Patched ball shooter arrived!

[MountainDevil54]

Fedex dropped her off at noon today! 

CVA Mountain Rifle .50cal 1:66 twist & 32" barrel. The stock is Maple and I may refinish the entire rifle to glam it up a bit. I think I've only had one sidelock so far that I haven't refinished due to my picky taste 

Went and ran about 40 strokes with Remington 40x bore cleaner to make sure what ever was down there was out and the bore was clean. The bore turned out to be spotless inside and loaded like greased snot with a .490" patched ball and .020" patch. I want to shoot it but of all things, It has decided to lightly rain on me.

[Hangfire]

I bought a CVA mountain rifle kit about 1980. The wood was good figured birdseye maple. I put it together and put a iron entry thimble  and caste a pewter cap, more like a Hawkin. Shot monthly with the Columbia River Cap and Flinters at Wolverton Mtn out of Vancouver. This was a very good shooting rifle. I won a few turkeys with it and shot a buck in Klickitat county. It started to loose some accuracy after a couple of years shooting every month at matches so I bought a Green River Lehman kit,  1 inch across flats, 50 cal and 36 inch barrel. The green river had a choked barrel made a excellent cross sticks gun, but heavy to pack all day hunting. The CVA was a very good gun. I used ,495 round ball with 80 gr fffg and Crisco lubed pillow ticking. I never had any trouble with it. Your gun is nice looking  enjoy. I think I paid $65.00 for the kit on special in Vancouver.

[oneshot12]

  This was one of my first  Muzzle loaders   got it back in the early 70s  build it from a kit  and got hooked good and porper too  killed a nice white tail deer with  it ans took a few respectable spots at a few club shoots Too   not a bad gun  so when it was time passed it on to my step son and hes still shoots  it   

[Heredoggydoggy]

Wow...nice!  It's rare to see a Hawken so accurately made.  FWIW, most of the old percussion guns had Maple stocks, Hawkens included.  I built my Hawken with a Maple stock blank. 

[Ghost Hunter]

Sweet looking gun.

[AWS]

Great old guns.  I have two a 58 cal percussion that I used for log cutting matches and deer hunting and a 45 cal flintlock that was my main target gun and predator hunting rig.

[MountainDevil54]

I started restoring it a couple weeks ago, just taking my time with the sanding, 60 grit tends to remove skin easily lol.

[Heredoggydoggy]

60 Grit!  Never used anything that coarse!  Well, I did use a 50-grit belt on a belt sander to sand across the grain on some Cedar 2x4s to fake resaw pattern for the corner boards on my house.  It even faked out my buddy the cabinet maker!    All I ever used for woodworking projects was 80 grit, and even then it was only if I wanted to take off a LOT of material... 

[jackmaster]

Killed my first elk with a 50 cal hawkin, fun smoke pole to shoot, the only thing I dislike about it is when you Jack up the charge to shoot maxi balls, it kicks the hell out of your cheek bone...

[Heredoggydoggy]

Killed my first elk with a 50 cal hawkin, fun smoke pole to shoot, the only thing I dislike about it is when you Jack up the charge to shoot maxi balls, it kicks the hell out of your cheek bone...

The reason it kicks the hell out of you, is it's a heavier hunk of lead.  when I shot Maxi-balls out of my .54 cal. Hawken, it was a killer on both ends!  Patched balls were a joy to shoot, and oddly enough, even though the twist was for the hunting slugs, it shot patched round balls just as accurately... 

[MountainDevil54]

yeah the stain used sucked in deeply so I had to go that rough course to get it out. Its okay, you use a sanding block, wet the stock, dry and sand, it helps speed up the process. After all the stain is removed I will steam the stock and block sand with 100 grit then 220.

[Red leaf 67]

   A friend of mine has one of these rifles. I think he built it as a kit & changed the trigger guard to a J S Hawken type. Nice rifle,great shooter. I think the longer barrel & two wedges make it especially nice,also old enough when CVA made a better product!          Red Leaf

[C-Money]

Nice looking project!!