Investarms Hawken

[City Rat]

Hi guys well this is my first foray into percussion. I went to the gun show yesterday with a buddy who was looking for a .303 Enfield and all I wanted was to grab some ammo at a good price if they had any, seriously that's it. I was looking on a table at a couple of Enfields when I spotted this and a Lyman Deerstalker. I made the mistake of touching them both and this just felt better in my hand and even with all its dings, it just looked like a classier girl. I worked the seller down on the price because of the dings and am happy where that ended up. Here is what I know about the rifle from the gun value blue book, maker’s marks, proof marks and my friend Google. I just nosed around the net to gather what information I could find, not because I thought that this was an original Hawkens, but mostly because the seller was a private seller and claimed to have bought it at an estate sale and knew nothing about the rifle or BP. That kind of thing gets me to making a cup of coffee and giving my computer a workout. As such please feel free to jump in with corrections of any kind as I am completely new to this rifle and percussion BP.

Per the barrel marks and secondary sources like books and websites:
"AM" mark dates its build date as 1984.The rifle was built in Gardone, Brescia, Italy and bears the two official testing and proof house marks. The manufacturer mark is a capital "I" inside a square. By accessing the trademark database that trademark corresponds to Investarms. it seems that this rifle, Model 120B, was made by Fabrica d’Armi of Investarms of Italy. Sold in Italy as the Investarms Hawken Rifle, this rifle was imported by the Richland Arms Co. of Blissfield, Michigan, again in 1984. The Richland Arms Company was based in Blissfield, Michigan from the 1960s to the mid 1980s. The company imported a range of Spanish and Italian shotguns and pistols. As best as I could find it looks like Richland went out of business in 1990. It looks like the current US importer of the Investarms Hawken is Cabelas. Given the manufacturer calls it one thing, the barrel says another and the current importer calls it another I went back to the source nomenclature, the Investarms Hawken, Model 120B. Please correct me if there is another more correct way to refer to this old girl.

My plan is to clean and buff up her scratches and dings as needed, normal BP cleaning regimen being observed of course and hunt her, iron sights and all, this season right alongside my scoped inline. It should be interesting. Here are some pics, let me know what you guys think. Thanks.

EDIT:
Tried three times and still can't get these photos uploaded.

 

[rfd]

Of ALL the commercial production trad ml's, I think Investarms are the best. Sold as Lyman by many online vendors, but also as rebranded by vendors such as Dixie Gun Works and Cabelas and others. Be SURE to clean out the patent breech (I use a .22 or .38 bronze or nylon brush, sometimes with wet patch), they're usually a rat's nest of residue and maybe rust/corrosion because most folks don't even know that flue is there. You can pull off the breech plug, and probably the bolster, but semi-special tools (not proprietary stuff) will be required. See if you can budge open the bolster's clean out screw, that would be all that's needed besides a new nipple. Love a New Gun Day! 8)

FWIW - upload yer images to any free online archive, I like www.imgur.com best. Send me a PM if yer still having images issues and I can load 'em for ya, We GOTS to see that rifle! :mrgreen:

 

[City Rat]

ok, let's see if this works. http://jab20002.imgur.com/all/

 

[rfd]

you need to make the images "public" for all to view.

 

[City Rat]

I changed the settings to public view. I think that I have it now. Thanks. http://jab20002.imgur.com

 

[rfd]

It's basically a Lyman Trade rifle (single trigger). Great guns, for sure! :yeah:

 

[cayuga]

I have two of the Lyman Trade Rifles (mine are flintlock) and other then the fancy patch box, they look the same. Also as rfd stated, they are great shooting rifles. I have a .50 and a .54. Both of mine like 90 grains of 2f black powder and a patched round ball. Whether your rifle will be as agreeable. my Lymans will take the larger ball. For instance my T/C .50 will take a .490. But unless you want to use a super and I do mean super thin patch, don't even try the .495 ball. Yet my Lymans shoot well with either the .490 or the .495. actually the larger one is a tighter fit and it shoots better, but I use the .490 as its easier to load and for short range, the difference in accuracy is hardly noticeable.

 

[City Rat]

Ok all good to know. Just one point of clarification, Its a double trigger rifle, both work fine. Additionally that does explain references that the Italian arms houses were making these rifles for export under various names in America.

In terms of what I plan to fire out of it. I took it to the LGS here that specializes in BP and their smith services a lot of traditional BP. We went through the gun front to back and they were of the view that the Hornady Great Plains conicals that I already have should load and fire well out of this rifle. My plan is to start with a charge of 70grs of Tripple 7 FFG behind the 385gr GPB and work my way up until I find the sweet spot for this rifle. I went with the Remington magnum BP No.11 caps. Sound like a plan to you guys?

