TC 54 cal

[skeeter@ccia.com]

A problem hit me this year I never expected but solved after lots of head scratching. TC renegade 54 has been my 'baby' for years. Even took whistle pig hunting numerous times because this thing is a tack driver..Oh but this year it started shooting all over the place. Even down to 20 yards it would toss rounds as much as 2 feet diff between rounds...I had to figure it out..so step 1. What am I doing different this year...well first of all I did not have any #9 solvent/lube that I use on the thing and nothing else even comes close to the gun so I used a little bore butter to lube my patches..rounds tossed everywhere..switched back to #9...same problem..found out the prelubed patches I was trying were also done with bore butter from the factory...tossed them out..so now am back to what have used for years/yrs..but still tossing rounds..found out the chemical reaction between bore butter and #9 solvent was the problem..it had formed a crust inside the bore that I had one heck of a time brushing/cleaning out..and every time I fired, oil/tar looking gunk ended up all over flint etc...Well is all figured out and back to driving tacks and the pan is dry as popcorn stinker after a fire. I have never had a misfire from this gun from day 1 of ownership but had at least one every other shot prior to solving this problem

Found out can't mix bore butter or another solvent with what you are using as patch lube..chem reactions...stick with one and I love #9 for everything on the gun...end to end..so if anyone might have the same problem loading (loads like a dream again now)...or not holding a group..could be something to ck into.. I use FF in bore, FFFF in pan....shoot 535 round ball with .015 #9 lubed patch...and use #9 only from inside out top/bottom..

[Adam Helmer]

skeeter,

Very good report!

With so many different products on the market these days for patch lube and cleaning dope, it was bound to result in some bad interaction/reaction.

I am glad you figured out the problem and passed it along.

Adam

[roundball]

That's interesting...I've used T/C and Oxyoke precut patches prelubed with Natural Lube 1000 for the past 18 years in several calibers of TC and GM barrels.

I like to shoot 40-50 shot range sessions year round without wiping beteen shots but in the winter time here, the cool dry, low humidity air will not allow that as the NL1000 patches are not wet enough.

So I routinely squeeze a few squirts of Hoppes into a bag of TC NL1000 patches and I'm then able to do so...never had a problem with fouling or accuracy...and the bore is almost perfectly clean when I'm done.

[Catfish]

You might try going to a thicker patch. I built a .45 cal. years ago and it would only shoot accurately with thin patches. After acouple of years of shooting it opened up bad also. I went from .006 patches to .012 patches and it shoot like a deam again.