Got my dad's old cva mountain stalker

It is a .50 Cal percussion rifle. He never took care of it. He also passed away in January of 2018. So now it's up to me to fix it. The barrel is full of rust and I'm gonna guess a good bit of powder residue from him never cleaning it. My best guess is that it needs to be put through an electrolysis treatment and reblued. I've been cleaning on the barrel for at least an hour and I still can't see any light coming through the breech plug into the barrel.

Always nice to be able to keep some things in the family.
Sorry to hear there is a good bit of restoration to be done. Make sure there is not a ball and charge still in it. That amount of time it's probably going to be unfixable as far as making a shooter. It might be better to send it out to be bored up to a 54 or bite the bullet and find a new barrel. How is the lock? If all that is salvageable is the stock preserving it as a wall hanger for prosperity might be best. Should you want to indulge in the shooting experience be patient, shop around and I'm sure you can find one just like it. Good luck.

Work on it ,,then decide what to do with it,

If you are going to reblue the barrel buy some evapo rust and pour it down the barrel and leave it overnight. Al your rust will be gone when you dump it out. It will eat the bluing off the barrel as well.

You may have already checked this but run a ramrod down your barrel and see if it goes all the way down, your gum may be loaded if you can scrub and still not see light at the end of the tunnel.

I’m assuming you haven’t removed the breech plug and if not I don’t recommend trying to take it out.

I’ve never really been able to see light coming in from the breech on a rifle with a patent breech similar to what CVA uses even with the nipple removed and a bright light. With the nipple out can you blow air through the barrel or pump water in and out when cleaning with soapy water. If you can do this, then you know the barrel and breech is clear.

The next step is to clean the barrel and see how bad the rifling is. If it is pitted but still has pretty good rifling it may shoot okay for plinking and shorter range hunting (50+-) yards. It will foul more easily and take a little more work to clean but still be usable. I have a couple of rescued rifles that fall into this category. If this is the case, I would just shoot it and enjoy it as Dad’s old rifle. It may not be a rack drive but still a fun gun.

Stormcloud703 said:

It is a .50 Cal percussion rifle. He never took care of it. He also passed away in January of 2018. So now it's up to me to fix it. The barrel is full of rust and I'm gonna guess a good bit of powder residue from him never cleaning it. My best guess is that it needs to be put through an electrolysis treatment and reblued. I've been cleaning on the barrel for at least an hour and I still can't see any light coming through the breech plug into the barrel.

Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum! There is a wealth of good information with the members here.
Do you want this for a wall hanger or a shooter? If you are looking for a shooter, I suggest that before any major work is done, someone examines the bore. If it is pitted after rust removal, I would make it a wall hanger. JMO
Flintlocklar

Welcome to the forum. All good suggestions above.

If it turns out the bore is a pitted mess it could possibly be rebored, but the cost to rebore is about the same as the gun may be worth if you were to sell it. Now if you or your family want to shoot dad’s gun, there is sentimental value to consider. I believe this gun was offered in 54 caliber, so someone like Bobby Hoyt would have to be consulted. Believe he currently charges $150, including return shipping, to rebore a rifled barrel. Not sure if he will do CVAs because of breech design.

If you reach the point where you want to talk to Bobby, here is his contact information. Call him early in the day and let the phone ring. No email or web page, but he will answer your questions and does great work.

Robert Hoyt
Barrel repair
Freischutz Shop,
2379 Mt. Hope Road
Fairfield, Pa. 17320
phone 717-642-6696

I just cleared a loaded barrel by removing nipple, installing grease fitting, then pushing it out with a powered grease gun. The greasy mess is a terrible mess to clean up, but it is an option if you can't clean it any other way.
Sorry for your loss.
My first muzzle loader was a Mountain Stalker with plastic stock, and I killed my first muzzle loader deer with it.
Dan

You didn t ask, but I would just swab and slug out the bbl and breech and shoot it. Start with Green scrubber pads, they work.