 

[City Rat]

Oh and before I forget I did do both the suggested hot soapy water cleaning on the barrel, water ran down the barrel and out the nipple clean and clear. Not being the trusting type, I also ran my normal BP bore cleaner and brushes and patches through her. On the traditional cleaning it took a few rounds of cleaner, brass brush, patches before I was able to run clean patches through and the interior of the barrel was shiny and dry. Mostly the dirty patches showed flash rust and old crapthat the brass brush broke free. As noted above, alot of that came from the deepest end of the breech. On the breech plug, the smith told me that back in the 80's and 90's they used to sell a special tool that was made for the removal of these plugs but that they haven't been available for years. Do you guys have any idea where I can source one from? How are you removing the breech plugs on these rifles. It certainly would make clean up go a lot faster. Thanks.

 

[rfd]

ah, now i see that set trigger. if the barrel length is about 28", then what you have is a dead ringer for the dixie gun works hawken (investarms) ...

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_in ... ts_id=3460

i always remove hooked breech barrels for cleaning. i would not use soapy water nor hot water ever on any firearm, ever. i would strongly recommend using just plain ol' tepid tap water. that will do the job just as well and fast, but without compromising the steel molecules. then i use any clp type cleaner/lubricant/protectorant, and leave the bore wet with that clp. make SURE to clean out the barrel's patent breech antechamber and the flue that goes to the bolster. the bolster has a clean out screw - IF you can unscrew it, clean out the bolster and flue. i don't have caplocks, only flintlocks. i always take off the lock, remove the flint, wash the lock in tap water and scrub with a toothbrush, pat dry, spray the mechanics liberally with wd40, pat off the excess. that's it and all of that is more than enuf. :yeah:

 

[cayuga]

My friend purchased a Cabela's Hawken made by Investarms. It looks identical to yours. As for taking the breech plug off. Don't do it. They get chewed up. And some are spot welded and you will really make a mess of them. He shoots 90 grains of 2f powder (Pyrodex RS) and a patched round ball. The maxi ball do shoot well, and you're right to start with a light load. If hunting deer, a light powder charge is all you need when shooting them large conical bullets. If the maxi ball don't shoot well ... try some round ball. They plant deer real well.

As for the cleaning. I have cleaned with hot soap and water for 40 years and never had a problem. I do not use bore butter. And I make sure the bore is clean before I put a patch with gun oil down the bore. A little trick I use is after pumping the soapy water through it, take the barrel outside (off the gun of course) and then pour boiling water in the bore and let it drain out the bolster/vent. Now the barrel will be super hot. So with a leather glove when the barrel has drained ... run some dry patches down the bore and it will be bone dry. Then oil on a patch and swab the bore. You can get a cone cleaner if you suspect there is left over powder in the cone. It scrapes it out, and then a patch with solvent on a patch worm shoved down there will pick up anything it might have knocked loose.

my .50 caliber Trade Rifle.

As you can see, my Trade rifle has no patch box and only a single trigger. When I first read your post I wondered whether or not it had two triggers. Thanks for the clarification.

 

[City Rat]

Good points. Of course I disassembled to rifle, the stock over in the corner when I did the hot/warm soapy water bucket manuver, lol what a pain in the butt that was. I followed the advice of six guys, two online, rest BP shooters who are known to me and they all had some version of this hot soapy water thing. One guy just dunks the barrell in the bathtub and swishes the water through it, another hooks a hose to the laundry sink and runs the water through. The rest do a team thing with a bucket poured onto funnel, barrel etc. All seemed crazy to me but my first percussion rifle and I wasn't sure of best practices so I asked. Man that barrel gets hot after you run the hot water through it.,lol.

Clean out screw next to the nipple has proven itself resistant to my charms, lol. So the smith hit it with kroll oil for me and I have also gone to my old friend PB Blaster, the screw is getting a regular soaking every night and I will try to unscrew it again later this week. My guess is that no one ever pulled ot before.

Returning to the breech plug, I would love to work that free as it would make this as e asy to clean as any other rifle. I know that there is a nipple removal tool, but does anyone have a lead on the bteech plug removal tool the gunsmith refered to and has? I asked him and he showed it to me but it is so well ised no more markings on it.

 

[City Rat]

My friend purchased a Cabela's Hawken made by Investarms. It looks identical to yours. As for taking the breech plug off. Don't do it. They get chewed up. And some are spot welded and you will really make a mess of them. He shoots 90 grains of 2f powder (Pyrodex RS) and a patched round ball. The maxi ball do shoot well, and you're right to start with a light load. If hunting deer, a light powder charge is all you need when shooting them large conical bullets. If the maxi ball don't shoot well ... try some round ball. They plant deer real well.

