Small screw on a TC Hawken ?

[Problem Child]

Newby question.....what is the small screw on the side of the breech plug on the Hawken?

 

[ezyed]

Most likley a clean out screw. best left alone. The new ones don't even have them.

 

[Zonie]

It is actually a plug used by the manufacturer to plug the hole that connects the cavity under the nipple to the breech's powder chamber (a under bore sized hole in line with the bore and located in the breech plug).

When drilled from the outside, the hole needs to be plugged and that is the purpose of this screw.

Some guns which have a powder chamber also have a hole that connects it with the cavity under the nipple but their hole is drilled from the powder chamber or barrel side rather than from the outside. Because there is no external hole when this is done, no external screw will be found.

Some folks remove this screw when they are cleaning their gun. Doing so allows them to run a pipe cleaner thru the connecting hole to remove the fouling.
Others don't like the risk of damaging the screws slot so they never remove the screw and instead, run the pipe cleaner down thru the flame channel by removing the nipple and sticking the pipe cleaner in thru the nipple hole.

The most useful thing I've found for removing this screw is when I have "dry-balled", or loaded the ball without a powder charge.
Removing the screw and trickleing some fine grain loose powder down into the flame channel hole is pretty easy. Then replacing the little screw and capping the nipple the "dry balled" load can be shot downrange.
In guns which don't have this external screw/hole the same sort of discharging a "dry ball" can be done simply by removing the nipple and trickeling the powder into the flame channel thru the threaded nipple hole. Then by replacing the nipple and capping it the same ball removal technique can be used.

 

[Rat Trapper]

Check to see if the screw can be removed. If it is not already stuck, take it out and put breech plug grease on the threads. TC can provide you with a replacement screw that uses an allen wrench. If it is not stuck, always remove it and regrease the threads every time you clean the rifle. If you do not you will not be able to get it out the next time. If it is stuck, leave it alone.

 

[RonT]

Is it true that the early barrels had a flat plug vs. the screw? any idea when this changed?
TIA,
R

 

[Zonie]

As I recall, the earlier TC's had the plug and the later ones didn't.

As for the time period when the changes were made we'll have to wait for Roundball, our resident TC Hawken expert.

 

[RonT]

Thanks Z, just took one in on a debt, no "Black Powder Only", cross hole plugged w/blued "slug", Ser. 123XXX. Had about a pint of Yellow snot in bore, clean as a whistle.
R

 

[KentuckyMan]

Yeah for both my Hawkins, and Kentucky Pistol I have the same little screw known as the Bolster Screw.

I figure this was use for cleaning, but never knew about the dry firing part.

 

[Problem Child]

Thanks guys. Mine's stuck so I think I'll leave it alone. :surrender:

 

[eaglesnester]

I have a brand new hawken 50 from T/C and my little screw is direct on top of the breech about 1/16" in from the back of the breech.

 

[roundball]

That's a dummy screw that can be removed and the hole used to anchor the rear end of their Weaver scope mount base if you wanted to put a scope on the ML

 

[StewartLeach]

Ron T:

I have two early Renegades, one a right hand 50 cal and the other a left hand 54 cal kit rifle. In each instance the passage from nipple area to powder chamber was drilled from the opposite side, then plugged. The plugs are ground down flat with the contour of the breech. Not removeable. The only way you can tell they are there is the slightly different way the metal of the plugs took the finish color.

The lefty 54 has a lot of rounds through it, with only a few bobbles. A real fine elk swatter when using Lee Improved Minie bullet. My only gripe about Renegades is the rather narrow edge on the top of the stock- hurts my cheek when loaded heavily for game.

White Fox

 

[gustogristo]

Hi chasing a size for thos little screw

 

[ryoung14]

Many of the Italian replicas have those screws as well. There is a difference on some, however. The Lyman/Investarms guns use those screws as a sort of lockscrew on the nipple. IOW, the end of the screw butts up against the threads of the nipple.

If you remove the nipple without first backing off the clean out/lock screw, you will damage the threads on the nipple. Probably won't be enough to render the nipple unusable, but will make subsequent removals and reinstallations more difficult.

 

[Grenadier1758]

The flash channel plug, often called a clean out screw, is not needed as a lock on the nipple, it's simply bad manufacturing specifications. The should have required a shorter screw. The good news is that can be easily corrected. Remove that flash channel plug. Run a correct sized nut on the threads, exposing a few threads. Grind the exposed threads off. Here you can remove the Dremel tool from the safe to remove those extra threads. Reinstall the plug screw with some anti-sieze lubricant and your nipple will be easy to remove for cleaning. You can leave the plug installed or pretend it's a cleaning out screw and remove it for flushing the barrel while cleaning.

 

[Bad Karma]