CVA 50 cal hawken

Grizzlypeg

Grizzlypeg

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I've inherited my father's 1991 50 cal hawken rifle. There's a little rust visible in the barrel. I'd like to use it for hunting whitetail. I can't see anywhere on the barrel where it shows twist rate. What's the best way to measure this? My father did fire sabots, but I can't comment on to what result. I seem to remember it shooting conical bullets quite well and never having a problem other than the time we were too excited after first assembling it and forgetting the powder went in first.

What would be a good setup for this rifle in terms of best powder (777?), projectile, percussion caps? Is it suitable for deer hunting, and what would you say would be the effective range on whitetail? Are there any updates to the percussion cap system that are possible or recommended?
 
I would use JB paste to clean the rust, as long as it's not too pitted.
To measure the twist, put a damp cleaning patch on a jagger, and mark the end of the ramrod at 12 o'clock, push the ramrod down the bore and watch the mark on the ramrod and count the turns, then measure the length of your barrel to calculate the twist.IIRC they are 1 in 48.
I would use at least 75 grns of FFg or FFFG and #11 remington or CCI caps.
Chers nessy.
 
It will work best with real black powder, but should work ok with 777, or Pyrodex. If you have any conical bullets, try them and you could also try some patched round balls. Round balls are all I ever hunt with now.
 
snowshoe said:
It will work best with real black powder, but should work ok with 777, or Pyrodex. If you have any conical bullets, try them and you could also try some patched round balls. Round balls are all I ever hunt with now.
Click to expand...

Is yours a 50 cal? What charge and distance are you hunting at? (deer, I presume?)
 
I have a .50 cal Lyman Deerstalker with the 1 in 48" twist. I have taken whitetails from 10 ft to 110 yards with a .495 round ball. The load I am using in that rifle is 80g of Pyrodex RS, patches are, pillow ticking from Wal-Mart, liquid Wonderlube for patch lube, and a felt bore button under the patched ball. The best advice I could give is get a book about black powder shooting written by Sam Fadala. It has helped me on my way with load info and the proper care and cleaning of the rifle.
 
Thanks Snowshoe. I got a chance to fire quite a few balls from it this weekend, and I was impressed with the accuracy and consistency of the balls. I am however, clueless about load development. I was using 90 grains, by volume, of 777 powder, and some prelubed patches.
 
90g of 777 is a very stout load. I would drop that back to 70-80g and work on accuracy at 50 and 75 yards. Shoot lots and shoot often, and take care in the cleaning of the rifle in between shoots, and it will last a life time. I do everything on the cheap, like moulding balls, getting patching from Wal-Mart, and have even started to make my own lube. It all brings a smile to my face.
 
A soft lead round ball is all that is needed for deer. Your barrel is probably a 1:48 twist, a compromise to enable the use of ball or bullet.
90 grains is a lot of powder, not unheard of, but really not neccessary. 70 grains should be a good place to start. Remember, some of the great BP cartridge calibers like th 45/70 and 50/70 push heavy conical bullets with about 70 grains of BP.
 
Thanks. I guess I was using that much because I thought it just shy of the 100 grain limit. I didn't realize that 70 grains could get the job done. No wonder the ball was flying 4" higher at 75 yards than my dad had it sighted in for.

The balls are cheap and allow lots of practice with the exact setup for hunting, so that's a good thing. They also seem pretty consistent at 75 yards.
 
Sounds like you are on the right track. Now streach the target out to 100 yards to see where the ball hits. I did a lot of shooting at ranges from 25-100 yards and that enabled me to cleanly take 3 whitetails at around 100 yards, and many more at closer ranges. Most of those fell to the .495 round ball. Good luck and have fun.
 
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