T/C Flintlock

[RobL]

Hi, I have a T/C Hawken Flintlock that I built from a kit and it's a real shooter. This is the rifle that got me interested in black powder. Back when I was hunting here in PA you had to use a flintlock with patched ball to hunt the muzzle loading season. I don’t know what the law is now but I hope they kept that way. I”˜ll never part with this rifle.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

WV used to be flintlock only in their muzzleloading season but by the time I was old enough to hunt they were allowing caplocks and even inlines. Now a scope is allowed also.

I have always liked flintlocks and I bought my first one in 2013. It's a dog...the seller lied about bore condition and gunbroker did nothing to help me. I am (finally) sending it to Bobby Hoyt next week.

I now own three TC flintlocks and two are pretty early kit guns. I assume Mr. Hoyt is the man to talk with concerning getting the most out of a TC flintlock.

I am yet to shoot any of my flintlocks but I am eager to.

 

[MSW]

you are doing the right thing sending your barrels to Mr. Hoyt ... there's a reason he has no internet presence, and often doesn't answer his phone: he's too busy to fool with such stuff ... instead, he's working, trying to keep up with the demand for his skills.

suffice it to say, I'm a great admirer of his work.

good luck with your projects, and Make Good Smoke!

 

[Greg Blackburn]

Thanks man. I need to get off my hind-end and get that .54 Hawken boxed up and sent his way.

 

[MSW]

three kinds of ML shooters:

the folks who have a T/C
the folks who own a T/C and don't talk about it
the folks who should own a T/C


just sayin'

 

[nkbj]

Which reminds me, we're moving stuff around to facilitate the addition on the house. I found a box labeled .50 Renegade barrel good condition. I'm gonna go open it up and see if it's flinter or percussion.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I have a T/C....And am not impressed (actually I have several)....Oh. sure they made some nice guns....but, they also made their share of junk and had their share of problems....

 

[nkbj]

It's percussion.
Good shape. Glad I found it!
:haha:

 

[coloradoclyde]

Well, I wouldn't turn one away for the right price.....that would be crazy.....

 

[TerryK]

I have a 54 Renegade that I bought new in the 1980s. It was always a bit temperamental, but a new RPL lock helped a lot.

 

[Walks with fire]

I still have a couple TC rifles and after getting everything tuned up including the newer lock they work fine but the Lyman Deerstalker I bought never needed to tune anything and came out of the box a shooter.

The area I live in was TC county and nobody carried Lyman rifles. I look back at my early day's with the TC rifles and remember them good shooters if they would fire consistently but that wasn't the case with the ones I owned. I put the time in and studied them enough to make them shooters. I can see why many people who buy them never get hooked on the flint season because of so much tinkering with them.

I think Lyman is the only option in a factory rifle today although the Persoli may be good too.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

I have wanted a TC flintlock since about 1996...when they stopped making them I nearly cried.

If the ones I have do not work well, I will send them all to Bobby Hoyt and get him to do whatever it takes to make them work well.

At some point, I intend to get a custom flintlock made but it'll look a lot like a TC Renegade.

 

[Walks with fire]

The TC barrels are good accurate barrels but the original flint locks left a lot to be desired. Do yourself a huge favor and scrounge up the redesigned lock; it's much better. My newer locks have never; and I do mean never failed to fire. Keep them clean of fouling and a good flint and it goes every time. The older design would not do that.

I am partial to the TC PA Hunter models with the steel butt plate and would pick them up just for the stocks and barrel if they were reasonably priced. They have a single trigger that when tuned is as good as any center fire rifle. You could have Hoyt bore the 15/16" .50 barrel out to .54 if you wanted too. Nice balance to these rifles and 1/66" twists with .010/.012 groove depths. Good ball shooting barrels. They don't feel like a tank like the Hawken and Renegade's do in my opinion. They have 31" barrel lengths too. They also have a 21" carbine length barrel with this model.

A couple things to mention are to keep the patent breech cleaned out with a smaller jag/brush with a patch on it. My barrels like 80/90 grains of Goex 2f and .495 ball.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

That's what I've been reading, that the older locks suck.

Ugh....two of my TC's have pretty low serial numbers, I am going to assume those are early rifles.

I assume Mr. Bobby Hoyt would be able to replace the older locks with better ones, is this a correct assumption?

 

[Kansas Jake]

I believe Mr. Hoyt does barrel work, but does not make or repair locks. If I'm incorrect, someone else here will correct me. There are other vendors who do lock work.

If your barrels are in good condition, there would be no reason to have them worked on unless you wanted one rebored to a larger caliber. Most TC barrels are pretty accurate unless then have been neglected and have rust or shot out from many thousands of rounds.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

I guess I had better retype the memo I was sending off with the rifle.

Can anyone suggest a gunsmith that works on TC's?

 

[ohio ramrod]

try the Log Cabin Shop in Lodi. They still have a few parts for T.C. locks. :idunno:

 

[Zonie]

The photo below shows the "NEW" TC flintlock.

Notice the large "blob" of metal around the cocks tumbler screw.

The old TC flintlock's cock had a nice, smooth "S" shape in that area.

 

[Greg Blackburn]

Zonie,

I am not seeing this "blob" of metal you reference. Could you highlight it for me?

Well I shipped the rifle off today, with all the replacement parts I have. I called Mr. Hoyt beforehand and he said he would give replacing some parts a go. I'll pay him extra for test firing and cleaning and any other work he can do towards reliability and my memo sent with the rifle states that.

 

[bubba.50]

on the bottom curve of the cock on the old style it comes to almost a point or sharp corner on the backside. this is what zonie's referrin' to. the newer version has much better lock geometry.