Thompson Center Renegade Upgrade

It’s no secret I like shooting black powder firearms. My father got me interested in the sixties. He had a collection of original shotguns garnered from who knows where that we enjoyed shooting on many Sunday afternoons. In those days there were many unregulated and impromptu places to shoot. The crazy boom in gobbling up farmland to build Mc Mansions had not yet begun and we had an old quarry to play in.

All that was needed was the guns, a box of clay pigeons, some way to get them in the air and happiness in the form of black powder smoke was ours for the day. I learned from my dad and my uncle how to measure the powder, top it with a wad, measure and pour in the shot and top it with another wad before capping the piece to make it ready to fire. Popping birds with these kinds of arms took a little more lead but we hit with regularity with those old exposed-hammer double barrels.

Dad hunted squirrels and rabbits and other small game with his guns. I usually stuck with my Stevens pump chambered in 16 gauge. The old guns were fun but obsolete as far as I was concerned and I wasn’t alone. Many of them were not safe to shoot due to advanced age and method of manufacture. If you could buy anew black powder rifle or shotgun back then it was built by a custom maker whose lag time was sometimes years instead of months. Enter the early seventies and the dawn of black powder-only deer seasons.

You had to have something to hunt with, not some old smokepole that wouldn’t go bang without a lot of mumbo-jumbo and incomprehen- Add a sandwich, candy bar and bottle of water to make it complete. 58 caliber Minnie ball, T/C Maxi-Ball and Hornady Great Plains 425 grain hollow point. The .30-06 case is shown for comparison. sible, archaic preparations that were obsolete fifty years ago. Where to get a rifle?

I have been looking back in some of my ancient copies of Gun Digest and Shooter’s Bible to see what was offered in the day. In 1964 the black powder selection was more like a novelty. By 1986 the books were showcasing an increasing number of solid, shootable firearms from places like Dixie, Navy Arms, CVS, H&R, Hopkins and Allen, Lyman and, of course, Thompson/Center, that were much more suitable for hunting.

Thompson/Center stepped up to the plate and offered us one of the first modern, mass-produced, popular, affordable, accurate and, above all, dependable black powder

Bullets like Hornady’s Great Plains and T/C Maxi-Ball are packaged in twenty counts. rifles to be offered to the American public: The Hawken. We were about as ignorant of the mechanics of black-powder rifle shooting as the rubes that just fell off the turnip truck. Sure, there were some guys who wanted to reincarnate Daniel Boone and wore buckskins and all that. I still have the purse-like possibles bag that was de rigueur at the time for the wellequipped muzzle loading hunter to carry all his accouterments.

It wasn’t the same as stuffing your rifle full of cartridges and setting off into the field as with a conventional gun. We needed caps, balls, pre-loaded extra shots in plastic tubes, lube, patches, nipple picks, bullet pullers and who knows what else in our cavernous leather bags. The chance to hunt deer for extended seasons was an incentive too good to pass up, so off we went. I remember some of the first blackpowder-only seasons in our state.

It was sort of like bow season in the sixties, before compound bows and portable tree stands became available and popular. Oh, there were hunters out there but nothing like the regular gun season where an orange-clad nimrod was behind every tree. Everybody shot a Bear recurve bow and everybody used a TC to hunt black powder. Of course, there were other makes in the woods but they were far and few between.

I finally joined the growing numbers of black powder hunters with the purchase of a TC Renegade in 1984 for $160. The Hawken was dressed up with shiny brass furniture, buttplate, patchbox, etc. Being of a hunter’s mindset, I chose the plainer, yet comparable, Renegade since I didn’t want that shiny stuff spooking my game. I also went with the more powerful .54 caliber rather than the .50 that most shooters chose.

In those days I had hopes of hunting elk and bear and the .54 caliber 430 grain Maxi-Ball that TC recommended as a load seemed to be powerful medicine indeed. In practice, the Maxi-Ball was hand lubed with some brown, greasy stuff called Maxi-Lube and stuffed over a charge of 120 grains of FFg black powder. It probably traveled close to 1400 feet per second at the muzzle and got at the shoulder as well as it gave. My first range sessions with the Renegade went OK.

I broke the supplied wooden ramrod about the second reload. Fortunately, a more experienced friend was with me who had already switched to the plastic ramrods that had immediately become available. We were able to get about four inch groups at fifty yards. Later, when I tried round balls, it was the same. Pretty dismal accuracy, I thought. As far as I’m concerned the 1-in-48 inch twist of these rifles is an expedient compromise, but not a good one. Make up your mind what you want to shoot before you buy your rifle.

If it’s round ball go with a 1:66 or 1:70 inch twist. For conical bullets, a 1: 28 is best. Really good accuracy can be obtained using proper loading and firing techniques with a black powder rifle but you will never be satisfied unless the twist matches your projectile. One December late-season I was fortunate enough to take a fat doe that walked within twenty yards of me on that bone-chilling morning atop a tall mountain crusted with eight inches of snow.

