I put together an old TC Hawken kit my father had in his closet, I intended to keep it pristine as a tribute to my father. After he died I decided I didn't need a closet queen and took it out to sight it in.
As I posted before the barrel had runout and it took some finagling and parts changing to get it on target.
My next concern was the awful trigger, I thought I would never shoot the gun so I didn't check the finer points when I put it together. I considered a Davis Deerslayer but thought better look at the TC trigger closely first. I was surprised at what I found, I have rasps that are smoother than the trigger bar and sear of this gun.
Sorry for the out of focus picture but I thought it was in focus and proceeded on to polishing the whole trigger. Both trigger bars were as rough as what you see in the right side of the picture from one end to the other, actually much worse as I have run some sand paper over the whole trigger bar already.
This is all hardened metal so I sanded the bulk of the grooves out with 220 paper, hit it a little with 400, then emery cloth, and finally with a polishing wheel on a dremel, I did the same on the sear at the contact point. Of course I only needed to polish the contact points but I didn't want to leave one end ugly and the other nicely polished.
I had a catchy, grating front trigger of at least 6 to 8#, and ended up with a smooth as silk front trigger of about 3#. Set and not readjusted after the work, the front trigger went from about 2# to 1.5# or less.
This is the first TC I have owned since I learned a little bit about gun building from a few plank builds and a couple of precarves. I guess Davis just lost a sale.
As I posted before the barrel had runout and it took some finagling and parts changing to get it on target.
My next concern was the awful trigger, I thought I would never shoot the gun so I didn't check the finer points when I put it together. I considered a Davis Deerslayer but thought better look at the TC trigger closely first. I was surprised at what I found, I have rasps that are smoother than the trigger bar and sear of this gun.
Sorry for the out of focus picture but I thought it was in focus and proceeded on to polishing the whole trigger. Both trigger bars were as rough as what you see in the right side of the picture from one end to the other, actually much worse as I have run some sand paper over the whole trigger bar already.
This is all hardened metal so I sanded the bulk of the grooves out with 220 paper, hit it a little with 400, then emery cloth, and finally with a polishing wheel on a dremel, I did the same on the sear at the contact point. Of course I only needed to polish the contact points but I didn't want to leave one end ugly and the other nicely polished.
I had a catchy, grating front trigger of at least 6 to 8#, and ended up with a smooth as silk front trigger of about 3#. Set and not readjusted after the work, the front trigger went from about 2# to 1.5# or less.
This is the first TC I have owned since I learned a little bit about gun building from a few plank builds and a couple of precarves. I guess Davis just lost a sale.
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