Just a follow up on an earlier post. I received the CVA St Louis Hawken the other day. It had seen better days, but it looked salvagable. The bonus was that the stock was indeed walnut.
The serial number on the barrel has an "83" next to it, which I'm assuming is the manufactured year. My CVA Hunter-Hawken is stamped "89", which sounds right from my recollection.
There were some handling marks and dings in the stock, but nothing major. The outside of the barrel was missing most of the bluing, but not very rusty. The inside had some surface rust and a nice crud ring in the breech where the gun had sat loaded for so long.
I scrubbed down the stock w/ pledge, took a brillo and then brasso to the brass hardware, scrubbed down everything else with a toothbrush, and then started on the barrel. I managed to use a pick to clean the powder drum threads, and a new nipple put that area back like it should have been. Then I started on the bore. Breech plug wasn't moving, so I started the tedious job of bronze-brushing the bore clean.
After a few hours, it was resembling a bore again, but I was still hitting a few rough spots from rust and caked-on powder. I finally put some solvent on a few patches and left them sit on the rough spots for a while at a time, wire brushing afterwords to break up the junk.
Finally on Sunday,I felt the bore was good enough to try to shoot a PRB out of it. I selected 60 grain of powder and hip-shot it without looking directly at it in case the powder drum or nipple didn't like me. It fired great, so I upped it to 70 grain of powder and touched off another PRB. Again flawless performance, and the bore was starting to look better.
The final shot I took out of it was another 70gr loaded PRB. I set up a wooden block about 4"x6" at 15 yards away. Looking down the barrel and wishing I had sights, I touched off the last round. To my amazement, the block of wood jumped off the straw bale it was sitting on for a direct hit! I think I'm in business. :grin:
Next step is to put a fresh coat of tungoil on the stock, find a brass thimble and ramrod, and grab a set of sights and I'll have her in the woods knocking down whitetail! :thumbsup:
Anonym
The serial number on the barrel has an "83" next to it, which I'm assuming is the manufactured year. My CVA Hunter-Hawken is stamped "89", which sounds right from my recollection.
There were some handling marks and dings in the stock, but nothing major. The outside of the barrel was missing most of the bluing, but not very rusty. The inside had some surface rust and a nice crud ring in the breech where the gun had sat loaded for so long.
I scrubbed down the stock w/ pledge, took a brillo and then brasso to the brass hardware, scrubbed down everything else with a toothbrush, and then started on the barrel. I managed to use a pick to clean the powder drum threads, and a new nipple put that area back like it should have been. Then I started on the bore. Breech plug wasn't moving, so I started the tedious job of bronze-brushing the bore clean.
After a few hours, it was resembling a bore again, but I was still hitting a few rough spots from rust and caked-on powder. I finally put some solvent on a few patches and left them sit on the rough spots for a while at a time, wire brushing afterwords to break up the junk.
Finally on Sunday,I felt the bore was good enough to try to shoot a PRB out of it. I selected 60 grain of powder and hip-shot it without looking directly at it in case the powder drum or nipple didn't like me. It fired great, so I upped it to 70 grain of powder and touched off another PRB. Again flawless performance, and the bore was starting to look better.
The final shot I took out of it was another 70gr loaded PRB. I set up a wooden block about 4"x6" at 15 yards away. Looking down the barrel and wishing I had sights, I touched off the last round. To my amazement, the block of wood jumped off the straw bale it was sitting on for a direct hit! I think I'm in business. :grin:
Next step is to put a fresh coat of tungoil on the stock, find a brass thimble and ramrod, and grab a set of sights and I'll have her in the woods knocking down whitetail! :thumbsup:
Anonym