The hard Maxi-Ball went through as if the deer wasn’t there, punching a .54 caliber hole on each side. I only had to follow the red hose-like blood trail twenty yards over that virgin snow before I found the piled up deer. After that I figured the Maxi-Ball was overkill for game that size and reserved it for my dreamed-of bear and elk hunts. I switched to the round ball and never looked back. A .54 caliber round ball weighs about 230 grains, depending on its exact diameter.

The Maxi-Ball is 430 grains, being made of pure lead. The round ball probably expands a little in deer but I believe the best shots are broadside through the shoulder breaking large bones. One of the things I like about round-ball shooting is that the bore

54 caliber hole is impressive, implying the shooter means business and is ready for the "big stuff." The inline weighs about six and one-half pounds. The Green Mountain is over nine. does not have to be cleaned after every shot.

Oh, accuracy may be a little better if you swab with a wet patch and then a dry one—and also pop off a couple of caps to thoroughly clear out the firing channel to prevent misfires—but the wet patch used to load the ball scrubs fouling off the bore, allowing many more shots before a thorough cleaning is needed to continue shooting, provided it’s just for plinking’s sake. The only real problem I find with my Renegade is that darn 1:48 twist which does neither the bullet nor round ball justice.

For a solution, I looked to Green Mountain Rifle Barrels (gmriflebarrel.com). They supply a good stock of muzzle loader barrels at reasonable prices to serve a variety of needs. For my purposes, a slow twist (1:70) was required to shoot my favored round balls. They also supply fast 1:28 twist barrels for those wanting to convert their old Hawken and similar rifles to handle the more modern sabot bullets. The barrels are available in calibers ranging from .40 to .58.

These replacement rifle barrels are pre-blued, have good adjustable sights, a polymer ramrod, ared hot ¼ x 28 nipple and a hooked-type breech plug with 11/16 x 20 threads. A barrel like the one I bought is listed at $223.95 at the time of this writing. I stuck with the .54 caliber although the .50 is much more popular today. I guess I just like to be different. The "big .54" is not all that big. The old timers used .65 caliber, .70 during the Revolution, .58 Minié balls in the Civil War and horren-

The sight covers this spot when installed, so a dab of stock finish rubbed on with your finger and it’s no big deal. dous (as far as recoil is concerned) 8, 4, and even a 2 bore on the really big stuff in Africa. The last time I was at Williamsburg, Virginia I visited a gunsmith’s shop just by the old statehouse. They still build muzzle loaders by hand just as they did 250 years ago. I asked one of the workers which caliber was the most popular during those times.

He told me they made anything that the shooter wanted, .50s, .60s, .70s or whatever. Then I asked him how long it took to finish a rifle knowing full well it was years from that shop. He said it depended how long he had to sit there and answer questions from visitors like me. I also wanted to upgrade the sights on my rifle to the receiver kind. I’m not knocking a regular open sight but a peep is always a good idea, especially for older shooters like me.

That said, I think the TC open sights were and are some of the best ever offered on American rifles and the Contender pistol. They are rugged and dependable as well as being easy to adjust. I think a lot more American manufacturers should get this point. For my trade to a receiver sight the choice was easy. I selected the Lyman 57 SML specifically made for the TC Hawken, Lyman Trade and Hawken Plains rifles. I think the Lyman sights should be pictured under "quality" in Webster’s.

They are rug- I recommend removing the tang and doing this job on a sturdy drill press. Metal to metal fit is superb. ged, repeatable and extremely well made. The sight came with a large screw-in aperture for hunting and a smaller one for target work as well as complete installation instructions. The instructions also have a handy front sight chart in case your original needs to be replaced. The blade on my Renegade worked fine, however. The sight is mounted on the tang using the original rear hole.

The front hole of the sight needs to be drilled and tapped 8-32, so Brownells was

Lyman has a boodle of replacement front sights available if you prefer something else. I like the Ti N-coated drill bits as they have always worked well for me. contacted for a three-flute premium plug tap in that size and a Titanium Nitride (Ti N) coated #29 drill bit to make the hole. Both are tools you might already have in your shop. Mine had a little wear to them so I ordered fresh.

Scopes can be mounted on these guns but I truly believe it tends to distance one from the true black powder experience with these replica sidelocks. Having said that, scopes of one type or another have adorned these types of rifles since before the Revolution and this is only the opinion of one man. Some of you will remember the Lobo pistol scope manufactured by TC for its Contender pistols. It sported a 7/8-inch tube diameter and was advertised as shock proof, fog proof, and nitrogen filled.

I still have the one I bought and it has never fogged up, so I guess the clams were true. It is an abomination as far as brightness and clarity go when compared to modern scopes but, in its day, it sufficed. What some of you might not remember is that the mounts were fashioned to replace the Contender’s rear sight and that the rear sights on the Hawken and Renegade were very similar. Amount with the holes spaced for the black powder rifles was obtained and I mounted the little 3X Lobo on the Renegade.

