stagpanther
New member
Well--seeing how I have firmly maintained my grip on the title of world's worst deer hunter (meaning I didn't tag out)--in a final act of desperation I bought a TC Impact muzzleloader at Dick's Sporting Goods today--it was on sale for $200 and it will extend my season another 2 weeks.
Per the manual I did a field clean before use--and it took almost 10 patches that were black and filthy before the bore was reasonably clean--and the breech plug had tell-tale reddish look of anti-seize compound on it. I've always had this paranoia that big-box stores resell returned guns as new, but I'm new to black powder so my question is simply does Thomson Center test fire (and not clean) their muzzle loaders before shipping to dealers? The soreness on my backside says probably not--but I've had many other firearms built by reputable manufacturers that are test fired and delivered dirty--but TC is quite adamant about immediately cleaning black powder residue--so this seems unusual to me. What say the collective?
Per the manual I did a field clean before use--and it took almost 10 patches that were black and filthy before the bore was reasonably clean--and the breech plug had tell-tale reddish look of anti-seize compound on it. I've always had this paranoia that big-box stores resell returned guns as new, but I'm new to black powder so my question is simply does Thomson Center test fire (and not clean) their muzzle loaders before shipping to dealers? The soreness on my backside says probably not--but I've had many other firearms built by reputable manufacturers that are test fired and delivered dirty--but TC is quite adamant about immediately cleaning black powder residue--so this seems unusual to me. What say the collective?