CVA Mountain or Frontier Mystery

C

cloud8a

New member
I just purchased a CVA that I believe is a Hawken Mountain or Frontier. It says: Connecticut Valley Arms, Inc Black Powder only .50 Cal 0002227. It does not say USA or Spain. It does not have a patch box on the butt. It's ram rod extends a little further than the end of the barrel. I have no clue as to how old it is. I talked to Deer Creek and they could not say either.

The wood is very light almost yellow. The barrel looks possibly nickel i am not sure. I would not say the barrel is unfinished.

I just have not seen any others online with this coloring or marks.

I got it at a pawn shop for $90 and they knew nothing of its history.

Let me know if you guys can tell me more about it.
 
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Not having a patchbox sounds more like a Frontier to me.

See Frontier Gander's Hawken picture to compare:

http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=353432

The Frontier Carbine has a 24 inch barrel and a single trigger while the Frontier Rifle has a 28 inch barrel and a double trigger, and neither has a patchbox. Both have an adjustable rear sight which I can't say that the Mountain rifle would have.
The same smaller trigger guard are on both Frontiers which don't have the Hawken's finger hook.
This Frontier Carbine does have a lighter "honey" brown finish compared to my Frontier Rifle.

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The Traditions nickeled barrels have a matte silver finish as in the picture that even coats the inside of the bore. It's slick but has a slightly grainy look to it. And the lock plate, hammer & drum are also nickeled.
Is this similar to the finish on your barrel and/or lock?
I believe that CVA also offered Frontier kits.

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Yea what FG says, with that low serial number and it NOT saying spain, its probably an early CVA that were made in the states before they bought out Jukar, I believe the early ones used Douglas barrels, which were excellent for their time, sounds like you have a keeper there, with reading that cva lawsuit siye, seems like all the suits are with inlines, hmmmmmm go figure!
 
Yea I read that site about CVA's being dangerous but they were early inline models. Mine has double triggers, so maybe it is the frontier rifle and not the carbine. I cannot tell about the barrel to compare with the picture. I had an unfinished old Markwell Arms Kentucky kit. The barrel was unfinished and it did not look like the barrel on this Hawken. It was silver and fiberous, the Hawken is smooth.

It does though have the exact design on the hammer plate.

I will post pics as soon as I can
 
I cannot wait to show you guys the pics of this. I have searched long and hard for pics on the web to match it and have not found any. This makes me pretty sure it was a kit.
Honestly I was shopping pawn shops for a weed eater/edger and saw this Hawken in the rifle case from across the room. Its colors stood out. I was about a week away from purchasing a Cabelas Hawken for over $300 when I came across this. It looked solid and they were asking $90. I figured if it goes bad Im out 90 instead of 300 and more the wiser.
 
Click the image link twice to see a CVA Frontier .50 Smooth Rifle.
 

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Got Pics of the CVA

Well here it is. I did not do too hot of a job on the pics. I know the barrel is not unfinished I believe it is nickel. It looks as though the previous owner did not clean it and there is some rust and possible pitting inside. Can anyone tell me about this gun? look at my first OP and you will see what marking it has.
 

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Thanks for the follow up.
They made many of these rifles over the years and it just has a different set of sights.
Mine has a bead front with a w. & e. adjustable rear while yours has a blade front with a rear sliding elevator.
If the barrel is nickeled, then I'll bet that it's one of the earliest nickeled barrels produced. It does look smoother and shinier than the newer nickeled barrels, and the exterior of the barrel has held up well.
Does the inside of the barrel look like it's nickeled too?
I hope that you can save it with some elbow grease. After all of the rust is scaled off using a bronze bore brush, you might try to lap the bore with valve grinding compound as necessary. It's available at any auto parts store. :)
 
I would like to know how old it is? Is it from the 70's 80's or 90's? Is this a Douglas barrel? How would I know? Is this good for 90 bucks? I have yet to see a nickel barreled hawken.
 
