TC Kit

[White Oak]

I am not really sure this belongs here as I cannot see the assembly of a kit comparing with a from scratch build as I know many of you are able to do.
I have been searching for a Thompson Center Hawken flintlock in 54 cal. for quite some time. Not every ones choice but it is mine. I have found a few but either the gun is in poor condition or my toy fund is at the time.
I recently came across a NIB kit for that rifle.
How difficult is a TC kit? I am no gun builder but am an avid wood worker. I have been told that they didn't amount to much more than finishing the stock and assembling them if the barrel is blued. In this kit the barrel and tang are in the white. Is Birchwood Casey's Plum Brown a good product or do you recommend something else? Is this doable by a novice?
The nice part about a kit would be a blank canvas to start with and do something different with the stock and barrel such as browning.
Now for the horror story. Minimum bid on this kit is $599. I currently have 5 TC muzzleloaders all purchased used but all in excellent condition. The most expensive one is my Renegade flintlock. It is mint and I paid $325 for it. I am having a hard time digesting $600 for a kit.
Any advise is appreciated.
Ed

 

[necchi]

Lot's of question and opinion here,,
Bottom line $599 for the kit? (even NIB) not snowballs chance in !!!%&^**&%$$.
(period)

 

[gferlitsch]

My first build was a TC 50 cal. If you have wood working skills you won't have any trouble with it. I used Casey gun brown solution and was happy with the result. However, I recently built a flintlock rifle and used Laurelwood browning solution and was very pleased with the result. $600 does seem rather high for a TC kit, but I don't really know as my kit was gifted to me. Good luck!

 

[Zonie]

IMO, the price is too high.

That said, to answer some of your other questions, building the kit is mainly a matter of shaping and sanding the stock so it matches the nose cap and the butt plate.

Some additional sanding will need to be done to the wrist to match the breech tang.

Browning the barrel and applying a good stock oil to the wood is about all that's left.

Some go further and slim down the chunky areas of the stock and more than a few lower the height of the comb and cheek piece.

Adding a few simple inlays can make the gun a little more custom.

As for browning, after doing several guns using Birchwood Casey Plum Brown, I gave up on it for large parts like barrels.
Trying to get a uniform coating takes several applications and even then it often comes out a bit mottled.

I do use BC Plum Brown for smaller parts like trigger plates and lock plates and for these small parts it works well.

Laurel Mountain's browning is (IMO) easier to use on large parts like a barrel and it produces a better finish.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Good timing; I am building a TC Hawken from a kit right now.



The kit I got was pretty rough, way too much wood in the stock and very deep gouging where router shaped the wrist and lock panels.The wood is proud of the metal everywhere. Someone could sand it a little and slap it together but it would look like someone sanded it and slapped it together.

The brass looks like it was sanded down with a 60 grit belt, very rough and has taken a long time and some brass removal to get it near to smooth.

And then there are all those PHILLIPS HEAD screws TC used, UGH.



With the help of Mr Lehto and some pictures of his TC I have been able to shape a nice gun out of the kit.

Here is the cheek piece and forend so far. Everything was slab sided bigtime when I started shaping. I inletted the wedge plate flush as well.





I paid my brother $300 for the kit as that is what I think it is worth.

 

[bubba.50]

those phillips screws are to use while yer doin' all that filin', sandin' & fittin'. there should be slotted brass screws included in the kit to put in after you get everything right.

as for the value, $600.00 is about all I'd give for two complete guns & then only if in new or like new condition. but that's just me.

 

[Vaino]

Let it sit for awhile...they might lower the minimum bid when no one bids.....although some unknowing bidder might get it......Fred

 

[Eric Krewson]

Looking through the gun auction sites I found two kits, both percussion. A complete kit was going for $350 and a kit that had been worked on and was missing a few parts was $150.

Several NOS TC Hawkens, never out of the original box, were going for less than the kit you mentioned.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Lot's of question and opinion here,,
Bottom line $599 for the kit? (even NIB) not snowballs chance in !!!%&^**&%$$.
(period)

Especially when you can spend another couple hundred dollars or so and get a much better product for your money.

Although, does not matter how much money is spent on a set of parts, when finished you can have a rifle worth several thousand dollars or end up with a rifle worth a couple hundred dollars.

 

[MSW]

i will concur with the overall consensus that the price is very high.

As regards kits of this type, i think that if you have good woodworking skills, you should have no trouble.

Some other random thoughts (file under febrile, beer sodden rantings or musings of an old cuss, however you see fit) ::

- T/C, now pretty much a faded shadow of it's former glory, still makes a very serviceable rifle. I have never built one of their kits, but i do own two T/Cs and i wouldn't part with either.

- some will maintain that building a kit is a great way to 'save money.' hogwash! if you bother to track the hours you spend (i advise strongly against this- it's a frustration you can well do without), you would do better to get a part time job and yell 'you want fries with that' into the little microphone. the real reason you want to build a kit is that you want something which is uniquely yours and yours alone. i derive great pleasure in building my own gear, but i'll be the first to admit that this is a hobby and nothing more.

- i can't comment on either browning solution, but Mark Lee's stuff is pretty darn good.

- don't be afraid to take down some wood: these kits come way slab sided.

- since you're making a kit, you might want to consider an R.E.Davis 'Deerslayer' trigger. i though these a great extravagance, but now that i've used them for a bit, they have gone from silly extravagance to necessary and worthwhile investment. (yes, i am a trigger snob. so?)

- duelist1954 just did a u- tube video on this very subject. if you go here

https://youtu.be/AhRuUmImsbw

you can see how it's done.

good luck with your upcoming build!

