How do I reverse the sins of the PO?

[Pork Chop]

I have a Thompson Center Hawken that was owned by a horribly lazy previous owner. It appears that he never cleaned the barrel. As such, the bore appears to be ruined. Add to that the fact that he took it to a gunsmith to have the nipple removed, and that guy overbored the hole. Now the barrel appears to be ruined, but I have not brushed the scale out to see just how bad it is.

Here are my options:

1) Buy a new barrel from somewhere. Recommendations?? A used barrel would be OK with me as long as it was in good shape. Do barrels from competitors fit? CVA or Traditions?

2) I could scrub the barrel and have a machinist thread in a slug to repair the breech plug - then drill that for the appropriate nipple. I wonder about the integrity of doing that. Comments??

3) I have a shotgun barrel that is a drop in for a .54 or .58 Caliber Renegade. I could carefully open the inletting from 15/16" to 1" and make it a dedicated shotgun. If someone wants that shotgun barrel, I would gladly trade it for the correct barrel for this thing.

The only other thing missing is the ramrod, which is not a huge issue.

Please let me know what you think!

 

[pepperbelly]

Buy a Green Mountain barrel. It is a drop in for the T/C Hawken and not really expensive. You can get one with a round ball twist. TOTW has them for $149.00 with a 1 in 70" twist.
HTH,
Jim

 

[wheelockhunter]

Iay be wrong on this, so if someone could confirm it. You might want to try contacting tc about getting the barrel replaced. I have been told that they do it free of charge as it is covered by the lifetime warranty of the gun. Even for second hand owners. Like I said, I may be wrong but it couldn;t hurt to check.

 

You've been reading long enough you should have a clue,,,
Before you do anything check T/C's "liftime" Warrenty.

(1) no, cva and traditions won't fit. Lymans deerhunter,investarms hawkins and cabelas hawkins will. as well as the GM I.B.S..,Lymans gpr or gph will also, but you'll have to swap-out lug positions.
(2) replacment breech plugs are available from track of the wolf and or dixie gun works for about 30$ Now here's the trick,,you can learn how too "breech" a "plug" on this very site(darn snails).
(3) If you have a 1" flats smoothy for a T/C,,,go for the trade!(really!) try the trade site here or go for the auctions.

your right, the ramrod is no big deal.
:front: eace:

 

[harryo]

Buy a Green Mountain barrel. It is a drop in for the T/C Hawken and not really expensive. You can get one with a round ball twist.

I agree with pepperbelly. The first thing I would do is buy a Green Mountain(GM) replaclement barrel. TC does have a lifetime warranty but they will not replace a barrel that is ruined from abuse. You can get up to .54cal 1n a 15/16" GM barrel to fit your stock. The GM IBS barrels are pretty much drop in for the TC stocks, sometimes just needing some minor filing of the barrel under rib. The 32" GM barrels, with the slow ball twist, will give you a better shooting rifle than the original 28", 1:48" twist TC barrel and costs less than ordering a 1:66" twist replacement barrel from TC. I like the GM IBS barrels so much that I have 5 of them, from .40 to .58cal,on different TC and Investarm stocks. They all are very accurate shooters. Excellent barrels.

After getting the replacement barrel and having a rifle you can use, you can see about salvaging the old barrel. You can get nipples with oversized threads and rethread the the breech plug for them if the nipple hole hasn't been enlarged too much. If the bore isn't that bad, you could also replace the breech plug. If it is ruined you could find someone to bore it out to a smoothbore if that would interest you. However, I would bet that you would like the GM barreled rifle so much, you are not going to want to switch the barrel back very often.

 

[bob1961]

get a hold of roundball....he has or had i'm not sure if he sold it yet....a good perc barrel and lock from an old T/C hawken....here's the add in the classifieds we have....he had a .50 barrel fer sale don't know if he sold it or took it off the classifieds.............bob


FOR SALE

 

[Rebel]

Hey Bob, that ad is for a .54 cal., 1" barrel, not a .50 cal. 15/16" barrel. ::

 

[Pork Chop]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I picked up two 12gauge shotgun barrels that are drop in barrels for the Renegade (or other 1" octagon barrels). I will see if I can do some horsetrading with someone that wants a shotgun. When I bought the TC, I thought about reselling it, but now I am not sure. You can never have too many guns!!