My guess is that it's not much more than about 20 years old.
Anything is possible regarding the origin of the barrel, especially if there is no clear indication where it was made.
However the rest of the rifle sure looks like it was made in Spain though.
One way to find out is to take the barrel off and to examine it thoroughly.
I would think that a Douglas barrel would have a nipple with American threading and not a standard CVA nipple with metric threading which is 6X1mm.
Look to see if the hooked breech is the same as on the Spanish CVA rifles, and if the rifling is any deeper.
About the nickeling, does the barrel lettering look like it was stamped before or after any nickel plating was applied? Do the letters look like they were filled in with the nickel plating at all?
Could the barrel just be highly polished steel?
Sometimes an owner or builder will have things like nickel plating done to a barrel, especially of it was a kit gun. If the nickeling was done at the factory, it should coat the inside of the barrel too. But if there was nickel inside of the barrel, then maybe it wouldn't be so rusty.
Considering that the bore is rusty, I don't think that the rifle is worth any more than what you paid for it. And if you can't fix up the barrel enough to get it to shoot very well, then you got what you paid for, i.e. - a lock, a stock and a barrel that needs some work, possibly needing to be either rebored or replaced.
Can you take some more pictures of the barrel, including some close ups of the nipple, lettering, hooked breech, crown etc...?
 
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Pic of tthe rear sight

here is a pic of the rear sight. not the same as other frontiers. maybe that would indicate age. Even if it around twenty years old i am a little surprised that one would take care of the outside so well and neglect the inside.

0002227 is the serial number. does that mean it was 2227 of its kind?
 

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I think that's the way that serial numbers often used to work.
Maybe it was displayed as a wall hanger for a long time. :)
 
The rear sight is most likely aftermarket. If the outside surface of the barrel is showing rust it's not nickel unless it's showing obvious flaking. Clean the bore out real good and try shooting it. If it shoots well then it was worth the money. If it doesn't then chalk it up to experience.

I know CVA used Douglas barrels on the early mountain rifles which were 33 inches long but I'm not so sure they used them on the shorter barreled guns. An older kit gun would be likely to not have markings. I have an old CVA pistol that was a kit and it has no markings.
 
I will take some more pics of the nipple and more of the barrel. The barrel is 28 inches. I noticed my ramrod is different than arts ram rod.
I feel bad because I did not inspect the inside of the barrel better. When I was in the pawn shop I looked at the first inch of barrel that I could see with the available pawn shop light ( I bet this is a beginners mistake). It looked okay. Only when I got home and shined a flashlight down it I noticed the rusting.

On a positive I am a very determined cleaner and plan to put hours into cleaning this thing if needed.

I do not like the fact that the ramrod extends pat the barrel. but when i put it down it goes almost all the way unloaded. is there a fix for this, or should i even mess with it?
 
Is that a cleaning jag on the end that can be unscrewed to remove?
The extra inch of ramrod doesn't matter since it doesn't interfere with firing it.
Some expensive guns are like that too, but most are not.
If you can't clean up the barrel, it can be re-rifled for about $100, or a new barrel can be fitted. That is if you can't find one used.
It can also be turned into a smooth rifle like mine. :)
 
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does having it re-rifled cause the caliber size to have to increase? Might be a dumb question but this is my first BP rifle.

Actually if it comes down to making it a smooth I will be good with that because the whole reason I bought it was to hunt like the pioneers use to.

in these days if i cannot hit the game with what the pioneers used i do not need to be hitting the game.
 
Yes, there's freshening the rifling and re-boring it. Both ways enlarge the bore, but re-boring would make it into a new larger bore size, like .54 caliber.

Making it smooth would enlarge it too because it needs to get cleaned out and honed. But it could be less expensive to do. And it would need to be turn it into a caliber that's easy to find the right size round balls to buy unless you choose to buy a mold and cast your own.
A barrel expert would be able to tell you more after he removes the breech plug and has a look see.
 
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