 

[White Oak]

I appreciate all of the replies.
My long winded question was more to find out about the difficulty of the kits not if the price was appropriate. Believe me, things get tough enough around here when I send out a $300 money order for a complete gun. I would lose my happy home if I paid $600 and a box of gun parts showed up at the door.
I may watch the auction to see if the price drops but I doubt it will drop enough to get my interest. A 50% drop might get my attention but I wont see that.
Mean while I will continue looking for that completed gun.
Thanks again,
Ed

 

[Black Hand]

$600 for such a kit seems high...considering a new, fully-finished rifle goes for ~$800 and a kit from Lyman in .54 caliber is $640.
https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Categories/PartDetail.aspx/487/3/LYMAN-GPR-54-F
https://www.lymanproducts.com/brands/lyman/muzzle-loaders/great-plains-rifle.html

While the Lyman rifles are great guns, I'd suggest you save your money and invest in a kit/parts for a rifle of your choice. Might take a little longer and be more expensive, but in the end will be worth far more than you paid for the kit, you will have the rifle you want and not some generic rifle built in one-size-fits-all.

 

[bubba.50]

the Lyman kit is only $456.00 & in stock at midsouth. flint is about 30 bucks more.

 

[Scota4570]

I did my TC Hawken kit when I was 13YO, in 1975. Turned very nice. They are easy.

You are paying a nostalgia price for the kit on EBAY. They have a lot of faults. The comb is too high. There is nothing authentic about it. By the time the bids run up you could purchase a better more authentic rifle kit for about the same price.
https://www.trackofthewolf.com/Cat...JIM-BRIDGER-HAWKEN-RIFLE-PARTS-LIST/KIT-JB-17

 

[Col. Batguano]

I think you're on to something. It's funny how the "nostalgia factor" weighs in to kits. Take model planes and trains for instance; the kit price for a kit still in the plastic might be $50 for an old one. Take that same model that's been very well built, and it might go for $20--if that much.

I suspect that if you wait a few more years, the price of the in the box kit might exceed a (non-factory) but otherwise well built gun. But with that stuff, often the condition of the box will weigh in to the ultimate price too.

 

[Scota4570]

I've noticed that about 40-50 years after, things peak in price. I would speculate that at that point in time more people have disposable income and are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. They want to recapture some of the old fond memories. Things from the 60's to 70's are peaking in price right now. Prices on things earlier than that have gone down. Model airplane stuff is a good example. The pre-war engines have gone down in value.

After I posted I looked at EBAY. It looks like a flea market for all things TC. It is mostly parted out guns at crazy prices. Many of the vendors have no idea what they have or how to price it. I would not buy any of it.

TC was a solid product. At the time they started making BP rifles there was some horrible junk being sold. They raised the bar. It was a great "shot in the arm" to the hobby. TC was not made or designed by people who knew about muzzleloaders. I would never pay a premium price for a TC muzzleloader. They are a decent starter rifle, if you don't care about authenticity. Today we can do much better.

 

[Kansas Jake]

I built a TC percussion kit 40+ years ago and have purchased a couple of TC Hawkens that were kit built guns. The guns I purchased and a number of others that I have seen look like they were simply sanded smooth and varnished and the barrel browned. The are not hard to assemble, but if you want a nice looking rifle you will need to spend time shaping the butt stock and the panels around the lock and off side of the stock.

One of the guns I did not buy, the builder had sanded enough that the panels around the lock were rounded down and not parallel. Still it was a good way for me to get some experience in putting a gun together. At the time it was the 3rd kit I had put together. I had previously built a CVA flint long rifle kit that was a Jukar kit and a flint pistol that was also an early CVA. The TC was heads and shoulders above those guns in quality at the time.

I definitely would not pay $600 for a TC kit today.

The last TC Hawken I purchased was a 50 Cal. percussion kit gun that actually was pretty well done. I got it from a pawn shop about a year ago for $100. 54 Cal and flint would definitely be harder to come by either as a kit or factory gun.

 

[Col. Batguano]

Following on to that, it seems that original condition boys' stuff trades at a premium to girls' stuff. Why, because boys trash and beat up their stuff, but girls take care of it better. Witness G.I Joe vs. Barbie. Barbies in their original boxes seem to quite common comparatively speaking.

You seem to be on to something on the 40-50 year thing too. 20 years ago, hot rods from the 30's and 40's were all the rage. Today it's the muscle cars of the 60's and 70's.

One thing that I hope will NEVER be at a collector premium though, avocado green shag carpeting, and leisure suits. Like "New Coke" those are best left as case studies in grad school books about what society ought NOT to do.

 

[Lonegun1894]

I don't know if this is an option you would be interested in, but have you considered getting a Lyman Trade Rifle and reworking it (think of it as a kit) if needed to suit your tastes? I'm suggesting it because it has similar if not identical geometry. The main differences I see between the TC hawken and the Lyman Trade Rifle are that the Lyman has a single trigger, no patch box, and overall better quality. TC used to have the claim of being US-made to their credit, and while important to me, that argument went out the window when they quit making side-locks, as they can't say that buying a TC side-lock today does a single thing to keep a job in the US.

 

[ApprenticeBuilder]

Although, does not matter how much money is spent on a set of parts, when finished you can have a rifle worth several thousand dollars or end up with a rifle worth a couple hundred dollars.

Clarify this just a bit, with a quality parts set you could end up with a rifle worth several thousand or several hundred depending on your skill set and how much time you spend doing research.

With a T/C or Lyman "kit" you'll be lucky to get your money out of it.