 

[bob1961]

yup i know it is....but he had a .50 i thought not to long ago....i thought bout gitting it fer my old T/C hawken stock.............bob

 

[Runner]

I have a bid in on a 20 guage barrel right now. If that one doesn't happen, I will be back to discuss the 12 barrel. Is that barrel a snail type or drum type percussion barrel? Thinking about a flint conversion.

 

[Pork Chop]

It is a snail type if I am not mistaken. (the drum type looks like a round bolster screwed into the side of the barrel, right?

 

[Rebel]

Right.

 

[roundball]

yup i know it is....but he had a .50 i thought not to long ago....i thought bout gitting it fer my old T/C hawken stock.............bob

Yup, the .50cal sold...now have those .54cal percussion barrels and locks

 

[Maynerd62411]

"I have a Thompson Center Hawken that was owned by a horribly lazy previous owner. It appears that he never cleaned the barrel. As such, the bore appears to be ruined. Add to that the fact that he took it to a gunsmith to have the nipple removed, and that guy overbored the hole. Now the barrel appears to be ruined, but I have not brushed the scale out to see just how bad it is. "

Unforgivable sin. Gonna go to Hell for that one. :nono:

 

[WV_Hillbilly]

Buy a Green Mountain barrel. It is a drop in for the T/C Hawken and not really expensive. You can get one with a round ball twist. TOTW has them for $149.00 with a 1 in 70" twist.
HTH,
Jim

I had a similar problem except the original barrel was still good enough to hunt with, and I wanted a second swap barrel in a smaller caliber for target shooting. So both barrels HAD TO WORK with the lock and associated parts.

The Green Mt. "drop in" barrel is NOT EXACTLY just a "drop in"--strictly speaking. I had to do a few minor modifications that some people might NOT want to try it themselves. The under-rib on the new barrel was too long (just barely), so I had to shorten it slight with a Dremel and cut-off wheel.

Also even more of an issue, was that the hammer did NOT align correctly with the nipple on the new breech. Instead of me monkeying around with the hammer and possibly messing it up so that the original barrel's nipple woudn't line up... I bought a replacement hammer and I will modify that hammer for the new barrel and the old hammer will fit the old barrel. That way I've got two guns in one and without too much bother. HOORAH!

I'm only telling you this as a friendly warning--that not every drop-in barrel is interchangeable. Your new barrel could just line up perfectly too... you won't know until you have it in hand and try it.

Good Luck, and Shoot Safely!
WV_Hillbilly

PS Green Mt. barrels are very accurate! You will love it!

 

[Zonie]

I would not expect TC to replace a barrel which was owned by an idiot. I mean, somewhere they need to draw the line.

You might contact TC and find out how much a replacement barrel would cost.

I don't think you can easily replace the existing barrel with the larger octagon barrel. That would make the depth of the lock mortice incorrect.
If the mortice is made to locate the inside surface of the lock at 15/32 from the center of the barrel (15/16 divided by 2) then the 1 inch barrel will stop the lock plate 1/32 inch too far out. That results in the lockplate being unsupported, which IMO is not a good thing. :boohoo:

You could add plastic wood to fill in the 1/32 gap, but the lockplate would then be sticking 1/32 out from the face of the woods lock panal. :boohoo:

Maybe someone on this site, who has replaced their TC barrel with a GM barrel would be willing to sell the TC barrel to you for a good price??

 

[Pork Chop]

After yanking the old rust factory out of the stock, I briefly considered changing the inlet. Lack of time, lack of experience and a real lack of urge to screw something up talked me out of that real quickly. But there is good news! (No, I didn't save money by changing my car insurance to Geico), someone on the forum is talking a trade with me! So, if that comes to pass, the TC will live again as more than just a piece of wall art... :grey:

 

[Mulebrain]

Porky,

I would scrub the heck outta that barrel, until it comes clean1 It may take a while, but at least you will know the real condition of it.

The nipple threads?? They should make a "heli-coil" to repair this? I would assume they do!

I would do everything possible you can to shoot the barrel you have. I understand barrels need replaced sometimes, but dumping a buck and a half sucks.

 

[Pork Chop]

I agree - I will scrub the snot out of it to see what it looks like. In looking at the nipple threads, they MAY be such that a nipple will thread into it. I will have to check it out.

 

[Mulebrain]

Watch out for the correct nipple threads as well! Some are different, but you probably know that already anyway.