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Re-Barreled my St.Louis Hawken

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Frontier's

Buckskins & Black Powder
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So earlier today while I was looking through my stock pile of parts, I found a 15/16" .50cal CVA Hawken barrel with the 1:48 twist and deep rifling. It was the horrible 3 step crown design which makes loading patched round balls a real booger because its so tight.

The barrel was not a drop in. I know, Traditions, CVA, should be the same thing, but no. The CVA Barrels hooked tang was longer and had a different angle on it. I spent some time fitting it to the traditions tang until the barrel fit in nicely with just the tiniest amount of pressure when you seated it fully in the stock. The drum was way off, so I removed it, cleaned up all the threads and de-greased everything. Re-installed the drum with a little blue loctite on it to keep things firm and got the nipple lined up perfectly with the hammer. I can even use a musket cap without any issues.

Next, the barrel tenon on the cva hawken barrel is 2" forward of where the traditions goes. So off to the vice and I used the tradtional hacksaw/file method and got it done nice and tight. Everything lined up perfectly, wedge key is really snug to where I have to tap it out. And that is the way I like my wedge key to be.

I installed some spare sights and late this evening, I loaded up 70gr 3fg gearhart owen, .020" patch, .490 round balls and went for a test shoot!

First try at 65 yards. Final 3 shots of the evening were at the bottom. Super happy! I really want this barrel to shoot conicals. I HATE the crown on this barrel with patched round ball. This crown design has a bad habit of cutting patches. Luckily today, all recovered patches looked like new. Very smooth loading barrel, just a bit tight at the muzzle due to that 3 step crown design. When I brown the barrel, I'll use a little brass shim stock and fill in under the rear sight dovetail to snug it up a bit.

Now why?? Because we have to use conicals in our 50cals in Colorado for elk and moose. Im a big elk hunter and so, that left my .490" round ball out of the story. Rather than leading up my traditions barrel which shoots round balls so accurately, I decided to find something else that i could swap out when i need to shoot conicals. HOPEFULLY this CVA Hawken barrel will do the job with conical bullets.

And yes, I am looking for a 54cal barrel to fit to this one now!! LOL

I'll try some conicals in a couple days and see how they do.
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Yea that is a problem with the pictures. I haven't posted any pictures for many years due to problems. The woodworking site I often visit also has a problem with pictures, some days I can post them some days they just don't post! I guess computers and traditional muzzle loaders have a "Time period gap"
 
Just an attempt to post a picture following the instructions from the forum. It appears to work for me,so I'll probably be posting more pictures if it works next time! Thanks for the instructions Zonie
 

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