Howdy Pards,
I have a 1987 CVA musket, and the nipple treads are bad, and since I know nothing about muzzle loaders, i saw on one of supply stores on line that you can buy the barrel bolt, this one seems to be in there pretty good, what would help me a lot is to know is are they rh. or lh treads? I assume they are light all gun screws, but before I put a small pipe wrech on the barrel bolt I could use all the advice I can get!! I am sure i can retap it to a bigger coarser thread, but that isn't the proper way to fix it!
Please help!
Greg

Go with your gut! You can always retap it anyway. By guess would be that they are right handed.

By barrel bolt, I'm going to assume you mean the breech plug. Yes they are right hand thread, or several I've played with anyway.

Its probably going to be TIGHT!

Nipple threads come in many different sizes. Look here for what you're after. Your CVA probably has M6x1 nipple threads. To go larger you'd need to go to 5/16-18 or 5/16-24.
http://www.possibleshop.com/nipples.htm

I assume the barrel is octagonal. It is doubtful the breech blug will simply line up. Or at least the one smoke pole I built from scratch didn't.

I sure would look to simply drilling out the hole and taping.

Greg, if you are talking about the breech plug, they are right hand threads and generally require a fair amount of heat and a solid wrench that won't spring open when pressure is applied. I have also had some muzzle loaders who's breech plugs are pinned in. I don't recall which ones they were, so look closely for a pin in the body of the barrel where the plug threads would be.