We’re now done with this original CVA Hawken and I'm really pretty happy with how it turned out. We ran into some issues here and there throughout the build but in my experience, and the experience of the people I talked to in muzzleloading, that's par for the course and that's something you're always going to run into.

I feel like I learned a lot by building this kit. I have grown up hearing about these kits and I understand a little bit more about why so many people love them and still hold them dear, not just for Nostalgia but just for what they did for muzzle loading a lot like the Thompson Center Hawkens.

It's really nice to see it all come together here. You get to see little bits and pieces of it coming together as you're building but the CVA Hawken doesn't look or feel quite the same as it does when you have it all complete and all finished here sitting on the bench.

Now, before I give this back to the family that owns this piece, I did run a Clenzoil-soaked patch down the bore just to make sure that we had a little bit of rust prevention in that bore. I didn't notice any rust in it after it’d been sitting for so long. I also applied a little Clenzoil to the exterior of the hardware because I'm not sure what the family has planned for this piece but I'm happy giving it back to them in the complete form here now kind of in the way that CVA intended.

As always I'm interested to hear about what you think or what you would have done differently so leave me a comment or shoot me an email at ilovemuzzleloading(at)gmail.com. I'm a lifelong learner, I love to learn and I love to hear what all of you would do differently or what you think about it. So, if there's something that you have a recommendation for me for future builds please please let me know.

We're not going to let the shop sit empty here for much longer, we've got our next couple of builds in the works here. . First up we have an InvestAarm planes pistol kit which many of you will recognize as being very similar to the Lyman Plains pistol kits. This is, I think, going to be a pretty quick build for us. I'm excited to get that going and then later this year into early 2024 that's crazy as that sounds. I've got a Chambers New England Fowlder kit on order that should be arriving shortly. I'm excited to turn that into a nice Flintlock turkey gun as well as a flint lock that'll work well with some early colonial American Impressions that we're working on.