Cheap import locks?

[zimmerstutzen]

Compare the complexity of a TC flint locks with for instance a fuel injector. Given the quality of the tc lock, an automobile might go 3 miles between warranty work shut downs. But as some of you say, Great Warranty.

Given the line of folks getting TC replacement frizzens in PA every fall, most folks aren't getting even 200 shots.

Do you think, TC would even release the warranty replacement numbers? Bet they wouldn't.

Its ok to have blind faith in a second rate product. My buddy is restoring a YUGO.

 

[Robert Egler]

Most people would not know if it was OK other than it works.
Dan

Well, yeah, that sorta is what OK means. If it always works, it IS OK.

It may not be pretty, or historically correct, or as good as a hand-made and tuned lock, or of the best quality, but if you pull the trigger and the gun always fires then the lock IS OK.

 

[Dphar]

Do you understand that the vented nipple many speak so highly of is the direct result of locks and breeches that are not properly designed? So they need this crutch to prevent blowing the hammer back?

Do you have a link to prove that?

It varies from what the designer/inventor told me.

Do you have documentation for YOUR claim?

I need to go through some old magazines and see if I can find an advertisement a friend claims he read.

If anyone out there has any early hotshot ads from Muzzle Blasts etc tell us what they say or post a photo.

Dan

 

[Va.Manuf.06]

Dan, try mid- to late-'70s "Muzzleblasts" for those, I think that was the first place I saw those adds for the so-called Hotshot....

 

[Larry Pletcher]

Hi Dan,
I have MB from 76 on. I'll take a look. I'd like to say that my MB volumes are in the library stacks of my vast gun room---but I have to say that they are in a pile in the back of a closet. No vast gun room for me.

Regards,
Pletch

 

[zimmerstutzen]

I have an original rifle with a vented drum.

 

[ebiggs1]

“... Given the line of folks getting TC replacement frizzens in PA every fall, most folks aren't getting even 200 shots.
Do you think, TC would even release the warranty replacement numbers? ...”

Man, this is just so tired and worn out. Is this the best you can come up with? This is at best an ambiguous statement and at worst sheer balder dash. You have no idea of how many shots each PA hunter is getting and/or how many ever return locks for service. On top of that you have no idea of the situation it was used in, or abused in, or subjected to. Besides how many get a perfectly good locks replaced, by TC, just because of people like you and Mr. Phariss' claim it is no good and make them believe they need to?
Are you this persnickety on every item in your life or is it just flintlocks made by Thompson Center?
There are two facts you two can't seem to get over namely, TC's are popular and they work. Maybe they are not Swiss timepieces, they work!

 

[ebiggs1]

By the way gentlemen, this was posted in the “Flintlock” section of the forum because I wanted answers concerning flintlocks, not PERCUSSION. Persuasion locks seem to be very good even when they are of poor quality but that is a topic for another thread. :hmm:

 

[zimmerstutzen]

ebiggs, what I know is that in PA every fall, the gun shops sell a bunch of replacement frizzens for Tc's. My one and only TC flintlock was a piece of manure from the word go. Purchased new in 1977 and a frizzen replacement required before the first hunting season arrived. I have half soled several TC frizzens for friends and relatives. When I fix them they don't ever need new frizzens.

If they continued to "work" the seasonal user hunter wouldn't be running to the shop or TC saying, the gun doesn't spark. TC is indeed popular and the perc's are for the most part trouble free. When the largest muzzle loader shop in PA refuses to sell new TC flintlocks, that says volumes more about what doesn't "work"

If the locks were that darn tootin' good, there would never have been a market for L&R replacement locks for TC guns. Ever hear of any other gun maker using a TC flint lock? :rotf: How many guns with TC flintlocks have won matches at Friendship? :redface:

So lets see: Every fall, PA gunshops sell lots of replacement frizzens, L&R was able to make launch a product line of replacement locks because of TC, the proprietor of the largest muzzie shop in PA won't even sell new TC flintlocks. Something tells me that it isn't just in my world that TC's flintlocks have design/manufacturing problems.

