Today all the work was caught up on and so I got a bunch of loads put into powder tubes, grabbed a bag of patches, bottle of lube and off I was.


I got my brother to come along as well and he took his .54cal CVA Hawken that I built for him and we tried a new load in both rifles which shot very consistently.


HOT as heck today with the sun glaring right over head which gave us some issues but after the 4th shot, the clouds moved in and helped us out.


We were shooting 50 yards.


Balls were seated with the hickory ramrods I installed.



My brothers load set up,

CVA Hawken .54cal 1:48 twist
.015" patch lubed with buckskinners blend patch lube
.530" round balls
90gr Pyrodex RS



My load set up,
CVA Hawken .58cal 1:66 twist
,015" patch with the same lube
.570" round balls
90gr Pyrodex RS *Unless stated otherwise on the pictures)


I'll start with my targets first.


The FIRST shot of the day was with my hunting load of 80gr jim shockeys gold super powder and my hunting patch lube.



The next 5 shots were with 90gr Pyrodex RS and the buckskinners patch lube which is a shoot all day lube made for the range only.



I took 7 shots total with the RS load and loved it. Great accuracy, nice thump on the arm and NO hang fires. Reloading was easy as well. I also took a couple shots with my brothers .54cal Hawken as you see marked on the target. One shot was with 70gr Jim Shockeys Gold as I ran out of RS.



Now my brothers .54cal CVA Hawken, First shot was loaded with my hunting patch lube before we switched over to the liquid lube.



5 shot group,



On one shot I noticed he loaded the sprue almost sideways. I pointed it out and he said he tries to get it center the best he can but damn! it was halfway sideways when he got it down. His next shot was a hang fire because he never remembers to keep the lock pointed away from him and so the powder tilts and doesn't go under the nipple.


But other than those 2 errors, the 9 shots in that big hole certainly made for a great day. He took 2 shots with my .58 Hawken to see if the extra weight of my rifle took the bite out of the recoil he was experiencing with his .54cal



Awesome day of shooting! I told him, this was actually an enjoyable shoot with no problems with the rifles.


Now its time to break them all down and give a good scrubbing and thin coat of lube.

That's some great shooting.

Very good shooting there. And impressive loads too.

That'll get it done for sure.

Nice. Good report. I can't wait to shoot my .54 flintlock barrel that Bob Hoyt made me. I received it last week but it was "in the white" so I immediately took it down to my local smith as he was going to be bluing soon