New gun or new barrel?

[longrifle346]

Granny said, "Poor people have poor ways...". I certainly would have liked to start off with a brandy new custom smokepole....and I would have...if I'd of had the cash...which I didn't. I also had very little idea of what I really wanted or needed back then.

So over the past few years gettin' back into it I started collecting parts and pieces of TCs, pretty'n'em up and adding GM barrels when I could. Put some nice(to me) rifles in the rack a piece at a time and every one on the rack is a shooter. I'm learning more every day about how to work with different rifles/parts/calibers and more about what it takes to make'em shoot well. Bought my first precarve stock recently and I'm enjoying that education. Shucks, if I looked at the total dollars invested all together I could have bought two or three custom guns!

To me it's about the journey. That being said...I'll have a custom longrifle but if I'd bought that first custom gun right off I don't believe I would have enjoyed that trail nearly as much as the one I took....

 

[tiger955]

+1 longrifle
I started with a used TC flinter cause that was all I could afford. Learn to shoot flint, learned to tune the lock, troubleshoot problems, work up loads, etc. Upgraded to a GM barrel, had to modify the inletting slightly to line up the touch hole properly, cut dovetails and made my own fixed sights, smoothed out the trigger. I have scrounged parts to build other rifles and have a couple good ones, but that old TC is my favorite shooter.

 

[Amikee]

Just bought tc hawken flint with two barrels. Nice deal. So we'll see

 

[tg]

I think the Hawkens barrels of old had grooves a lot deeper than the present ones as I recall from other threads and this was common on the older 1/48 guns

 

[nkbj]

Been leaning towards a possible project, a 30" octagonal to tapered round fifty smoothie flinter barrel to fit a modified Renegade stock. Fixed front blade, dovetail rear, ram rod holders sweated on. Got a .465RB mold and 1/2" card punch to use for bird shot. Still scratching my head...we'll see.

Talked with Hoyt. Now I gotta figure out how long of a barrel.

 

[Rifleman1776]

I'm definitely with the 'do both' crowd. While you are shooting the TC with a good barrel you can be saving for a nice custom rifle. When the new one arrives you can sell the TC and use those funds to offset the expense of the custom job. Both of best worlds.

 

[Walks with fire]

I am a big fan of TC stocks and Green Mountain barrels. The only thing I wish would happen at GM is they would make some IBS flint barrels in more than just .50 caliber. It gets to be a bit of a pain/expense to gather the parts/tools to make .54/.58 flinter barrels for the TC's. Cappers are available but here in PA we need to use flinters in our traditional 3 week long season.

I am a hunter first and target shooter second. I like accuracy and GM delivers that in spades at a reasonalble cost. Having a traditional rifle made would be ok but I doubt I would like or use it more than what I can put together with TC's/GM parts.

 

[nkbj]

I am a big fan of TC stocks and Green Mountain barrels. The only thing I wish would happen at GM is they would make some IBS flint barrels in more than just .50 caliber. It gets to be a bit of a pain/expense to gather the parts/tools to make .54/.58 flinter barrels for the TC's. Cappers are available but here in PA we need to use flinters in our traditional 3 week long season.

I am a hunter first and target shooter second. I like accuracy and GM delivers that in spades at a reasonalble cost. Having a traditional rifle made would be ok but I doubt I would like or use it more than what I can put together with TC's/GM parts.

Agree 100%. Sure wish they had made other calibers (and twists!). But, I cannot help but think that we were blessed to get from them what we did.