 

[ebiggs1]

The Sun comes up in the east and sets in the west, that means the sun must revolve around the Earth? The folks replacing frizzens can be caused by many reasons not any owing to it being faulty.
I am sorry you had such a bad experience with your rifle but your rifle does not single handedly point to a wholesale condemnation of the entire line.
L&R makes replacement locks for many arms so they all are junk too by your definition.
I suppose they all are by using your method of conclusion. But honestly, I have not seen any improvement by doing so. The L&R lock is no better than the TC lock.
There are 24 TC's in my collection and I have had 27. Those three are currently owned by people that shoot with me regularly hence they are still “near” my presence.
Now you would think if they are as bad as you and Mr.Phariss insist, one or two would show up. No, I don't shoot all 24 thousands of times, can't afford it, but when I do shoot them, they always seem to work just fine.
I don't know why you local PA largest gun store doesn't sell them neither do any gun shops around me does either. Proves little to nothing unless you just like to draw conclusions that may be entirely wrong. Like the Sun thing, ya know?
Folks replace parts all the time thinking it must be the problem when it isn't. Now add to the fact TC has a most generous free warranty, so why not?
It's the same cop out that is going on everywhere, this gun failed, it has to be junk, it can't be me! It can't be something I did to cause it? I know I'll get a free frizzen or, no, better I'll get a free lock. Hmmm, that didn't work either, they must be junk.
You are simply not going to convince me when I have eye ball, hands on proof and I suspect you have other underlying reasons for not liking TC products beside the quality of their lock.

 

[ebiggs1]

I think, as a side bar, you have elevated this subject to my thoughts that TC's are the best lock. That, however, is not what I have said or what this topic was originally started as.
What I am saying is they are not cheap, junk but granted, they are not the finest, best lock either. That said they are the equal of many highly regarded locks available, there is little doubt in my mind of that.

 

[zimmerstutzen]

First of all, L&R only started the replacement lock business BECAUSE OF tc locks. To fill the need to replace poorly designed and manufactured locks with better. If you were around and paid attention when that started, you would know.

I have heard many stories about why Dixon's doesn't carry new TC flintlocks. But they all revolve around the same thing that the owners told me. JUNK frizzens.

As for the warranty, TC would have been out of business for selling lemons with out the warranty.

How many other manufacturers of flintlocks use case hardened frizzens? What's that? How many?

How many gun makers use TC flint locks to build competition target guns. ZERO!

Why don't you ask TC how many frizzens they have replaced over the years? Compared to total sales? (probably 50%)

TC makes a pretty good product in most other respects. a few pennies worth of better steel would have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in warranty costs over the past 40 years.

I have a few TC products. I just would never again have a flintlock by them.

 

[ebiggs1]

ebiggs1 said,

You are simply not going to convince me when I have eye ball, hands on proof and I suspect you have other underlying reasons for not liking TC products beside the quality of their lock.

You keep your truth and I will keep mine. Perhaps you failed to read or comprehend this statement?

 

[zimmerstutzen]

Apparently you didn't comprehend my statements above when I said that TC made a decent product other than their flintlocks. I have two of their perc guns. I like my TC Scout pistol very much.

The fact that no one uses TC flintlocks on target match guns says it all.

 

[Zonie]

If a couple of guys don't stop picking on each other I will have to give some serious thought to closing this topic.

 

[graybeard]

This is one I can comment on from experience. I have a TC Hawken flint with the old-style lock. I have had no reason to even have that replaced. Once I learned the rifle it became more and more accurate and reliable. Shot a deer with it in November last year. graybeard

 

[ebiggs1]

He is

“simply not going to convince me when I have eye ball, hands on proof"

to show differently.

I am done you may do as you see fit.