores, it only comes out with soap and water, when you clean it.

I don't think you need to INCREASE that powder charge. In fact, I hope you will give Goex FFg and FFFg powders a test with that gun, to see if you don't get tighter groups with them. Oh, If you know someone who has a chronograph, borrow it. It will tell you all kinds of information you need to know to reduce the amount of time and money spent working up an accurate load.

 

[Rhino6]

I think you are also using too heavy a powder charge in that gun. 70 grains of RS is the equivalent to about 90 grains of Goex FFFg powder. You don't need that much push to punch paper at 50 yds. Go back down to 48 grains of Pyro. RS, and use an .018" thick patch fabric. The recoil will be more to your liking, and the gun should shoot very accurately. What your targets are telling me is that as the pits in the bore fill in with crud, you get a better gas seal.

Instead, run a cleaning patch Greased with something like Bore Butter( wonderlube), or a homemade mix of Beeswax and olive oil, before you load the gun for the first shot. The grease will begin to fill in the pores of those rust pits. The Grease also prevents more crud from sticking in the barrel, giving a more even and consistent velocity for shot after shot. Once that grease is in those pits/pores, it only comes out with soap and water, when you clean it.

I don't think you need to INCREASE that powder charge. In fact, I hope you will give Goex FFg and FFFg powders a test with that gun, to see if you don't get tighter groups with them. Oh, If you know someone who has a chronograph, borrow it. It will tell you all kinds of information you need to know to reduce the amount of time and money spent working up an accurate load.

Sounds like good advise, after all half the fun is experimentation. I am new to the black powder thing but have many years of firearms experience in competition and other, always learning.

 

[paulvallandigham]

The only difference between you being New to BP today, and when I was New to BP shooting is the intervening 33 years. Other than that, I think all of us have been NEW- its not a question of how we all begin, but how fast we learn.

Its a heckuva lot easier to learn from other people's mistakes, than by making them all yourself. We didn't have the Internet back when I was 'New". Today, you can go on several forums and learn answers it took years for me to ferret out from other shooters---= or by learning from my own mistakes. :shocked2: :haha: :surrender: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: