Greetings and salutations!
My name is Jeff, I go by Dusthawk, and I am a 52 year old in Mishawaka.
I'm relatively new to muzzle-loading and have found my niche with it. I quite enjoy pretty much everything about it.
In the year since I started I have collected quite the menagerie of rifles and pistols. My first was a gift from my dad, a Thompson Center Hawken in .50 cal. Unfortunately it hung on his wall, loaded, in Georgia, for about 10 years. When I got home from the visit down there I got down to work. The stock was in pretty good shape and the barrel was clean and well oiled. The brass was very dull. Step one, removed the bullet and sabot from the barrel. That took hours to clean out. The powder had cemented in there so bad that 3 dunkings in boiling soapy water finally loosened it up to get the last remnants out and I finally cleared the barrel. Then spent two more hours scrubbing and cleaning the bore until I removed virtually all of the pitting except down near the flash hole. The pitting was minimal and since no bullet would ever be down that far I saw no need to achieve a perfect sheen. Then I spent another hour polishing all the brass with Nevrdull. The result was an absolutely beautiful rifle. The following week saw me at the range taking my first shots with it. Absolute dream to fire. My eyes aren't so great so I kept the targets out at the 50 yard range and was getting pretty good groupings, about 2 inches for every three rounds.
Next I purchased a CVA Maghunter in .50 cal. Nice rifle. Clean and zero rust. Bore wasn't perfect so I worked on it and improved it as much as I could with a scotchbrite pad. I added a scope and used a laser to get on target, then dialed in the scope to 150 yards. What a dream to shoot!!!
My next acquisition was a Traditions Buckhunter pistol in .50 cal. It was gifted to me by a client at my job. It didn't have iron sights but was ready for a scope mount so I bought a red dot sight and installed it. What a remarkable pistol!!!! Not much good beyond 30 yards but very accurate out to 25.
Within the last month and a half I have obtained several more rifles and a revolver. A CVA Wolf Magnum in .50 cal, a Traditions Cap and Ball revolver in .44 cal, a CVA Hawken in .50 cal from my brother with a broken mainspring, a Knight Original Disc in .50 cal, and a Navy Arms Mule Ear in .50 cal.
I purchased the Knight and the Mule Ear a few days ago from an estate sale buyout. I have everything I need except for a nipple and barrel wedge for the Mule Ear and a ramrod for the Knight. The ramrod should be easy enough to find but I can't find Mule Ear parts ANYWHERE!
I have not shot the Wolf, Knight, or Mule Ear as of yet but that will change later today as I am training a friend about black powder with the CVA Hawken I gifted him for his birthday. I'm not sure I will get to fire the Mule Ear because I still have to get it cleaned out and see if the nipple can be lightly filed to square it back up. The previous owner used this nipple beyond its typical life so we shall see. The barrel wedge is functional but improper tools were used to extract it at some point and there are some pretty sharp bits on the head of it.
Anyway, I think I've bored y'all enough for today. Have a wonderful day and stay safe out there!
I'm not a gunsmith by any measure, but I truly enjoy working on and restoring muzzleloaders to functionality.
My name is Jeff, I go by Dusthawk, and I am a 52 year old in Mishawaka.
I'm relatively new to muzzle-loading and have found my niche with it. I quite enjoy pretty much everything about it.
In the year since I started I have collected quite the menagerie of rifles and pistols. My first was a gift from my dad, a Thompson Center Hawken in .50 cal. Unfortunately it hung on his wall, loaded, in Georgia, for about 10 years. When I got home from the visit down there I got down to work. The stock was in pretty good shape and the barrel was clean and well oiled. The brass was very dull. Step one, removed the bullet and sabot from the barrel. That took hours to clean out. The powder had cemented in there so bad that 3 dunkings in boiling soapy water finally loosened it up to get the last remnants out and I finally cleared the barrel. Then spent two more hours scrubbing and cleaning the bore until I removed virtually all of the pitting except down near the flash hole. The pitting was minimal and since no bullet would ever be down that far I saw no need to achieve a perfect sheen. Then I spent another hour polishing all the brass with Nevrdull. The result was an absolutely beautiful rifle. The following week saw me at the range taking my first shots with it. Absolute dream to fire. My eyes aren't so great so I kept the targets out at the 50 yard range and was getting pretty good groupings, about 2 inches for every three rounds.
Next I purchased a CVA Maghunter in .50 cal. Nice rifle. Clean and zero rust. Bore wasn't perfect so I worked on it and improved it as much as I could with a scotchbrite pad. I added a scope and used a laser to get on target, then dialed in the scope to 150 yards. What a dream to shoot!!!
My next acquisition was a Traditions Buckhunter pistol in .50 cal. It was gifted to me by a client at my job. It didn't have iron sights but was ready for a scope mount so I bought a red dot sight and installed it. What a remarkable pistol!!!! Not much good beyond 30 yards but very accurate out to 25.
Within the last month and a half I have obtained several more rifles and a revolver. A CVA Wolf Magnum in .50 cal, a Traditions Cap and Ball revolver in .44 cal, a CVA Hawken in .50 cal from my brother with a broken mainspring, a Knight Original Disc in .50 cal, and a Navy Arms Mule Ear in .50 cal.
I purchased the Knight and the Mule Ear a few days ago from an estate sale buyout. I have everything I need except for a nipple and barrel wedge for the Mule Ear and a ramrod for the Knight. The ramrod should be easy enough to find but I can't find Mule Ear parts ANYWHERE!
I have not shot the Wolf, Knight, or Mule Ear as of yet but that will change later today as I am training a friend about black powder with the CVA Hawken I gifted him for his birthday. I'm not sure I will get to fire the Mule Ear because I still have to get it cleaned out and see if the nipple can be lightly filed to square it back up. The previous owner used this nipple beyond its typical life so we shall see. The barrel wedge is functional but improper tools were used to extract it at some point and there are some pretty sharp bits on the head of it.
Anyway, I think I've bored y'all enough for today. Have a wonderful day and stay safe out there!
I'm not a gunsmith by any measure, but I truly enjoy working on and restoring muzzleloaders to functionality.
