You said it was a Traditions kit. The word Traditions turned off a lot of responses. Most feel that Traditions makes a low line muzzle loader.
However having said that I will say this is the same kit I built as my first rifle. I will say this about the Traditions, "you do your part and it will do it's part"!
One of the first thing you are going to want to do is replace the sights. I don't know why they even bother to send those plastic sights. Do your research and you will be able to find replacements that will fit to replace the plastic ones with real black metal sights. I made my front one but you can replace it too. I bought the replacements made by Marbles, from Midway USA. But you can get them from several sources. The rear is a screw in replacement that has three different sized apertures.
One of them seems to work well with my older eyes now days. It is a circle about 1/8" diameter with a slot at the top. Kind of like a peep withe a V.
If you are as clueless as myself about what you are getting into remember this is a kit. It may not go together right out of the box. Most of the inleting is done, but as on mine (not 100% properly). You will have to read the tutorials on building and then you can figure out what is wrong with the factory inleting! I had to inlet the hooked breach a little deeper to get the proper line up on the hammer and nipple.
One piece of advice that I didn't know at the time if you decide to brown. I used Casey's Plum Brown and even though I thought I had cleaned the barrel well it took several tries to get a brown I was satisfied with. Do yourself a big favor and clean the inside of the barrel with brake cleaner and then solvent and finally with alcohol and wipe clean and I mean clean. Then clean the outside before doing the brown. The heating step will bring out any oils that are still present if they are not totally cleaned away!
Just take it slow and ask questions. The only dumb questions is the one you didn't ask and then you screwed up something.
You will probably want to replace the ramrod but you can do this at a later date.
I am assuming that it is percussion. You will need in no particular order, powder or a black powder sub,powder measure, round balls or some kind of a bullet, patch material, a short starter, capper. I made a tool similar to a vent pick used on a flintlock. It comes in handy for clearing nipples and such.
I first started with a sub instead of black powder and no matter what I did I could not get good consistency. But after about 100 shots and a lot of frustration I began to get closer. I found some real black and now shoot 3fGEOX and I have never looked back. I also shoot a round ball with approximately .18 patch from Wallyworld pillowticking. I usually shoot a .490 ball but I originally bought some .495 balls and on an unfouled barrel I can hand walk one down the barrel. With the same .18 patch. You do definitely want to dry ball with this combo as it would be hard to pull. The 495. ball and .18 patch makes a good combo for hunting as the velocity increases quite a bit with the tighter fit and the same amount of powder as the .490 ball combo.
You will need a worm, ball puller, cleaning jag and I am sure I may have forgotten something right off the top of my head. You will as you learn figure out what you need and what you don't need.
After I switched to real BP I began to get real serious with sighting in the rifle. Always shoot from a rest at given yardage when you start this process.
Only change one thing at a time when you start this process and then shoot at least five or more shots to prove out what the change made!
In other words if you change the ticking you do five shots or more to see what the consistency of the change is. For each time you change the amount of powder. Whether you wipe or not, the type or kind or amount of lube, etc. etc. etc.
One thing you will find is the BP can be temperamental when trying to find that sweet spot. But once you can find that right load with the right patch you can be able to duplicate the results time and time again. That is exactly what I meant when if you do your part the Traditions rifle will do its part. Once I got mine dialed in after a 100 plus shots. I can consistently shoot about a 3 inch group every time. It might even be tighter at times so that leads me to believe that the strays are all on my back.
Welcome to the addiction. Once you get it dialed in you will throw away all those new fangled ones.
Just remember changing one thing and that includes your cleaning process can change the rifles accuracy. So if you start to develop a problem after you get it dialed in start with the thought of, "what have I done different"?
Wow this looks like one of Paul's long posts. :shocked2: I guess I had more to say than I thought! :haha:
Here are some pics of mine!
Here is that front site I made for mine.
