TVM,What's The Attraction?

[nit wit]

I have three made by Jack, good rifles, my buddy has one by Matt and its beautiful, he does real good work also!
I stopped in to see the boys in Jacks shop and they are good guys also. :thumbsup:
Nit Wit

 

[CrackStock]

I've been corresponding with Mike quite a bit of late.

Tell him that Crack Pot said to tell him, "Hello" for me. Very good fellow.

CS

 

[Birdwatcher]

I have a TVM fowler, and feel I got taken.

The background is, this was my first flinter, and I bought it to shoot with my young nephews in NY State after we had been to Ticoderoga for the 250th.

I ordered it in November of '08, took delivery the following May, and drove up to NYS in June of '09 to shoot it.

I stopped in at the Spring Shoot at Friendship on the way up to by supplies very proud of my new flinter, but the first person there who looked at my fowler pointed this out....

The lock was poorly set, with a maybe 2mm gap left between the pan and barrel. I was informed that the gun was unsafe to shoot in this condition.

A HUGE disappointment to me and my nephews, and inexcusable carelessness from a shop that builds so many. I detoured on the way home and had them reset the lock.

A major fault of TVM fowlers is the barrel taper, or lack thereof. ALL of the original examples from back in the days have tapered barrels, for good reason. The effect on weight, lines and balance is very considerable.

Also, a fully-tapered barrel presents a far superior sighting plane wherein one can see all the way on top of the barrel to the base of the front sight.

NO MENTION of this important feature is made on the TVM website. As it turns out TVM Fowlers appear to come in two sorts of barrels.

The heaviest, like mine, are entirely untapered, neither on the octagon nor the round.

My fowler tips the scales at a tad more than nine pounds.

From what I can gather, the other sort of barrel they use has a tapered round section, but no taper on the octagon section. Once you know what to look for you can readily spot it, I believe the fowler on their website has an untapered octagon barrel section.

Either sort of barrel; the sighting plane is just the short top of the octagon section, with the top of the front blade hanging out there in space beyond that. Compare this to a fully tapered barrel, and in addition to the far superior sighting plane you'll note the superior balance.

Another feature of TVM fowlers is that the ramrod channel is routed about 1/2" low, perhaps for speedier construction.

This has two effects:

1) the ramrod tip is unsupported and susceptible to breakage (mine crumbled below the brass tip before I ever used it) and 2) extra wood has to be left in place to contain the ramrod channel, adding to the weight.

Many people have told me the barrel is set too high relative to the stock such that the touch hole hovers a significant distance ABOVE the pan...

Ideally it should sit right on the level of the top of the pan. Does this slow/inhibit ignition? - the jury's still out on that one, but it prob'ly doesn't help any.

Actually, it was a full two years after purchase that I actually began shooting this gun, that being how long it took before I could get up to New York again with the fowler. So all these sundry faults only became apparent with use long after purchase.

Many people swear by TVM, more power to 'em.

OTOH I feel I got taken, as if I had walked into a used car lot and not known it. Caveat emptor indeed.

Live and learn, my shadow will not cross their threshold again.

Let me put it this way; they are very welcome to use these photos of their work to update the conspicuous lack thereof on their website. I doubt they'd be interested.

YMMV,

Birdwatcher

 

[stone knife]

Is the other barrel a secret? I see no mention nor did the mention anything to me.

 

[Birdwatcher]

I posted here and elsewhere on this some months back and the consensus was that MOST of their current fowler barrels are untapered octagon, tapered round.

There was some puzzlement that mine was completely untapered, perhaps they had an odd barrel laying around I dunno.

And I'm posting now so that folks know to ask.

Once you handle a fowler with a completely tapered barrel the advantages of that type will immediately be obvious.

Might be why they always made 'em that way back then.

What I did with "Ol' Two by Four" (my fowler :grin: ) is add a rear sight and call it a "smooth rifle" (an actual term from back then) since it hefts like one.

It does shoot good, but so do those repros that are more correct.

Birdwatcher

 

[silly goose]

I'm expecting a .62 smooth rifle from TVM any day now. There is no taper at all on the octagon to round barrel that I am getting. I don't plan on shooting anything flying, thought it would do well for my usual quarry of deer, turkey and bunnies. Looking forward to getting my hands on it.

 

[Birdwatcher]

You can wing-shoot with it...

1 1/2ounces of 7 1/2 shot over a fiber wad and 80 grains of ffg throws a decent pattern at 30 yards...

But you could shoot dove with a bull-barreled, nine pound modern 20 gauge too. Most people would choose not to, if they knew. In fact, they dont even MAKE such a gun, because people DO know.

And you could shoot deer and turkeys equally well with a 7lb, more historically-correct tapered flinter as you could a bull-barreled one, all the while having a more graceful, better balanced, easier to carry longarm.

I suspect the great majority of people buying TVM fowlers simply take it on trust, as I did.

Hard to imagine in good conscience selling these things while NEVER mentioning something as fundamental to a muzzleloader, especially a smoothie, as the barrel taper or lack thereof.

