Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Muzzleloaders Got the 58 out on the range

Been putting together my CVA Hawken together since September.

32" 1:66 twist barrel from Deer Creek, .58cal

Love this gun!

Ive updated the front sight since this pic was taken, it now uses a steel front blade sight. The rear sight is off a Marlin 336 30-30 and the elevation adjustments actually work!

The rifle is just pure joy when shooting a .570" ball wrapped in a .018" patch makes for a tight fit, but she does good with that and 100gr Pyrodex RS.





Lone shot is on a clean bore, Seems like it might prefer a fouled bore. Shots 2 and 3 made my heart melt! @ 50 yards.


Not completely ready yet, But I made a new buffler possibles bag and a new capper/palm saver. Its pretty big for hunting, so its a field shooting/rendezvous bag. I will make a much smaller bag later on for hunting. Beads and some turkey feathers will be added on later.

I also ordered a .562" ball mold by Lee, 300 .020" patches and a box of .570" balls for hunting. I want the smaller ball for fun shooting/rendezvous. Nothing annoys me worse than having to swab at a shoot.

thats sweet i have a tc bigbore in 58 i cant get it to shoot very good any ideas

honestly, ive had 2 renegades last year and each of them got sold for the same reason you have. I think its that crappy shallow rifling that limits their accuracy. I could do great 50 yards, but you take it out another 25 yards and accuracy was around 6 inches. Had enough of that and went back to the CVA brand sidelock.

Just picked up a 50cal Plainsman to play with as well.

Nice. I was shooting my .54 yesterday, and found accuracy decent but loading difficult with .535 balls and .020 patches. I ordered some .015 patches today, so hopefully it will be a touch easier to work with. The barrel is a Douglas from the 1970's, and the load is 80 gr of Swiss FFFg

I'm surprised you got it loaded. I use .530 ball-.015 patch, or .535 ball-.010 patch.

When the bore's clean, it's no big deal. I tried some .530's first and it was not impressive, but I may try them again with the new patches and see if it does better.

535 with a .020 patch is waaay to much! Try a .015 patch with tha 535.

Thanks, yes the .015 patches are on order. Congrats again on your .58, sorry if I highjacked the thread.

Good on you for putting that rifle to work. I love traditional side-lock guns. Sure would like to see more of them being used around here.

VERY nice! Beautiful rifle!

I have not had the issues some have had getting my .54 cal TC New Englander or Renegade to shoot decent groups at 100yds.

Hornady .535 balls, lubed .015 patches, 90 gr. fffG Goex does the trick in both rifles.

Ed

Very nice!

Nice job on the rifle big block .
One question though , did they not sent you inlays for the barrel key ?
Not a real issue if you didn�t use them , I was just wondering is all .

Looks like she will shoot very well . I wouldn�t be so quick to jump to the single shot being a flier caused by an un fouled barrel just yet . Especially if this was the first round from this barrel . You may find that this will quickly pull in with a little more shooting
Your patches look very good and are holding the charge well . It does show alittle blow by on the left hand patch . So if this patch was from your first shot that may account for the higher POI
If she continually throws that first shot off , I would start keeping track of the POI of that first round is .
I don�t see the same thing though on the right hand patch , so this could have been the barrel wants to be fouled OR it could have simply been the ball being just a fraction out .

As to a .535 rb and .020 patch .
It may or may not be to big depends on the actual size of the bore . If the bore is actually .540 then yes that would be a rather tight combination .
But the chances are very good that the actual bore doesn�t mic to that . So it may work for him well

I would say that great

those were actually under sized patches i use in my 50s. I bought some .020" patches for a 58cal and they look perfect now. I also bought a 562" ball mold. Those things are awesome for accuracy!

Picked up some Clean Shot a few days back, 110gr CS, .020" patch, .562" ball at 50 yards. THREE shots


At 100 yards with 110gr Pyrodex RS, .020" patch and .562" round ball, it will print a 2" group. I cant ask for more than that IMO.

OOPS also, the wedge key plates i have, i just am having a hard time finding steel screws. I bought some brass screws that were factory and the heads snapped off trying to install them.

. you can pick the screws up through ToW or muzzleloader builder supply .
steer clear of the ones at the HW stores . most times they are Zink plated screws and snap as easily as brass .
the other place you can look is at places like Tower hobbies or Hobby lobby , in the RC section . good screws are still often used for those applications on high end model building

PS , always pre drill your holes