I even shot a few groundhogs with it but I wasn’t impressed with the sight picture it presented enough to use it to hunt deer. Today, I have it mounted on an old Contender. It works as well as it ever did. I certainly wouldn’t handicap my inlines by not mounting a scope but, somehow, it just doesn’t feel right on the Renegade. I’m more than happy with the Lyman sight. Installation of the Lyman 57SML is fairly straightforward. Some of the Lyman guns are pre-drilled and tapped but the Renegade is not.

To start, remove the slide from the sight base, unscrew the rear tang screw, place sight base on the tang, which is still in the stock, and attach it using the rear tang screw. Mark the center of the front hole and drill with a #29 drill bit. Removing the tang and clamping it in a vise will protect the stock of the rifle during the drilling process. Being the fussbudget I am, I clamped the tang in a milling vise and did this operation on the drill press.

A good man can drill this hole by hand without a lot of trouble. Then, tap the hole with an 8/32 thread and you are done. The screw to hold the sight in place is provided in the Lyman kit. You will notice that the original tang screw is along wood screw and bites deep into the stock to hold it in place, while the middle screw you are tapping for only protrudes into the metal of the tang. I had to relieve a little bit of wood underneath the sight to get it right, but such things are to be expected.

The installed sight covers that area but a dab of stock finish rubbed in doesn’t hurt. I was slightly concerned that the front sight height may not be properly sized to use this sight but this proved not to be the case and the blade on the new barrel worked fine. At any rate, Lyman has enough replacement fixed sights available that you can fit whatever you need to the front dovetail.

I got a surprise when I unpacked the new Green Mountain barrel, since it was four inches longer and correspondingly heavier than the original TC barrel. Also, "drop in" is another gunsmithing myth that comes up very often but is rarely seen in practice, something akin to sightings of the Lock Ness Monster I suspect.

The barrel-pin holder screwed into the bottom of the barrel to allow the barrel pin to firmly hold the barrel to the stock was very large and such a sloppy fit that the pin would fall out if the gun was tilted sideways. I can’t condemn Green Mountain or any other manufacturer too harshly. It must be a bear to try

The barrel pin would fall out of the gun if tilted sideways. This piece could be milled or filed to fit properly—or the manufacturer may be persuaded to change it. " Using a specialized tool, this job was handled in minutes. The author does not condone or recommend this technique. and get all these different guns to fit with replacement parts. But what to do?

Instead of returning the barrel to Green Mountain I decided to pull out the tried and true tool that I use to work on my Harley Davidson motorcycle at times—a four-pound hammer. After a couple of solid whacks with Thor’s plaything and trying for fit, I had perfect barrel lock up and a shootable rifle. I did cheat by heating that place with a propane torch (not red-hot) before I smacked it. I can’t recommend this technique to anyone. I’m just telling you how an impatient man did this one rifle.

I figured even if I knocked it off the barrel completely, the rifle would still have to be welded or even sent back to the company to make it right. This time I got lucky. By just kidding about the Harley. It’s an old joke. of thinking there is no sense in trying the bedding technique of free floating these barrels since they are held tightly in place by the barrel pin.

If you want to relive some of the pressure points, they are readily identified by smooth areas inside the barrel channel where the barrel contacts the wood. A little stock finish inside or some polyurethane protecting spray would seem to be in order to keep the stock from absorbing any more moisture than it will regardless but otherwise I don’t see the point. Besides, they seem to shoot well as is.

One advantage, among others, is the peep sight increases the sight radius (distance from rear sight to front) from 25 inches to almost 35 inches with the longer Green Mountain barrel. This allows a steadier hold offhand and will normally increase accuracy due to a more refined sight picture. Even if the original shorter hunting barrel is kept on the gun the increased sight distance will still be a noticeable benefit.

It’s a little bit like using a snub-nosed 2-inch barreled revolver as compared to an 8 and 3/8-inch target gun. Also, the peep aids the shooter by only requiring him to focus on the front sight and ignoring the rear aperture as if it wasn’t there. The human eye will naturally center the front sight. Since I’ve converted this rifle I’ve shot some superior groups with round balls. It couldn’t happen without the right twist. I’d like to mention one other point while I’m on the subject.

A muzzle loader is the same as a breech loader as far as accuracy is concerned. You must get the powder charge right as well as the fit of the ball and patch. Patches come nominally 0.005, 0.010 and 0.015 inches thick. Balls for a .54 come from such sources as Hornady in .530 and .535 caliber. There are several schools of thought on the subject but I prefer a ball that will slide down the barrel without a lot of pounding on a short starter and the ramrod.

This means that often I will use a .530 ball with a .010 patch or a .535 ball with a .005 patch. Also, accuracy should be checked with different powder chargers. With a .54 I usually start with 90 and go up to or black powder, trying groups in ten grain intervals. With a start at 90 grains and go to 110. I have found that many .50s shoot sabot bullets and balls very well with a 110 grain charge.

Of course, the new inline rifles rated for 150 grains of powder area different story but I’ve found that a 110 grain charge in the fifty calibers and a 250 to 300 grain sabot bullet is usually the best I’m going to get in terms of accuracy. If you feel you need more power, go to it, but I’ve never seen a deer shot at a reasonable range get up and walk away after being well hit with a load like this. AG