ESPECIALLY if the stuff you are selling is NOT tapered, or only incompletely so.

OK, even given that TVM guns are made on a sort of production line involving as many as three or four people....

The thing is, in conversation online with gun builders, here and elsewhere, it apparently aint that much harder to rout out and inlet a tapered barrel channel.

A puzzle that.

YMMV,

Birdwatcher

 

[CrackStock]

So what you are saying is that you would make me a very good price on your fowler?

 

[jdkerstetter]

It's just cutting corners to keep overhead down so they can keep the prices affordable.

It is, in fact, more time consuming to inlet a tapered barrel correctly....and time is money.

A tapered barrel? Same thing, just cost more.

To keep these guns affordable these may just things they need to do. I agree they could better describe their guns on their web-site.

I don't know that they are trying to take advantage of anybody's ignorance on purpose. This is why, like with cars, the gun buyer needs to do his homework.

I hope, if nothing else, you can get some enjoyment out of this gun and learn from the experience what to ask for next time.

J.D.

 

[Birdwatcher]

I'm saying that its reprehensible for TVM NOT to be completely forthcoming about this.

A quality flinter was a once-in-a-lifetime purchase for me, not too often I'm ever going to spend that kind of money on a toy fer just me. YMMV.

I chose TVM based upon recommendations from people given in good faith, they were as surprised as I was with the actual product.

You have to be seriously into the topic to know how WRONG an untapered barrel is relative to the originals. If blatant historical inaccuracy in a gun at this price point doesn't bother you, go for it.

You do bring up a good point about buying used.

I'm pretty sure if folks scrounge around on the relevant boards, and go to reenactment events to see what people are selling, you could find a good, used custom smoothie in the $800-$1,000 range within a year or so.

I passed on two such examples when ordering my TVM See, I wanted a new one that would be MY gun that I could keep forever, or until I passed it along to a nephew...

...whichever came first :grin:

For my own part, if I were to sell it, I'd ask $500 in view of its shortcomings. But until such time as I buy another it aint for sale.

And my nephew, heck.. now I'm gonna have to get ANOTHER gun built, correctly this time, to give to him when the time comes :grin:

Gonna take a few years tho, at least.

Birdwatcher

 

[Birdwatcher]

I don't know that they are trying to take advantage of anybody's ignorance on purpose.

Oh please...... :grin:


The thing is, the traditional muzzleloading community is so friendly and forthcoming that something like this takes most everyone by complete surprise.

I hope, if nothing else, you can get some enjoyment out of this gun and learn from the experience what to ask for next time.

Was it Adair who said of the Chickasaws the first thing they did was to fire 100 rounds or more through their new trade gun until it shot to their liking?

I must have at least 500 rounds through it now, have an invite to go after hogs. As anyone who has tried it will know, systematically working up a good load on a smoothie takes FOREVER :grin:

(I should buy shares in TOTW)

Even more fun than that is all the people who have loaded and shot a flinter for the first time with this gun (I'm thinking maybe 15 or 16 now).

Just this past weekend a couple who had never even shot black powder before loaded it and fired it from scratch after seeing me at the range.

All that being true, would I buy this same gun again at that price? Nope

Birdwatcher

 

[hanshi]

I'm surprised you didn't inspect the gun when you received it, and then didn't send it back. I would have. Oh, and you can specify a brand/type/size barrel if you don't want the standard barrel.

I have a TVM .62 smoothbore; and even though I consider it somewhat "robust", it weighs only 7.5 lbs. I really like mine, by the way. I killed my first smoothbore deer with it this past season. I think you should still contact TVM and tell them what you've you've told us. Be very specific, too. You've had it a long time but what have you got to lose? In my experience their customer service is second to none.

 

[Birdwatcher]

I'm surprised you didn't inspect the gun when you received it, and then didn't send it back.

*sigh*

In our last conversation on this topic, you yourself did not know if the barrel on your own TVM fowler was tapered or not, and appeared to have no knowledge of the import, both functionally and historically, of that feature.

You got one with the round section tapered, I did not. In neither of our cases was the degree of barrel taper ever brought up by the maker. Neither you nor I knew enough to ask.


OF COURSE I inspected the gun when I received it.

In fact, not knowing better, I took pictures of everything right after it came out of the box and proudly posted 'em on the 'net.

Here's the lock the day it came out of the box...

...and here it is some time after being re-set into the lock by Mr Avance hisself, handed back to me personally, face to face, note the degree of inset relative to the original inletting. The lock now sits below the surface of the stock.

This gun passed through their hands a second time when I brought it in and was handed back to me, face to face, like that.

At that time I was operating from a position of trust. Recall, I had had the gun less than a month at that time, and had not yet ever fired a flinter.

I took it back on their word as "fixed". I was pleasant and cordial while in the shop, despite the enormous let-down to me and my nephews attendant to the intitially dangerous lock inletting, and despite the fact we took time out of our vacation for this unplanned detour through Corinth.

