Ruined breech plug in CVA hawkens rifle

[Stormin.40]

Thanks for the help, hopefully my next trip to the range will be successful.

Any thoughts as to adjusting the strength of the hammer strike?

 

[1KPerDay]

Should be able to replace the mainspring if necessary, but the experts/greybeards here will have to help you with that. Locks can be complicated.
IMO 90% of the time cap ignition problems can be traced to poor cap/nipple fit, or mushroomed/worn nipples. They don't take a huge amount of force to ignite.

 

[Foto Joe]

Get yer gun to go boom when the cap goes bang before you do surgery on the lock. What caps are you using?

 

[arcticap]

Yes, slap the side of the gun to coax the powder into the drum, and also leave the hammer on 1/2 cock during loading & ramming. The air whooshing out through the nipple during ramming should also assist the powder's entry into the flash channel.

 

[Stormin.40]

I tried CCI as well as both Magnum and Standard Winchester caps, three different caps in all. The CCI caps are over 10 years old.

The hammer hasn't been worked for over 10 years so maybe a little use will loosen and strengthen the strike, I did spray a little gun oil in the lock thinking that would help.

As far as the nipple being worn I used the new nipple that came with the new barrel, I also have a new CVA nipple that I could try. Another thought is the hammer strikes the nipple but not dead center, I didn't see a way to adjust this at all so I figured it was normal. Does the hammer need to strike dead center?

As you can see I don't know much about muzzleloaders but am really looking forward to shooting this one soon.

 

[Foto Joe]

Keep in mind, what I'm about to say comes from a revolver shooter.

If your caps are not going bang each and every time I would tend to wonder first if they are seated all the way. From my limited experience with a muzzle loading rifle (about 30 shots so far) it's kind of nice not to have to worry about a loose cap getting knocked off by recoil and causing an exciting moment. If they go bang on the second strike I'd blame undersized caps that are being seated by the first strike. If they're not going off at all then I'd blame a weak strike.

As far as "slapping" the butt stock, I've been forgetting half the time and so far I've had a total of one mis-fire. That one was due to having crud in the flash channel and necessitated pulling the nipple and adding a little 4f. I definitely didn't enjoy having my fingers that close to the nipple when screwing it back in but it worked.

 

[V1ROT8]

Boy, this sounds so similar to my experience. Bought a CVA rifle right...almost free....and then stored the rifle after I thought a good cleaning. After some years, brought it out of retirement only to be in a mess. Small amount of money here and then something else needed a bit more money. After spending much time and effort..........I bought a brand new CVA rifle. Good shooting, fun, easy to clean. Accurate. Was a good learning process.