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Old TC kit and shooting woes

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Eric Krewson:
I was going to keep the aforementioned TC Hawken kit pristine but decided I didn't need a closet queen. I tried to add a picture of the kit gun but the site isn't taking any at the present.

I got it out and worked up a load for it a couple of days ago, It liked a .490 ball, 70 Gr of 2F and a .014 denim patch, balls touching at 25 yards. But.......it hit almost 4" high and had to have the front sight knocked over and the rear sight almost as far to the left as possible to get the group centered.

I thought about bending the barrel, adding a taller front sight or cutting the rear notch deeper.

I started with deepening the rear notch, boy did I screw that up, I freehanded it and somehow wandered to the right to mess up the back blade completely.

I checked on a new sight on eBay and found they are now made of gold, some were going for $45.

The guys at the M/L forum said I my old barrel was from a time TC got barrels from Douglas and that they had a lot of runout. The replaced these when the lifetime warranty was still in effect but not now.

I was pulling my hair out as what to do, I measured my barrel and did have run out, the barrel wall was .012 thicker on the bottom than the top.

Today I solved the problem of the gun shooting high. Going through the drawer full of long ago discarded M/L parts (we all have one) I found an newer TC Hawken rear sight. This sight sits about 1/8" lower bottomed out than the ancient one that was on my gun. It only has one mounting screw where my old one had two but this was a good thing because I could use the existing forward hole and move my sight forward about 1 1/2", better for these old eyes.I have several of the hole plugging screws so I plugged the unused hole.

I can't see the front sight at all unless the sun is on my back or I am shooting at a light colored target, I may try painting it white. I did commit blasphemy and ordered an original TC fiber optic front, new old stock. Used to be you could order these anywhere but they are few and far between now.

The gun shot well at 50 yards, less than a 2" group even with my sorry eyes. I am a flintlock guy but on dark dismal evenings I may backslide and shoot percussion, the flintlock flash doesn't bother me in good light but right at dusk it blinds me.

JW_Halverson:
Sometimes it is what it is.

I had won one of those old two piece birch stocked Traditions caplock long ago. I built it, shot deer with it, shot competition (and did pretty good) with it, and then started to "tart it up" by adding two and a half inches to the stock with some carefully carved 2x4, and adding a horn nose cap on the stock, some incised carving, etc.  In the end, it looked like a bad joke about what you wake up with the morning after a nite of debauched drinking. But it still shot where I was looking!!!

At some point I threw away all the wood and bought a piece of plain grain maple.  That lock, trigger, and barrel needs to get rebuilt and find a home with a young person that just wants a charcoal burner that they can have all their own.

Yup, it sure is what it is.

Eric Krewson:
Another thing I dislike about the gun is the trigger, I have been spoiled by Davis double set triggers that are as slick as glass. The TC trigger clicks so loudly being set it would scare a deer away from 50 yards, the front trigger is a bear as well if used alone.

There may be a Davis Deerslayer trigger in my future, it is supposed to be a drop in for a TC.

Eric Krewson:
Well, I fixed the awful trigger, copied from another post;

As I posted before the barrel had runout and it took some finagling and parts changing to get it on target.

My next concern was the awful trigger, I thought I would never shoot the gun so I didn't check the finer points when I put it together. I considered a Davis Deerslayer but thought better look at the TC trigger closely first. I was surprised at what I found, I have rasps that are smoother than the trigger bar and sear of this gun.

Sorry for the out of focus picture but I thought it was in focus and proceeded on to polishing the whole trigger. Both trigger bars were as rough as what you see in the right side of the picture from one end to the other, actually much worse as I have run some sand paper over the whole trigger bar already.



This is all hardened metal so I sanded the bulk of the grooves out with 220 paper wrapped around a flat file, hit it a little with 400, then emery cloth, and finally with a polishing wheel on a dremel, I did the same on the sear at the contact point.

I had a catchy, grating front trigger of at least 6 to 8#, and ended up with a smooth as silk front trigger of about 3#. Set and not readjusted after the work, the front trigger went from about 2# to 1.5# or less.

This is the first TC I have owned since I learned a little bit about gun building from a few plank builds and a couple of precarves. I guess Davis just lost a sale.

Eric Krewson:
One more change; I can't see the front sight on this gun unless the sun is at my back or I am shooting at a very light object. I hunt evenings so these conditions seldom exist.

I am a primitive hunter, using flintlocks exclusively until I built the TC kit. I decided a gun I couldn't see the front sight on wasn't much use to me and made a non primitive change.

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