• Friends, our 2nd Amendment rights are always under attack and the NRA has been a constant for decades in helping fight that fight.

    We have partnered with the NRA to offer you a discount on membership and Muzzleloading Forum gets a small percentage too of each membership, so you are supporting both the NRA and us.

    Use this link to sign up please; https://membership.nra.org/recruiters/join/XR045103

This Poor Renegade had to come home with me

Muzzleloading Forum

Help Support Muzzleloading Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Jan 2, 2023
Messages
385
Reaction score
845
Location
South Kakalaki
I had just found out about a new Pawn Shop in my hometown so I had to stop by. I walked in the door and low and behold there was a Renegade sitting on the rack. The poor thing is in a sad state of affairs. It is a kit gun that looks like someone literally screwed it together and put some finish on it. Too much wood EVERYWHERE, front sight on backwards, and no sanding or shaping whatsoever. LOL SMH! Even a NEWB to kit building like me knows this IS NOT what you're supposed to do. :D The bore looks great and the lock works like it should. So we agreed on a price and I walked out with it. I have it torn completely down now. The nipple is stuck and of course I don't have a nipple wrench to fit this nipple. I have it soaking in some Kroiil now. I hope I can budge the thing at some point. So basically I bought an assembled kit. Would one of you fine folks, post some detailed pics of your Renegade so I can get an idea of what the stock should look like?
KIMG0674.jpg
KIMG0678.jpg
KIMG0675.jpg
KIMG0676.jpg
KIMG0679.jpg
KIMG0680.jpg
 
SUCCESS!! I got the nipple out! WHEW! That bolster is interesting the way it almost wraps around the dang nipple. I mean what were the engineers at T/C doing, passing the bong around, (insert talking while holding breath) " HEY MAAAN, you know we should make that bolster kinda like a pocket maaaan, so only our special T/C licensed nipple wrench can get in there maaaan" :D
Man that’s perfect! A good place to start since nobody boogered it up. I would love to have a 56 renegade someday. It appears that there is some really nice wood hiding under that finish. Keep us up to date on what your progress is with this rifle please.
Of course, I would appreciated ya'lll being here for the whole ride.
What caliber?
54
 
Last edited:
Thanks Johnny!! It looks much better now! But I digress, the camo paint job wasn't bad, just in the wrong place.
I gave $125 for it, also came with a horn and bag stuffed with goodies to include a touch over 700 CCI Number 11's I bought it just for the caps. Fixed the rifle up and gave it away to a fellow veteran.
 
A good project gun, the stock needs a lot of sanding, followed by a sanding sealer to fil the pores.

After you sand to 400 grit, apply the sealer. let it dry and sand it back to bare wood, do this over and over until you can't see any open pores in the wood. I like Tru-oil for a finish, apply it heavily with a 1" square of a scotch bright pad, scrub it in, quickly wipe off the excess tru oil with a rag and let it dry, I put on 5 coats this way and have a nice satin finish.

The walnut sealer I use;

stock sealer.JPG


The result after all the sealer and finish is applied;

done cheekpiece.JPG


Now for shaping; The lock panel was never shaped correctly, when it is cut off square at the front of the lock it should follow the curve of the lock to the top of the stock. The molding is a bit too wide as well.

To look the best, it should look like this, this is a Hawken but the Renegade should be shaped the same.

TC lock.JPG


The only other thing I see is a slab-sided forearm, way too flat on the sides. If you haven't built a gun correcting this may be a mystery to you. In the picture above you can see where I rounded the wood on the belly almost to the mid-point of the forearm, at the mid point I slightly rounded the wood in a transition to the barrel to leave only 1/16" of wood alongside the barrel. This gets rid it the slab sides of a kit gun.

Here is the Renegade I put together with random parts and a new L&R lock. I did all of the above-mentioned things to the stock for the finished gun.

renegade.JPG
 
As for the rust on the barrel, I would give it a soak in evaporust, this will remove the rust but also the bluing and you would need to sand the barrel smooth with 220 grit sandpaper wrapped around a block of wood and re-blue with cold blue. If you don't want to go that far you can put some oil on some 000 steel wool and give the barrel a scrub to get rid of the rust freckles.

My Renegade barrel was in the white, bluing it was no problem, I went over it with several coats of cold blue after I sanded it.

bluing the barrel 003.JPG
 
Back
Top