TC Renegade

[Meat Hawg]

I have a TC Renegade in a left handed model and my barrel has developed some rust spots inside and very possibly some pitting. I always take extra care when cleaning and oiling and I am in shock and disheartened to find the rust. Is there any place to get a replacement barrel? I have contacted TC but have gotten no response from them yet. Any ideas or help would be appreciated.

 

[paulvallandigham]

Have you shot the rifle since you discovered the rust? If not, do so. Most of these guns can take a lot of bore abuse before they lose their accuracy.

Just clean the bore out with either steel wool, wrapped around a bore brush, and oiled well, or use something loke JB bore Cleaner to get rid fo the rust. Shooting the gun will do the rest.

Pits will not bother accuracy if you are shooting PRB, as only the patching touches the bore.

 

[Meat Hawg]

No.....I have not shot it. I just discovered the rust last night. The rust looks pretty bad to me. Will it be safe to shoot it? I will give it a good scrubbing and cleaning this week and see how it looks after that.

 

[Swede50]

Did you buy the Renegade new or used possibly off one of the internet auction sites? A new never fired BP rifle should not have any internal rust pits they are generally treated at the factory with a coating of rust preventative

 

[paulvallandigham]

The .54 caliber Renegade rifle should be plenty safe to shoot. Use light loads until the rust is polished out. Like 50 grains of FFFg powder.
Check the patches on the ground after each shot to see how much rust remains. Lube the patches well- there is no such thing as too much lube--- to shoot out the rust. You may still have rust in the back of the barrel which you will have to attack with 0000steel wool, and a bore brush, but that can't be helped. YOu also have a powder chamber in that gun if my memory serves me well, of a small caliber. A .22 or .30 caliber bore brush should clean any rust out of it. Remove the clean out screw and use a pipe cleaner to clean any rust out of the flashchannel.

 

[Meat Hawg]

Mine is a 50 cal. I bought it new about 10 or 12 years ago. I will start scrubbing the inside this week. I soaked the inside of the barrel with WD40 before I left for work. Hopefully that will loosen up some of the rust.
Thanks

 

[kevthebassman]

Fear not, Meat Hawg. I got duped by some guy on gunbroker once and came into possession of a .50 cal Renegade that was rode hard and put away wet. The bore was covered in fouling and rust and pitted pretty badly. I gave it a good soak with penetrating oil, then took steel wool to it. Afterwards it shot well enough that I could hit a 10 inch steel gong at 100 yards every time, I figured that was good enough to make venison, and make venison it did.

Since then I've moved on to a slow twist green mountain barrel, but I haven't used that old barrel for a fencepost just yet, either.

 

[tjohnson56]

I'm just wondering what your using for powder? I shot Pyrodex in the past and it seemed like I cleaned the gun good but after time in the gun cabinet stuff would seem to grow in the nipple area, so I'd clean the whole thing again.

Does anybody else have this problem and is it just the Pyrodex that does it.

 

[Little Wattsy]

I use Pyrodex and have NO problem!
I DO use WD40 to oil with however....

 

[Meat Hawg]

I do use pyrodex powder in it and there is also stuff growing around the nipple area. I soaked it in WD40 again today. I'm gonna let it soak for a day or so then start the scrubbing process. Thanks for all the input.

 

[brubincam]

-----does it look like a chia pet----- :surrender: :surrender: :surrender:

 

[Meat Hawg]

Yeah it does

 

[Zoar]

Penetrating oil, works much better than WD-40 in my opinion for dealing with rusty gun parts.

The only things I use WD-40 for is cleaning my modern shotgun barrels of the plastic from the shotcups/sabots and getting rid of water from surfaces. Then it works great!

Otherwise WD-40 is not so good at what so many people use it for because of superb marketing of the product. It is mostly solvent. ugh. That might explain why it is so good at removing plastic sabot residue---it's a solvent!

Meanwhile: Penetrating oil is vastly superior for restoring pitted flintlocks and parts. I use penetrating oil when I need to restore rusty parts; works fast and works well.

As far as storage: One old timer taught me the best protectant for storage of metal gun parts is transmission oil. If you plan on storing a gun for a long time consider transmission oil. WD-40, according to many old timers, is not a good choice to put on your guns for any length of storage. (solvent does not protect)

I use bore butter on my flintlocks and percussion, though. Transmission oil only on my modern guns for now. (I guess I use my muzzleloaders too much to consider long term storage....).... hahahahaha :thumbsup:

 

[renovato]

You mentioned taking extra care in the cleaning and lubing. Could you tell us your cleaning regimen? Maybe we can diagnose the cause of the rust to prevent it from happening again.

 

[ramblin man]

WD 40 has no useful purpose for cleaning a black powder gun. It will not prevent rust and not remove fouling as well as most solvents. Nothing that contains petroleum products should be used on stocks.

 

[Meat Hawg]

Well the way I used to clean was to use a small bucket of warm soapy water take out the nipple and stick that end of the barrel into the soapy water and use a bore brush and cleaning patches and the suction from the ramrod would draw the water in and up the barrel. Then I would use TC #13 and make sure and clean till the patches were not dirty then use a generous amount of bore butter to coat the inside of the barrel. That used to be my cleaning regiment but now I am open to suggestions. I have gotten most of the rust out and it is not as bad as previously thought. I am gonna shoot it soon.

 

[Meat Hawg]

I used to shoot sabots or great plains bullets in it but I am going to try round balls. My question is should I decrease the amount of powder I use to shoot round balls and if so about how many grains of powder should I start off with when shooting round balls?

 

[roundball]

"...WD 40.......It will not prevent rust..."
"...nothing that contains petroleum products should be used on stocks..."

Pretty strong words there my friend...you must have had a bad experience somewhere that you thought was caused by WD40.

I've been using WD40 on dozens of rifles, shotguns, handguns, and muzzleloaders since the 60's...I buy it by the case whenever it's on sale.
Been wiping down gunstocks with oily rags for just as long...all my guns are in immaculate condition
:thumbsup:

 

[shdwlkr]

meat hawg
I clean my muzzleloaders as you do except the water I use is boiling hot and while cleaning it heats the barrel up to the point sometimes it is hot to hang onto. I also use kroil or hoppies and so far have had good luck.
I have had my renegade for almost 30 years now along with two of my other tc's about the same amount of time.
I do clean my when I finish shooting them and always check them every so often for rust with a patch down the barrel.
hope this helps