trnpkroadwarrior
Member
Got a question for the wise men here.
I built one of those Cabela's Hawken kits this winter (they were on sale, $200!) in percussion cap form. Up until today I've put about 30 rounds through it and everything has been honkey-dorey. I've been shooting 777 through it so far. All patched ball. I started around 50gr FFg and then have been moving things up. I think 70-75gr is my sweet spot, but I wanted to try to take it a little higher to see what that was all about. I believe the manual says I'm safe up to 90 or so.
So, today I worked it up to 90. On the second shot, after the big boom and more smoke than usual, I noticed my finger was hurting. Then, I noticed it was bleeding. A small cut, like something you might do if you'd slipped with a pocket knife. I checked to see if I could have slipped with my hand and hit a sharp object on the gun, but the sharpest thing there was the barrel retaining pin, and it's not that sharp.
It appears that what happened was that the percussion cap - or some shrapnel from it - flew forward and cut my ring finger. There was nothing embedded in the finger. This illustrates nicely to me why I should always wear safety goggles at the range - and yes, I had them on, though I was really only doing that because I was working up the load.
I loaded up again at 80 and I could have sworn I felt something hit my finger again, but maybe it was just that cut being disturbed from the recoil. I tend to think it wasn't though, and this was another projectile cap.
So is this an indication something is messed up? I have noticed that the hammer strikes the percussion cap on the bottom part of the hammer - not dead center. I didn't change their inletting, so I figured this was within tolerance. All the parts are mounted using factory inletting.
If this is a normal way for the hammer to meet the cap, are there aftermarket hammers out there that address these kind of problems? The little 1/16" lip on the hammer face is not cutting it for retention of the caps, clearly. They often are nowhere to be seen after I shoot. The only other thing I know of to do would be to switch to one of those rifle/shotgun primer conversion nipples that enclose the primer. I'd like to keep it simple, however.
Any suggestions you can offer to deal with this would be appreciated. It's not a big cut, but I know my eye would not have done as well as my finger if it had gone the other way.
I built one of those Cabela's Hawken kits this winter (they were on sale, $200!) in percussion cap form. Up until today I've put about 30 rounds through it and everything has been honkey-dorey. I've been shooting 777 through it so far. All patched ball. I started around 50gr FFg and then have been moving things up. I think 70-75gr is my sweet spot, but I wanted to try to take it a little higher to see what that was all about. I believe the manual says I'm safe up to 90 or so.
So, today I worked it up to 90. On the second shot, after the big boom and more smoke than usual, I noticed my finger was hurting. Then, I noticed it was bleeding. A small cut, like something you might do if you'd slipped with a pocket knife. I checked to see if I could have slipped with my hand and hit a sharp object on the gun, but the sharpest thing there was the barrel retaining pin, and it's not that sharp.
It appears that what happened was that the percussion cap - or some shrapnel from it - flew forward and cut my ring finger. There was nothing embedded in the finger. This illustrates nicely to me why I should always wear safety goggles at the range - and yes, I had them on, though I was really only doing that because I was working up the load.
I loaded up again at 80 and I could have sworn I felt something hit my finger again, but maybe it was just that cut being disturbed from the recoil. I tend to think it wasn't though, and this was another projectile cap.
So is this an indication something is messed up? I have noticed that the hammer strikes the percussion cap on the bottom part of the hammer - not dead center. I didn't change their inletting, so I figured this was within tolerance. All the parts are mounted using factory inletting.
If this is a normal way for the hammer to meet the cap, are there aftermarket hammers out there that address these kind of problems? The little 1/16" lip on the hammer face is not cutting it for retention of the caps, clearly. They often are nowhere to be seen after I shoot. The only other thing I know of to do would be to switch to one of those rifle/shotgun primer conversion nipples that enclose the primer. I'd like to keep it simple, however.
Any suggestions you can offer to deal with this would be appreciated. It's not a big cut, but I know my eye would not have done as well as my finger if it had gone the other way.
