Well actually the TCs WERE manure, and early on perhaps worse. They were made to be sold to people in Wal-Mart. Coil spring locks, who hoo. No understanding of WHY this was a bad idea in a percussion gun but they were cheap to make and needed no skill to assemble so they did not care so long as it would snap a cap and people would buy the guns. They called it a "Hawken" because that was all the rage at the time. Stocked like a modern bolt action so the masses would know it was a "real gun". They had a number of blow ups early on that they were able to skate on because of the "handloader defense" and in at least one case a faulty plaintiff's lawyer who failed to do due diligence. Then they rifled them for the maxi-ball (a nearly useless bullet for anything but shooting at paper targets or "gongs" and of course greatly increasing breech pressure, but the Wal-Mart gun buyer was told by the "shooting press" the RB was useless) with grooves so shallow they would strip with a cloth patched RB. But they could use button rifled barrels which were, yeah, lots cheaper. This gave the TRADITIONAL 48" twist which is near perfect for calibers to at least 54 with a RB, a bad name and nobody even makes them SFAIK other than special order. Wonderful. Yeah, I was heavily involved with MLs at the time the TC "events" were occurring, and had been for YEARS previous, I was writing for the old Buckskin Report magazine. The things that came through the editors mail were really scary and there were NUMEROUS failures due to their using barrels made of low quality steel. They were not the only ones who jumped on the then hot ML market and some of the stuff was REALLY bad. "Ultra-Hi" for example. TCs barrel failures stopped like shutting off a switch and apparently all the barrels with flaws had failed (we can hope) and they obviously switched barrel steels/suppliers. BTW you DO know there is a DIFFERENCE in flint and percussion ignition cycles RIGHT? That an angled flash channel in a PERCUSSION breech is a GOOD THING. While in a FL it just increases the distance from the priming powder to the main charge. Everyone wants to be an expert. But they often don't even understand the CONTEXT of the conversation or realize what they don't know. Of course, the CONTEXT of my remark on angled VENTS was FLINTLOCK, not percussion. NOTE: The percussion system has, if you don't know this yet, a HIGH PRESSURE ignition pulse. To the point that in England flint shotguns converted to percussion, which had passed a rigorous English proof when made, would sometimes suffer barrel bulges or failures. I think you will find this in George's "British Guns and Rifles". The ONLY explanation is the IGNITION pulse. Which with the early caps and other percussion systems could be pretty energetic if the caps , or what ever they used, had too much compound and were not vented as some pill locks and tube lock variations were. The first caps BTW were iron, meant to be reusable and were "reloaded" by the user or one of his servants perhaps in the "old country". AND at one time some British percussion guns, and perhaps those made in other places as well had VENTS drilled in the percussion breeches. This of course defeats the better water protection of the percussion system but I guess they had a reason.
And I understand this. But I get a little put out at times when people start giving me manure about something they obviously know nothing about or perhaps just enough to be dangerous. Or don't even understand the CONTEXT. The problem with poorly designed locks and/or breeches for example is excess gas escape and flying cap and/or fouling fragments striking the shooters face. Nipples blowing out (Belgian made DGW "Squirrel Rifle"), a modern, brittle, free machining steel drum breaking off flush with the barrel, another shooter told me he had the same thing happen. I have had all this happen in the 1960s. A friend of mine had a permanent "tattoo" of powder fragments on his nose when a nipple blew out of the late percussion design breech that had an INTERIOR powder/flash channel design that put too much pressure on the nipple. The fragments struck with enough force to penetrate the skin. He was lucky he did not get his eye "tattooed". The problem is most people have no idea of the dangers associated with weak mainsprings that let the hammer rise easily under pressure, breeches with sloppy nipple threads, nipples set too high in the breech and shallow cups in percussion hammer noses. I have seen reproductions made by Miroku (who certainly should have known better) in Japan in the 1970s with TWO PIECE barrels that the bores in the threaded together pieces did not line up. Another "Ultra Hi with a drum that would fall out of the barrel if turned 1/4-1/2 turn. The gunsmith was trying to get the load out and see why it, thank goodness, failed to fire. And I have documentation, with photos of much of this like the 2 piece barrel in the "Ultra-Hi" in old copies of the Buckskin Report.
