I went to a gun show yesterday.
The only real BP gun at the show,I nearly missed. It was so dark and rusty I just passed over it two times. Well, I finally came back and spied it. It is a 70's era.CVA (Jakar) Kentucky Long Rifle in 45cal. You know them.The ugly clunky two piece stock with a brass spacer between the two halfs. Now adays I'm looking for just that kind of gun. Price and condition was just stunning. Condition was rust. Everywhere was rust, outside and inside. The asking price was too much.even if like new. Man it was $210. I about choked. I thought about it for a while and walked away.Much later I returned and offered $50. Boy they dithered on that one. The owner knew what a P.O.S. It was . Eventually I got it for the $50.
There is some blueing under the rust afterall. The bore was very bad with rust. It will end up rather pitted ,especially down deep. It wasn't shot much,it's not worn at all. Getting the nipple and clean out screw out was a struggle too as rust had it held tight.
The lock though rusty. is ok . Just very dirty.
Anybody got any ideas on how to remove the last of the rust? I could shoot it now but ,I would like it cleaner . Ned

Ned,

Congratulations! That gun will make a good knockabout rifle for rough use. Most of them shoot well even with a pitted bore, but it could be a bear to keep clean. The only way I know to remove all rust is with Navel Jelly but it removes bluing also, which is fine if you plan to refinish it.

NedChristy

Thanks Man
I'm well aquainted with difficult to clean bores. most of my guns have had some pitting. Black powder is bad enough . Combined with my home made caps, corrosion can be fierce. These Tap O cap homemades use toy cap gun caps. That stuff can brown a barrel while you watch. Probably no worse than the corrosive caps the old timers used. Bad enough though. If I clean really well and finish with Ballistal i'm ok. That stuff is great.
Ned

Howdy n.h.schmidt,
There are many, many folks out there who are trying the Tap-O-Cap but can't find a cap that will work in them. What do you use? Where do you get them?

I still have 7 boxes of the old Remington corrosive caps. I guess that is why they were so cheap. If I take a revolver out all day and shoot it as soon as I go out, the back half of the cylinder is rusty before I get back in the house. I quit shooting them.

_________________
God, Country, Flag

Hi Unk
The Tap O cap used to be easy. The caps I could get a few years ago were strong and uniform. What I can find today is Super Bang and Legends of the old west.Both from China (of course).What have you been using? Any how ,I have made a punch the cuts a smaller dia paper cap than the one that came with the setup. A little less paper to cushion the hammer blow.
You have to look the caps over carefully to use the larger dots and leave the rest. Not only larger dia. dots but with a good bump too. If I get really good ones,I can use three dots in a cap. If they are not so large, four to five are used. Two have never worked. All are seated with the dot facing up. This usually will do the trick.
If you are serious about this ,I can help with some more details. Such as a small dia paper punch and cap holder to aid in cap placement.
Even with all this, the home cap will not be a powerful as what you can buy. They are very cheap though.(less than$ .01ea.)
It is powerful enough to do the job though. It can help greatly to use the special nipples that help with getting a hotter flame to the powder. Like the Knight Red Hot and the Spitfire. Cva perfect nipple may be good too.
I can ignite Pyro and American Pioneer with them. Black powder is better yet. If you use Ballistall you can more easily control the rusting.
Ned

I will pass all that along. It will be helpful. Folks try to use the Tap-o-Cap, get disgusted and put it away. Some one else will buy one and come looking for help and a lot folks drag theirs back out and start trying again.

