CVA Bobcat

[kingsax26]

happy days!

went to the local "Dubious Quality Used Goods Store" aka: Pawn shop today. Found this nice CVA Bobcat on the rack for 50$ I guess I really couldt argue.... also pickedup 2 boxes of gulf wax and a really nice blanket coat made from a woolrich blanket....total spent was 71.00 $ not a bad day of shopping i guess.

rifle is in pretty good shape....the bore is excellent...but the lock/nipple and tang area have a small amount of pitting ...paid all the care to the barrel but looks like he forgot the rest of the gun lol....but its not world ending .. over all id say it was a decent find... although t he main spring feels kinda weak....is that normalfor cva locks? havnt snapped any caps as of yet to tst it out

 

[Patocazador]

My CVA SxS shotgun had one lock spring that was noticeably weaker than the other. I got a couple of replacement springs from Deer Creek in Indiana.
They have a large inventory of CVA parts for discontinued models.

No website but you can google their phone number.

 

[ohio ramrod]

The Bobcat was a low end model. But it makes a good starter gun. Completely safe and easy to balance for youths or small women by putting lead shot in a sock and stuffing it into the hollow stock and filling the gap with rags. :idunno:

 

[kingsax26]

I was gonna use it as a close range heavy cover deer gun....its not a .54 but i guess .50 will get te job done

 

[Zonie]

I've read those Bobcats are very light weight and I suspect that if this is true, the recoil from a .50 caliber roundball over a hunting load will be severe.

See if the buttplate can be removed and consider adding some lead shot or some other heavy material inside the stock butt.

 

[huntsman247]

I had one of those years ago and if I found one at the price you paid I would definitely have picked it up. Great shooter and the .490 RB and 100 grains FF for hunting load had a surprisingly mild recoil considering the rifles weight. I think you will be happy with it....

 

[Patocazador]

Synthetic stocks seem to take some of the bite out of recoil as compared to a wooden one.

 

[hanshi]

I had the Traditions version (wood stock in this case) and used it for hunting for more than 20 years. That little rascal was accurate, reliable and took deer like there was no tomorrow. Not knowing any better I shot 100 grains of 3F and got great accuracy, 1700 + fps. Velocities were very uniform. These rifles (Traditions, at least) are not the best fitted & finished guns but perform as well as the $1000 ones. They have pretty deep rifling and are custom made for prb.

 

[Don]

The locks on those guns(I own one too)are low end and mine had trouble popping caps. I have purchased replacement main springs from ebay which has helped. Nice accurate guns, inexpensive but very serviceable.

Don

 

[Capnballhunter]

These are great little rifles. 50 bucks = excellent find

 

[tnpaw]

Has anyone taken the drum out! How hard is it! Would like to replace the one on mine!

 

[cynthialee]

Synthetic stocks seem to take some of the bite out of recoil as compared to a wooden one.

???
It doesn't weigh squat. There is nothing there to eat up some of the recoil.

I had to put a few pounds of lead in the buttstock to tame my synthetic stocked Mt Stalker. Calmed allot of the recoil, but it is still a cheek slapper.

 

[bubba.50]

hey tnpaw, look around here & find necchi's pik of a cutaway breech and you'll see why you should never try to remove the drum from a traditions/cva barrel.

 

[tnpaw]

Thanks bubba I will!

 

[crockett]

Bryon- I received a similar CVA rifle as a present. That lightweight plastic stock results in a gun that kicks pretty good so I used electrician's tape and taped on a sponge to the butt and another sponge where the cheek piece would be located. My CVA had a fast twist that shot conicals pretty well so I got thinking about how I could fix it up. What I did was a "learning" experience that I really enjoyed. The front ramrod pipe is dovetailed to the barrel so I did a full length re-stock and put a wedge tenon in that front dovetail. TOW sells tiny wedges with angled heads for this type application. I got plain maple for $30 at Woodcrafters and put cast into the stock. To make it look more original I put in more drop at the comb than the plastic stock. Using TOW with the full sized images of their parts, I bought a brass buttplate ($10) and trigger guard ($10). The tigger on your gun is plain so I made a plain trigger that I could pin high in the stock- which gave me about a 2 pound pull. I addded a cap box ($10) and did a very faint faux striping on the plain maple.
I made the wedge plates, nose cap, bought the ramrod pipes. On a short stock for the bobcat you can buy a 26" drill at Harbor Freight Tools (3/8") for $6.00 which will drill the hole okay.
It was a learning experience but I ended up with a pretty good looking gun I can take on an extended trip (Caribou- Canada, etc.) as a back up in case my normal rifle malfunctions.

 

[Mike 56]

I bought one years ago on clearance at Midway for 50.00. It is a great little rifle i shot mine for years with a plastic stock i did not find the recoil bad all. It now lives a walnut stock with homemade hardware i liker it as much as my T/C White mountain carbine.

 

[larry wv]

I have 3 or 4. They are an accurate gun to be as ugly as they are. Larry

 

[cynthialee]

I have 3 or 4. They are an accurate gun to be as ugly as they are. Larry

What is the powder charge you find best in yours?
Mine does great with a charge of 50 grains of 3Fg.

 

[larry wv]

Around 50 3f or so for prb and 80 3f or a bit more as a hunting prb load or conical. Larry

 

[Ron_T.]

happy days!

went to the local "Dubious Quality Used Goods Store" aka: Pawn shop today. Found this nice CVA Bobcat on the rack for 50$ I guess I really couldt argue.... also pickedup 2 boxes of gulf wax and a really nice blanket coat made from a woolrich blanket....total spent was 71.00 $ not a bad day of shopping i guess.

rifle is in pretty good shape....the bore is excellent...but the lock/nipple and tang area have a small amount of pitting ...paid all the care to the barrel but looks like he forgot the rest of the gun lol....but its not world ending .. over all id say it was a decent find... although t he main spring feels kinda weak....is that normalfor cva locks? havnt snapped any caps as of yet to tst it out

*******************************************

My deer hunting rifle is an older percussion-cap, .50 caliber, CVA Hawken "Hunter-Carbine" which has a wooden stock & forearm with the metal painted black and no patch-box. It's not a "fancy" rifle, but it shoots really accurately! It has a 24-inch barrel and weighs a mere 6.5 pounds. It does not have a recoil pad.

My hunting load is very accurate (3 over-lapping shots in a triangle @ 25 yards using iron sights off a solid bench-rest) using 70 grains of FFFg Swiss black powder and yields about 1700 fps with a round, patched Hornady swagged .490 inch rifle ball with a .016-inch cotton patch lubed with a mixture of bee's wax and vegetable oil & a thin vegetable-fiber over-powder-wad.

This load shoots through most deer with a "hit" in the "kill zone" just behind the foreleg... and most deer don't run very far, if they run after the shot at all.

Recoil is very tolerable in this light .50 caliber rifle with this load... and I'm not one to like heavy recoil.

You certainly don't need a big powder charge to get the job done on deer at 80 yards or less... and 80 yards is my maximum range "limit" on taking a shot with the little iron sighted CVA carbine.

You could add a bit of lead shot in the hollow of the stock to help absorb the recoil if you wish, but it may not be necessary with a hunting load of just 70 grains of Swiss FFFg.

I've been told that the Swiss black powder yields about 10% greater muzzle velocity than an equal charge of Goex, but I haven't chronographed the comparison loads to prove it.

BTW, FFFg works just fine in a .50 caliber muzzle-loader. :thumbsup:


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.