T/C Pa Hunter

Just got one in really good shape. .50 caplock. Seems to have strange brass bands near the breach and another several inches further up the barrel.
Can’t find much info on this rifle so I’m posting in hopes of community knowledge. I presume the barrel is a hooked breach. I’m more used to flints than caps but thought this might be fun to shoot.
Thanks for your thoughts.

I watched this on Gun Broker. I almost bid out of disgust for how much more I gave for mine. As for the gold foil, I had guessed maybe some were shipped out with this. I got my first PA Hunter new and dont rememer if I got the box. There was nothing like that on mine. Or the 2nd, recently purchased on GB which was maybe? unfired. Again no fancy gold. I grabbed a couple photo to help with the question.

GRun, if you have the gun what is that? Is it brass. Is it attached? Or a temporary wrap or somehting on there for the long term?

I missed your question: yes. You push out the wedge and lift the barrel out. That is for cleaning every time you shoot. You may not know- The PA Hunter gun was marketed for Pennsylvania when they required round balls. The gun barrel has a 1:66 twist! On a normal day, the barrel alone will sell for more than you gave for the whole rifle.

T/C this old and never fired, is a good idea to remove the lock and oil the lock and trigger. Be careful with the lock rmoval not to chip and wood. On the other hand, you should be familar with the gun and comfortable lifting off the barrel and inspecting the lock.

FourBore, I’ll take it apart soon and then be able to answer your question. Agree to the “look at the lock, clean, and relube.”
On first look that brass doesn’t look like belongs. There’s another bbl on the bay that doesn’t have the brass. Pricy thing that it is.
More later

GriscomRun said:

FourBore, I’ll take it apart soon and then be able to answer your question. Agree to the “look at the lock, clean, and relube.”
On first look that brass doesn’t look like belongs. There’s another bbl on the bay that doesn’t have the brass. Pricy thing that it is.
More later

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Thats not original,somebody's cheesey idea to make it cool.Only other reason for it would be to shim the barrel,if for some reason it was loose.I'm sure it will come right off,if you want it off.Good thing is, it looks like you got a very clean,very nice TC.

GriscomRun said:

Good news- wedge and bbl came right off. No problem. Wedge fit nice and tight. Those gold things turned out to be very thin tape. Easily removed. I’ll leave it for the moment because it looks kinda cool. But they will come off.

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A clean one it is. And I can even see the front sight. I’ll be putting on a new front on the long rifle flinter soon.

aha, youre the one that outbid me on that. yes, the gold is nothing more than tape. i would have kept after it except i was bidding on a seneca at the same time and there just isnt enough money to buy both AND pay for the new fiancee.

hope you enjoy it, the nice thing about the PA hunters is that they cut the grooves deeper than a typical TC so they tend to shoot roundball very well, even at higher charges.

shawty said:

aha, youre the one that outbid me on that. yes, the gold is nothing more than tape. i would have kept after it except i was bidding on a seneca at the same time and there just isnt enough money to buy both AND pay for the new fiancee.

hope you enjoy it, the nice thing about the PA hunters is that they cut the grooves deeper than a typical TC so they tend to shoot roundball very well, even at higher charges.

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Hope you got your Seneca. I was looking too but wanted a single trigger rifle. The Hunter got me cause it fit my needs and was in good shape. That gold stuff was foil tape. Left a nice bit of residue when taken off but cleaned up ok.

I did not know that T/C mad this rifle in caplock. If you're going to use that rifle during the Pennsylvania muzzle loader season, you need to check the regs. Last I knew it was flintlock only!

GriscomRun said:

Hope you got your Seneca. I was looking too but wanted a single trigger rifle. The Hunter got me cause it fit my needs and was in good shape. That gold stuff was foil tape. Left a nice bit of residue when taken off but cleaned up ok.