_________________
God, Country, Flag

HI Again
I thought of two more things. Nipples with a very tiny flash hole don't work very well. the hot shot nipple will not work either.It's the one with the hole drilled into it on the side. I have noticed that all of the hi performance nipples have a larger dia flash hole. When the cap explodes ,there is a lot of paper that has to go somewhere. Too small of a hole and it blocks the flash.
I have a cap and ball pistol that has unk mike's nipples. That gun will not work with the home made caps. The nipple holes are very small with them.
The Percussion rifles that have a drum style breach seem to have more troubles with the homemades.They have more troubles even with powerful bought caps too. If you take the trouble to shake powder into the drum when loading ,it helps greatly. Ned

Hi All
The weather here, at long last broke. It was 35 out yesterday and warm enough to get out and do some blasting. I took only my CVA rifle ,the one described above. Target set at about 20 yards. I used .433 and .437 dia. balls. Thick .019 pillow ticking patches using , Hoppes patch lube and Lehigh patch lube. Thick felt wads were also used on top of the powder.They were also lubed with the patch lubes.
I used only one powder charge of 58 grains of Goex 3f and 2f for the whole test. I also tried several Tap O cap home made caps .Using two brands of cap gun caps and different numbers of caps in them. I also gave some of the plastic star cap gun caps( the ones that look like little percussion caps) a good try.
This rifle has the drum type of setup for the nipple . As someone has said"the worst possible way to do things for good ignition".
I would have to call the first day out a success . It was accurate and shot good groups. The plastic star caps did work sometimes. They might work a lot better in warmer weather and if I modified a nipple so they fit better. They are little things and have to to be forced on the nipple. You can't fully seat them. One type of Tap O cap home caps worked great and the other wasn't so good. The good one's used five Super Bang caps in each. Worked great. The others used four Legends of the west caps . They were working at about 60 percent. Too much paper and not enough
power.
Loading was easy . The lubed felt wads helped slick up the bore and clean the barrel. It remained easy all through the testing and I did no cleaning or even swabbing ,at all. I thought this was great considering the bad condition of the barrel. . That's all for now. The other Ned

Hi
Well been out a couple of more times with the above mentioned CVA 45.
This is working out well. It has proved to be accurate. I have shot some groups as small a 1 3/4" at 50 yds. Most are bigger at 2 1/2" to 3". This is with no cleaning between shots. I do use a felt wad over the powder and lubed patch. Hoppes cleaner and patch lube ,Ballistal and Lehigh lubes have worked well . It also seems to group well even with a very loose and easy to load .433 dia ball. A lot of the easy loading is because of the narrow lands in the bore. That give less friction when loading. I have had to upgrade my opinion of these often made fun of guns. It's working well and had a terribly rusted bore on top of it. I'm still getting the old rust out every time I clean it.
Until next time Ned

I gotta start going to more gun shows and paying closer attention. Then you knowledgeable guys can help me out!

I don't make as many gun shows as I used to. I did pick up a really nice TC Pennsylvania Hunter at the last one I went to. I keep seeing one show advertised in Dallas that should be pretty good.

_________________
Born in the Pineywoods of East Texas a long long time ago.

HI
Yes go to the gun shows. You can take advantage of the fact that what we want isn't popular anymore. It helps to be bold and not be shy about shooting the seller a lowball price. Most of us are too timid to bargen. A lot of the BP guns on the tables are only worth about half of what they want for them. Plus you have to live with what you got if the bore is rusted.A lot of them are rusted too guys. Bring jags in the sizes you are interested in and some cleaning patches. Run a patch down the bore of the gun you are interested in. You can decide what you want to do with what you find out.
Almost nobody running these tables ever checks the bore condition of the guns. You have to,if you want something good.
n.h.schmidt

I missed out on a Jukar .45 kit, about 3/4 of the way finished -- barrel laid backwards in its channel just to make the thing look something like a gun. This was at June's NMLRA Shoot at Friendship (actually at one of the two flea markets that have attached themselves to the Shoots). Asking price: $85.00, and the gun was still there the day before everything was going to shut down. Also a little Traditions Crockett rifle with a price tag of $150.00, which with even an adequate bore would be dirt-cheap, since the exterior of the gun was in very good shape. No dinero left after buying gear for the kid and I to start trekking this summer and fall. That booth will be the first one I hit in September. I don't expect the Crockett to still be available, but the Jukar -- maybe.

Of course I only have three Jukar barrels and a couple of Spanish-made Galefs, along with a mess of CVA Hawken barrels -- so I really do need that poor kit rifle. Because the only thing better than a mess of barrels is a mess of barrels plus one more!