As for the cleaning. I have cleaned with hot soap and water for 40 years and never had a problem. I do not use bore butter. And I make sure the bore is clean before I put a patch with gun oil down the bore. A little trick I use is after pumping the soapy water through it, take the barrel outside (off the gun of course) and then pour boiling water in the bore and let it drain out the bolster/vent. Now the barrel will be super hot. So with a leather glove when the barrel has drained ... run some dry patches down the bore and it will be bone dry. Then oil on a patch and swab the bore. You can get a cone cleaner if you suspect there is left over powder in the cone. It scrapes it out, and then a patch with solvent on a patch worm shoved down there will pick up anything it might have knocked loose.

my .50 caliber Trade Rifle.

As you can see, my Trade rifle has no patch box and only a single trigger. When I first read your post I wondered whether or not it had two triggers. Thanks for the clarification.

rayer: rayer: Man what a great collection of firearms.

I wish that we had communicated before I tried the hot water thing, LMAO, gloves would have been a great addition to the setup as that barrel both gets and stays hot for a good little while.

Never occured to me that someone might have welded the breech plug shut. Why would they do that? I can see the benefit to unscrewing it for cleaning, just don't see why you would want to make cleanimg a BP rifle harder on yourself.

 

[City Rat]

My friend purchased a Cabela's Hawken made by Investarms. It looks identical to yours. As for taking the breech plug off. Don't do it. They get chewed up. And some are spot welded and you will really make a mess of them. He shoots 90 grains of 2f powder (Pyrodex RS) and a patched round ball. The maxi ball do shoot well, and you're right to start with a light load. If hunting deer, a light powder charge is all you need when shooting them large conical bullets. If the maxi ball don't shoot well ... try some round ball. They plant deer real well.

As for the cleaning. I have cleaned with hot soap and water for 40 years and never had a problem. I do not use bore butter. And I make sure the bore is clean before I put a patch with gun oil down the bore. A little trick I use is after pumping the soapy water through it, take the barrel outside (off the gun of course) and then pour boiling water in the bore and let it drain out the bolster/vent. Now the barrel will be super hot. So with a leather glove when the barrel has drained ... run some dry patches down the bore and it will be bone dry. Then oil on a patch and swab the bore. You can get a cone cleaner if you suspect there is left over powder in the cone. It scrapes it out, and then a patch with solvent on a patch worm shoved down there will pick up anything it might have knocked loose.

my .50 caliber Trade Rifle.

As you can see, my Trade rifle has no patch box and only a single trigger. When I first read your post I wondered whether or not it had two triggers. Thanks for the clarification.

rayer: rayer: Man what a great collection of firearms.

I wish that we had communicated before I tried the hot water thing, LMAO, gloves would have been a great addition to the setup as that barrel both gets and stays hot for a good little while.

Never occured to me that someone might have welded the breech plug shut. Why would they do that? I can see the benefit to unscrewing it for cleaning, just don't see why you would want to make cleanimg a BP rifle harder on yourself.

 

[rfd]

FWIW ...

ime, over the last few decades with investarms barrels none were ever spot welded, and any i've worked on we're removable by me. they are machined to very tight tolerances and can be removed with semi-special tools. i have removed well over a dozen investarms breech plugs from their flintlock rifles. you can see my tools and me doing just that in several posts in this sub-forum. traditions, cva, jukar and others are near impossible to remove and traditions even cautions that attempting to remove a breech plug will destroy the barrel. i avoid those brands.

HOWEVER, there is no intrinsic need for most folks to remove any trad ml breech plugs or caplock bolsters. that is, unless you dry ball and can't blow it out with compressed air or a forced-in powder charge. been there, had those problems, and plug removal was the only course of action.

side note - when you dry ball and attempt to remove with a screw worm, the action of the screw biting into the lead will expand the lead and further tighten the ball's grip to the patch, and the rifling lands (if it's not a smoothbore). two ways to help alleviate that problem is to use a small diameter screw worm and/or pre-drill a hole into the ball using a very straight dowel or carbon fiber rod that is almost the diameter of the barrel's bore, with a 1/16" to 3/32" drill bit epoxied into one end of the dowel. use the drill bit to bore a pilot hole for the screw worm. it usually works quite nicely, particularly for guys using really tightly patched balls.

with almost all offshore trad ml barrels, they're never cleaned after proofing and that residue should be cleaned out before you set off yer first shot - both the barrel and antechamber, and the flue. if it's a caplock and the clean out screw can be removed, do so to make flue cleaning easier than trying to snake down the fire hole after the nipple is removed. you can see that residue from two different investarms barrels in two of my threads.