One thing that would be relevant to this discussion is if you would kindly post a pic of your own fowler showing the location of the vent relative to the pan.

This is important: Newbies reading this already know now to consider and ask about barrel taper, because Matt Avance does NOT mention this.

If your vent hole is positioned like mine, folks need to know to ask about that too.

Thanks,

Birdwatcher

 

[rich pierce]

Lots of makers cut corners in their own ways. It's not just TVM. A highly recognized maker of kits sells fowler kits with barrels which have nice exterior profiles- but not like originals which taper more rapidly at the breech. And the thickness of the barrel wall at the muzzle is 2x what is seen on originals, resulting in a heavy gun more suited to buck and ball than fowling. Then if you get the kit in a smaller gauge, the barrel has the same exterior dimensions and is even heavier- when we'd usually like to see a lighter barrel in a smaller gauge. Can I blame them because I have certain expectations and then am surprised and disappointed to see that some features are not close to what's common on originals? That's up to me. I'm pretty sure if the market would bear it, they'd have lighter fowler barrels of more dramatic taper, custom profiled for the gauge, requiring a different barrel inlet for each, and risking getting stuck with a precarve nobody wants to mate up with that barrel. Add another $200 to the kit, maybe more.

It's all sticker-shocking and that's why I build my own. If it doesn't come out perfect I blame the builder and he takes it to heart and tries to do better next time.

 

[Dave K]

I can understand your disappointment. If my gun, I would seriously consider fitting a different barrel to the gun. It would be 16ga. to lighten up the barrel and of course the vent you would install, would be positioned as it should be. Though I built mine with a 44", 20ga. Colerain barrel and I do well with it.l wouldn't even consider a 20ga. in the future. Not the 20ga. part is the problem, but the 16ga. uses the same profile! Why swing a heavy barrel.If the rest of the gun fits and mounts for me good, rebarrel it. Now, I am a bird shooter with it, but the lighter 16ga. barrel would do just fine for deer if loaded as a smooth bore and also a turkey gun. YMMV!

 

[roundball]

It would be 16ga. to lighten up the barrel

And...if the primary complaint is weight, rather than take on all of what would be involved with fitting a complete new replacement barrel, a very low cost alternative would be to simply have somebody like Bobby Hoyt bore out the existing barrel to .16ga...and the barrel would drop right back in.

 

[Birdwatcher]

Dave K and Roundball,

Thank you for that elegantly simple, and certainly historically-correct solution.

A google search revealed that Mr Hoyt does indeed come very well recommended for excellent work at a reasonable price. I will also put out inquries through my local muzzleloading club for a local smith.

I did have a simple, low profile notch rear sight installed. The primary reason why I did this is was that while I knew from trial and error where the gun shot, without a rear sight anyone else I handed it to would have to learn that for themselves all over again.

I also had the touch hole enlarged (to .064" IIRC) on account of too-frequent "flash-in-the-pans". Does anyone know of a source of blank vent-liners? One suggestion has been to install one and simply drill the vent down low, closer to the pan.

A warning to Newbies; when the barrel was pulled for this work the underside was seen to be considerably rusted. This of course from a small amount water running down the barrel channel during ordinary cleaning.

Were I having another gun built I would specify the application of grease or beeswax to protect the underside of the barrel.


'Nother bit of advice to Newbies....

When having the fowler built I paid an extra $100 to have a 1" roundfaced Colonial Virginia lock installed...

My reasoning for this was that style was period-correct for a wider range of dates, the fact that a drop-in deluxe replacement version of this lock is also available with a weatherproof pan...

...and that a one-inch flint just HAS to be better than a smaller lock in bad weather, right? :grin:

I dunno about that last part but what I DO know now is that, all things considered, a larger lock is SLOWER than a smaller one on account of the cock has farther to travel.

And when it comes to flinters, fast ignition is your friend :v

I will say though, that I do like the looks of that larger lock.

Birdwatcher

 

[roundball]

One example at Track of the Wolf.
http://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/960/1/THL-W5S-KIT

I've also seen posts about there being a special eccentric liner with the hole intentionally off center a bit so it can be rotated / installed with the hole in the desired position...don't know personally.

 

[Birdwatcher]

Ya know, when I brung the gun in to get worked on, I supplied like four different vent liners from TOTW because I wasn't sure what size I had (at $3 each, I could afford the extravangance).

Turns out the smith just drilled out and reinstalled the same one.

I wasn't aware the White Lightning ones are blank. Thank you for the info.

Birdwatcher

 

[jdkerstetter]

The White Lightning isn't blank. It is coned inside to center. It may appear blank from the other end...until you install it and cut off the lug.

$100 to "upgrade" to the round faced lock!?!? :shocked2:

That lock cost the same as Chambers' Deluxe Siler and that is only $5 more than their regular Siler....either lock has to be inlet, so what's with the $100 up charge! :hmm:

Enjoy, J.D.