Shooting issue

[fcderosa]

I'm still having the issue with the .50 CVA mountain rifle shooting. I replaced the mainspring and went back out to the range today. She's dead on at 50 yards

but only 1 strike in six fires a cap. To me that equates to; I don't trust to hunt with. I checked the hammer strike itself and it's not center cup of the hammer. It's like the 12 o'clock portion of the cup is almost grazing the edge of the nipple (x marks the spot). 1 to 2 more millimeters and the edge of the hammer would be resting on top of the nipple.

Do I heat and bend the hammer to strike center cup and then re-harden it, or do I just replace the hammer.

 

[necchi]

You can heat and bend it.
Remove it of course, then I place the hammer in a bench vise to hold and act as a heat sink.
Find a small box end wrench that'll fit over the hammer head but small enough to use as a lever to bend,
Heat it to red. And bend just a little.
I've never found the need to re-harden after bending.

Once it clears the nipple proper the next fitting issue is the hammer face inside the cup.
Find something like lipstick or inletting black and put a little on the top of the nipple, lower the hammer to contact, then look at the mark inside the cup left by the inletting color.
It should be a circle like the top of the nipple, if it's not then a small grinding stone for a dremel can be used to remove material from the hammer face until the hammer has full contact with the nipple.
Get it?

I've done this hammer face/nipple fitting to all of my rifles. It's advice from Our now lost member PaulV.
I'll see if I can find it.

 

[Rat Trapper]

How did you know I too, was going to ask this question?? Need to apply this info on a GM barrel.

 

[necchi]

Here's the quoted fix from Paul Vallandigham;

Replace the nipple. Its worn down, from too many blows. The original owner was either too lazy, or uninformed on how and where to find replacement nipples. You should be able to see a small bulge in the trunk or "neck" of the nipple, just back of the rim.

If you also see that the nipple's rim is beaten down more on one side, it means that the face of the hammer is not squared to the top of the nipple. Get a narrow Dremel Tool grinding bit from your hardware store, ( a steel shaft with a long narrow round grinding stone) to chuck into a power hand drill.

Now use lipstick or some other marking dye to paint the rim of the nipple. Lower the hammer down onto a brand new nipple to transfer dye to the face of the hammer, inside the skirt. Lift the hammer back to its full cock notch and turn thee lock in your hand to you can see the face of the hammer. I do this work with the lock in the stock, rotating the gun, and always pointing the barrel of my UNLOADED gun in a safe direction.I then use the grinding bit to grind away the steel under the dye, as the dye will show the "High" spots.

Lower the hammer again to mark the face again, to see how much of an improvement you have made. It the dye starts getting thin, give the rim another coat of dye. Keep grinding the high spots down until you achieve a complete "donut" ring of dye on the face of the hammer.

Now, the face is squared to the nipple. Because all the rim is taking the hammer blow when a cap is fired, less damage is done to the nipple, and it will last much longer! Because the new nipple will let you put the cap fully down on the nipple, each cap will now fire on the first blow of the hammer. Because the hammer now hits squarely on the rim of the nipple, you get reliable ignition from every cap.

 

[Idaho Ron]

That is basically how I do it. Instead of a wrench to bend with I use a small black iron pipe nipple. I heat the hammer and use the pipe to bend. I also do the thumb part to on some guns. Ron

 

[Kapow]

I wouldn't even bother with the heat to bend the hammer just a touch. I did mine on my CVA Mtn rifle without heat and it worked a treat. It goes bang every time now. I also have an R&l replacement lock for it but haven't tried it yet.

I think there is a lot of value in cleaning the lock parts thoroughly and spraying with wd40. A new nipple won't hurt - preferably a spitfire.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I wouldn't even bother with the heat to bend the hammer just a touch. I did mine on my CVA Mtn rifle without heat and it worked a treat.

That sounds risky to me. :shocked2: Cast parts aren't normally very maleable.
I have never tried bending a CVA part but the TC stuff is super tough and requires quite a bit of heat to make it bendable.

 

[necchi]

Yeah, you got lucky! :wink:
I've seen many-many folks break the hammer cold bending

 

[mooman76]

If it was bending it to the side I might try to bend it without heat but it seems since it's hitting 12 o'clock I would think bending it backward the stress would be too much to risk.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

A taller nipple as suggested in the quote from Paul V.

I had a similar problem with a CVA Frontier rifle. Just the thickness of a brass nipple flash cup installed under the nipple corrected the problem.

 

[Kentuckywindage]

Replace the nipple with a hot shot. If the first hammer blow doesnt set a cap off, thats usually the nipple being bulged out and the first hammer strike seats the nipple and then goes off on the next shot. When i install a cap, i slowly let the hammer down and seat the cap with the hammer by pushing against it.

 

[azmntman]

I do the same thing on a few rifles, one of two cabelas .54 hawkins in specificity.

 

[Kapow]

Good to know. I am not a huge fan of that lock anyway. The RL replacement seems to be much stronger. I just wish I had bought a flint version so I could do a conversion.

 

[George T.]

Yeah I had to do that years ago on a Mowery.

Once bent I reheated it and dropped it into old motor oil. Came out as hard as flint.

Geo. T.

 

[58CAL]

Why would you have to harden the hammer?

 

[Stony Broke]

I think you just have too short of a nipple. A longer nipple should center up things better and make for a flatter strike on the nipple.
I have bent hammers in the past but without actually putting my hands on your rifle and examining it myself, I would say it probably doesn't need it unless you just want to shoot short nipples.

 

[AZbpBurner]

My 2 newest cap rifles were both bought used; one hardly used to the point it still had what appeared to be original grease around the breech hook and lock plate.

Oddly enough both had short nipples - I had ordered the correct part number for Ampco Nipples made to fit, and both were noticeably longer. The hammer hits both square on without any need for bending and breaking the hammers.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Agreed, I have had the same thing happen. Sometimes I can just dress up the top edge of the nipple where the bulge/burr forms with a file or on my belt sander and that fixes it .at some point every nipple wears out and you have to get a new one.

 

[Rat Trapper]

Today my buddy and I bent the hammer on my TC Hawken to fit the 40 cal Green Mountain barrel. Boy did it take a lot of heat and work to get it bent correctly too. Had to get the top of the hammer bent up to hit center. In the end, the project went pretty well and it is now as centered as can be.

 

[fcderosa]

Thanks Necchi :thumbsup: it worked like a charm. Every strike fires a cap now. I centered the cup, ground the inside of the hammer a little at a time till I saw a circle, and replaced the nipple with a Hot Shot nipple. It works great now.


I learned propane is not hot enough to do the job, oxy acetalene is, but will heat up the box end just as quickly, :rotf: and that's what aloe vera plants are for. Ended up having to re-brown the hammer and lock plate to match. Overall I'm very pleased with the results, got another keeper.