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i did get the seneca. will just have to keep an eye out for a pa hunter ... one day.

the original pa hunters (like the one you got) had 31 or so inch octagon to round barrels. they made a nifty carbine too that was basically the same as a white mountain carbine but with a 1-66” twist. i had a carbine in flintlock that i wish i had back. it just ate flints and i couldnt get accuracy out of it. lots of flash and boom, but lord only knew where the ball was going.

at some point they changed it to a 28” straight octagonal barrel, 48” twist, fiber optic sights, flintlock only, and added a recoil pad. the worst part is that they added the dreaded QLA, sort of a false muzzle that made loading roundballs a little more tricky and ruined accuracy depending on whether they drilled it straight. i will say that the 28” model balanced the best of the whole group and had enough sight radius to be useable.

I actually have a Penn Hunter with the straight octagon barrel. It still has the standard tc sights, no fiber optic. Not sure about the qla, never shot it. It has one the funky machined flint in it. I thought the straight octagon barrels were at the tail end of the Penn Hunter run. Left over Hawken barrels stamped Penn Hunter. Not sure where but I did read that.

Rawhide67 said:

I actually have a Penn Hunter with the straight octagon barrel. It still has the standard tc sights, no fiber optic. Not sure about the qla, never shot it. It has one the funky machined flint in it. I thought the straight octagon barrels were at the tail end of the Penn Hunter run. Left over Hawken barrels stamped Penn Hunter. Not sure where but I did read that.

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definitely possible since they were making the hawken w the same 28” 48 twist barrel at the time.

t/c had two different versions of flintlocks over the years. the new ones made a lot more spark but ate a lot more flint. i dunno, other people may have figured them out much better than me, but ive gotten much better use out of the plain jane siler on my matt avance rifle.

Rawhide67 said:

I actually have a Penn Hunter with the straight octagon barrel. It still has the standard tc sights, no fiber optic. Not sure about the qla, never shot it. It has one the funky machined flint in it. I thought the straight octagon barrels were at the tail end of the Penn Hunter run. Left over Hawken barrels stamped Penn Hunter. Not sure where but I did read that.

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I believe you are right about them using Hawken barrel blanks. It was the end of the run and they likely had a bunch of stocks already made. And i believe at that time the White Mountain had already been discontinued for a while.

shawty said:

definitely possible since they were making the hawken w the same 28” 48 twist barrel at the time.

t/c had two different versions of flintlocks over the years. the new ones made a lot more spark but ate a lot more flint. i dunno, other people may have figured them out much better than me, but ive gotten much better use out of the plain jane siler on my matt avance rifle.

Click to expand...

fourbore said:

I watched this on Gun Broker. I almost bid out of disgust for how much more I gave for mine. As for the gold foil, I had guessed maybe some were shipped out with this. I got my first PA Hunter new and dont rememer if I got the box. There was nothing like that on mine. Or the 2nd, recently purchased on GB which was maybe? unfired. Again no fancy gold. I grabbed a couple photo to help with the question.

GRun, if you have the gun what is that? Is it brass. Is it attached? Or a temporary wrap or somehting on there for the long term?

I missed your question: yes. You push out the wedge and lift the barrel out. That is for cleaning every time you shoot. You may not know- The PA Hunter gun was marketed for Pennsylvania when they required round balls. The gun barrel has a 1:66 twist! On a normal day, the barrel alone will sell for more than you gave for the whole rifle.

Click to expand...

4Bore, I took a look st it again while I was waiting for the Verizon tech to show up. Which he never did. Customer service there is not good.
Anyway I checked the rifleing and saw 7 lands. That might be a good thing.
Mounts the shoulder just fine and pleased that I can see the front sight.
FYI

GriscomRun said:

4Bore, I took a look st it again while I was waiting for the Verizon tech to show up. Which he never did. Customer service there is not good.
Anyway I checked the rifleing and saw 7 lands. That might be a good thing.
Mounts the shoulder just fine and pleased that I can see the front sight.
FYI

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pull that dumb gold tape off of it and enjoy it. congrats!