Have owned at least a half-dozen T/C Hawkens, Renegades and New Englanders since 1972, all percussion since I live in the land of perpetual rain known as the Pacific Northwest. That first Hawken was .50 caliber, everything afterward either .54 or 12 gauge (the New Englander) and all successful both afield and on paper.
But now -- despite living where constant rain makes flintlocks undependable at best -- the skyrocketing prices, shortage (and probable prohibition) of percussion caps has prompted me to assemble a pair of .50 caliber Pedersoli flintlock Kentucky Pistol kits and acquire (after a two-year search and thanks entirely to Track of the Wolf) a very early .50 caliber (four-digit SN) T/C flintlock Hawken with a properly sparking frizzen, a perfect, non-patch-grabbing bore and a stock that after I stripped off the aged factory varnish and applied a dozen coats of hand-rubbed linseed oil revealed a subtle but truly beautiful grain (see pictures).
Changed the T/C flash-hole liner for the far superior Ox-Yoke variety, as I had done with the Pedersolis. Had to replace the brass ramrod thimbles with steel ones to afix sling swivels, and hope to find an all-steel T/C peep sight for a far more rational price than the $160 for which they now sell on eBay and Gunbroker. (There's a tinny/aluminum Lyman available, allegedly for T/C, but this piece of junk also requires substantial mutilation of the stock to fit, which of course obliterates any resale value the piece might have after I -- now age 82 -- am no more.)
Best thing about the tang-mounted T/C peep is you can replace the issue mid-sight with the so-called T/C "primitive" sight, drift out the sight itself, replace it with a folding Marbles or Lyman sight and use it to confirm the T/C peep is still properly zeroed after disassembling the rifle for cleaning. Thus if anyone has a T/C peep that's even red with rust and otherwise NRA Ratty, I'd be interested were the asking price rational.
Apropos cleaning T/C arms -- raised as I was on original muzzle-loaders and corrosive .30'06 military ammo -- the one sure way to clean a muzzle loader (or the '03 Springfield and M-1 service rifles of my generation) is with laundry soap and hot water followed by a boiling-water flush to heat the steel to the point it dries quickly with only a few patches, the process finished with a bore-mop soaked in Balistol or some other dedicated gun oil.
Only problem is I'll probably never get to test fire any of these guns; I don't drive anymore -- CHF occasionally passes me out -- and though I'm a life member of Tacoma Sportsmen's Club, the range buddies upon whom I was dependent for drives to and from the firing lines are now all either dead or disabled. Even so, the projects themselves remain most interesting.
). Among other defects, they often did not seat the breech to the barrel causing a gap that was weak and a patch grabber. My first one was like that. Others had the breech tightened so hard trying to line up the flats it was dangerously stretched and weakened. And, the list goes on and on. Later, TC did wake up and found it necessary to stick to better QC and offer an excellent warranty. I used to write for the BR and could type many pages on this subject here.
