Hello all,
I would think masterhunter has a
really nice cva to offer such a swap.
Blue smoke you own one of the finest rifle systems ever made. I've been using TC encore and contender smoke poles for 15 years now and I cant see switching anytime soon. I still chunk a patched ball at a deer occasionally with my old beat up hawken. I have a thunderhawk that is in real good shape that is basically in my safe waiting on my oldest son to take up muzzle loading. I have taken several deer with it also and it does a great job, but none compare to the TC. The Encore (Pro Hunter) are pretty finicky as far as loads go. I recently sighted in a friends TC who gave me an odd looking sabot with a sub base attached to it. It really wasnt even a sabot, more of a hunk of lead with a hunk of plastic glued to its rearend. I can honestly say I have never witnessed a more sporadic volley of bs in my life. At 30 yards I had a hole or 2 in the target with some hits as far away as 14", in no one particular direction. I switched to the hornady SST's and moved to 100 yards after 3 at 30.
I'm the local gunsmith in an area that thrives on hunting and I have had the fortunate pleasure to scope and site quite a few of these. I have had the best groups with 120 grains of triple 7 pellets and either a 250 grain hornady sst or a 260 gn dead center. Stick a magnum sub base on these and your group can tighten up some. Most of my clients insist on using 150 grains of pyrodex pellets. After 5 to 10 rounds 3 or 4 times a day you get a real good idea of why it's called a "magnum". If you are going to shoot 150 grains of pellets I would advise a long eye relief scope and to turn your hat around backwards to keep it on your head.
I would do as previously suggested and start low and graduate up. 90 grains used to be a "standard" of sorts and is really all you need for hunting.
Once you find the right combo of powder/sabots that hits for you next is fine tuning. You can try different primers and, yes, they can make a difference in accuracy. I have had the best results by just flat out refusing to use a 209 primer. I remachined my breech plug to use trimmed 22 hornet cases and got my groups to 1.5" at 100 yds. It's caught on lately to use .25 acp cases so you dont have to trim them down. I followed suit and was glad I did. Besides getting my m/l barrel to shoot as good a group as my 300 barrel does, I didnt have to clean between shots anymore. I also attribute that to using TC's borebutter. I use it on everything now. I'm just not sure the wife appreciates gun goop on her can opener when it starts squeeking.
I started using the Tally one piece bases for scopes and they seem to do well. They also come in hardwoods camo. Stick with a quality scope, the recoil on my TC sent a Simmons 3x9x40 back to them for service. They sent me a 3x9x50 pro sport back with documents stating that recoil was the cause of damage. I put a BSA 4x12x24 catseye on it that I really liked but it only made it one season. I can only assume that what I was seeing stuck to the lens on the inside was strips of paint from the inner tube wall. It didnt seem to affect accuracy but it was way to annoying to look through. I put a Nikon on it and so far so good. I guess what gets me giggling is hearing that "ting!" on a crow target at 275. It just dont seem right for a smoke pole. Well as you can see im a little long winded on the tc's. I hope you enjoy yours as much as I do mine.
Below are a few things that some may find interesting about the TC's. Happy shootin.
if you have any creep on your trigger or want to lighten it up, expect to pay around 60 bux. They are easy and a lot of folks are doing it themselves (but research is a must for safety's sake).
If you ever feel a need to get oversized hinge pins installed understand that it voids the warranty.
TC doesn't make or recommend shooting cartridges in WSM, WSSM, or Ultra Mag barrels in any caliber for the pro hunter/Encore or G2/Contender frame. Its a pressure thing. There are custom shops that will send you a barrel in those configurations.
All Encore and Pro Hunter stuff will interchange, the contender and G2 barrels will swap but the stock/grips wont.
The G2 and the Pro Hunter have the same size hammer spring but the older contender spring is different.
The Pro Hunter has a 7/16" hinge pin and the G2 has a 3/8" pin.
If you shoot 10 rounds out of a 45/70 super 14 barrel, with one hand, that are loaded a little heavy, you will bend the case hardened stock bolt and likely bleed from some part of your body.
You can consistently hit a soda can at 700 yards with a 22-250 barrel on a calm day.
If you have indentations on the breech face combined with cocking problems or misfires then you probably have a headspace issue.