as to how to clean any ml barrel, everyone has their own materials and process. the hot water cleaning thing - and add in the soap thing, too - has been around for decades, but not centuries. there is no realistic proven need for either hot water or soap or any other bp residue chemical. hot water expands the steel molecules and that let's in water and krap and removes any inherent "seasoning" (like why you don't scrub a cooking skillet or pan, let alone touch it with soap!).

what's needed is just plain water, because bp residue is VERY water solvent. get the residue out, that's the main idea. in both the 18th and 19th centuries that was all that was on hand and needed for both bp ml's and bp cartridge rifles. lots of really old barrels have survived quite nicely for over a century with just water cleaning, then patch drying, then a patch run down the tube with any viable lube of yer choice. no need at all to make bp cleaning into a chore or a science that it never was from the get go. but, to each their own, it's all good one way or another.

with these offshore barrels, make sure to clean out the patent breech antechamber and flue. yer caliber cleaning jag won't do either, not ever. i've seen SO many bright 'n' clean barrels and rat's nest plugs and their owners wondered why ignition is spotty.

 

[City Rat]

rfd,
thanks for the additional info on the breech plug, very similar to what my gunsmith said, i.e, you shouldn't have to remove it if I follow my normal BP cleaning process but if I get one not seated and failure to ignite then he has the tool and can pull the plug and clear the barrel for me if I haven"t found the tool myself. Any idea where you got your breech plug removal tool from. Oh and thanks for the extra cleaning tips. Keep em coming. :yeah:

 

[rfd]

there's a feller on ebay who sells sized patent breech plug "wrenches" (actually, they're sockets) for $20 each. they are gold for removing investarm breeches (and others). search out this ebay seller - ramblinman211. i use an 18" reed rcorp flat jawed wrench to move that socket, but most any large pipe wrench will do the job, sometimes with a pipe handle extension added for leverage. see my threads here for pix and write ups.

replace the cleaning jag with a .22 to .38 bronze or nylon brush and use it to get into any patent breech antechamber - if i use .22 brush i'll push it down with a wetted patch.

there's a lot about trad ml's to understand, learn different processes, try 'em all out and find what works and feels best for each of yer trad mls .... and you.

 

[City Rat]

ah, now i see that set trigger. if the barrel length is about 28", then what you have is a dead ringer for the dixie gun works hawken (investarms) ...

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product_in ... ts_id=3460

i always remove hooked breech barrels for cleaning. i would not use soapy water nor hot water ever on any firearm, ever. i would strongly recommend using just plain ol' tepid tap water. that will do the job just as well and fast, but without compromising the steel molecules. then i use any clp type cleaner/lubricant/protectorant, and leave the bore wet with that clp. make SURE to clean out the barrel's patent breech antechamber and the flue that goes to the bolster. the bolster has a clean out screw - IF you can unscrew it, clean out the bolster and flue. i don't have caplocks, only flintlocks. i always take off the lock, remove the flint, wash the lock in tap water and scrub with a toothbrush, pat dry, spray the mechanics liberally with wd40, pat off the excess. that's it and all of that is more than enuf. :yeah:

Hey I forgot to say you nailed it. Same rifle, investarms Hawken seems to be imported by both Cabelas and Dixiegunworks. The only diference between mine and those is that I think the previous owner gon fed up with the wood or fiberglass ramrod that it came with from the factory. The one on my rifle is solid brass, a weighty little thing but I think that it looks right at home there.

 

[cayuga]

I have four Lyman rifles in the collection (that picture shows about half the collection actually). And the funny part is in each rifle, there was a Lyman manual and an investarms manual in the box. Even more disturbing is, when you checked the recommended loads, the Investarms manual suggested a much lower, safer load as compared to the max load recommendations in the Lyman.

Although in most traditional rifles, 100 grains in a .50 is a good max point. And I have never needed more powder then 90 to bring down a deer. I also suspect it would do an elk. As I spoke to a person once that shot a moose with 90 grains of powder and a round ball. He said the ball completely penetrated the heart. It was recovered in the body cavity.

In my .58 caliber I shoot 110 grains in a green mountain barrel with a .575 ball. In my custom .54 I shoot 90 grains of 2f powder. It will be interesting to see what my new custom .58 will like. I should be getting completed any time now. And this has a Rice barrel instead of a Colerain barrel.

 

[rfd]

the measure of an ml load is based on caliber and some measure of subjectivity that's personal to the firearm and the shooter's requirements. for hunting with a .50, 90 grains of 2F or 70 grains of 3F are both about a "standard load" fare for those specific granulations. i load all my ml rifles with 3F (tube and pan) and the .50 gets 70 grains, while the .62 smoothie gets either 70 or 80 grains. 3F just burns cleaner, and i like swiss or OE best of all.