Traditional Muzzleloading Association
Shooting Traditional Firearms and Weapons => General Interest => Topic started by: PetahW on May 07, 2021, 11:07:11 AM
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Anyone here have deep pockets ? ;)
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/smith--wesson-brands-inc-announces-intent-to-divest-thompsoncenter-arms-brand-301282504.html
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Unfortunately, TC is into that Inline junk. I wouldn't invest one cent in them. Just my two cents worth. :)
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I agree, Joe. TCS best years are decades in the past.
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I agree, Joe. TCS best years are decades in the past.
Indeed they are... It kind of puzzles me that they did indeed build one of the best traditional off the shelf muzzle loading firearms and they chose to drop that line...
Look at the Lyman GPR, aside from that potential breeching problem they had some years back (which they did correct), it's IMHO one of the absolute best traditional style muzzleloaders on the market, and it looks the part far more then the TC Hawken...
In the same breath, those TC Hawken's were stoutly built and had developed a good (if not a great reputation) as the ML to have to hunt big game with, and they did delivered... Why TC would ever drop that line is beyond me - but they did...
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Why TC would ever drop that line is beyond me - but they did...
I think that could be traced back to the late 1990's when they had that big fire that destroyed all their walnut stock blanks. I doubt if they ever recovered from that. On top of that, within a few more years, a chicken $hit outfit that so many of you love but I just despise returned about a box car full of guns and merchandise. And then you have to add in the advertising of Bill Knight and other manufacturers who claimed the inline guns were MOA accurate at incredible distances and all the other BS they spouted. What to do, what to do? It's pretty easy to understand their decision making process. Get on the bandwagon and sell inlines. Then the kiss of death happened when S & W bought them. HAH, and now S & W wants to divest themselves of T/C. How funny is that?
John (Bigsmoke)
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If the tooling is still available to make an improved T/C side lock Hawken (Think Lyman presentation Great Plains) and or a new Seneca or Cherokee (Small Calibers popular now) I think a company could produce guns and make a small profit. Besides T/C Contenders and Encores are also very popular. It would give a company a traditional line of black powder guns and a modern inline version too using the Encore.
I would love to see Henry buy up the line and produce the guns I mentioned above. An American Company making American guns.
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The Cherokee, Seneca & Patriot tooling, along with their tech drawings/plans, were lost in that fire when the buildings burnt to the ground.
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Sadly, nothing has come along that has driven folks to the traditional side of muzzle loading, like in the past...
By this I mean, movies, TV shows, books, our American History being taught in today's schools, as well as our hands on history that has become common place. Seen by many, practiced by very few new comers...
The 5 minute attention span has dwindled to about a 2 second attention span unfortunately.
If it involves research, some manual labors, dirty or messy, folks today just don't want anything to do with it...
If they can shoot a traditional muzzle loader in a computer game, that's the route they will take. Hell, if it involves doing anything outdoors - they choose to stay inside.
It sure ain't the same world a whole lot of us here - grew up in...
God forbid a person has to get a little dirty and clean up their mess and their muzzleloader after shooting it...
Thank God there are still some of us left that are willing to preserve our history, and try to pass it on.
I doubt we'll ever see another Thompson Center in America...
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Joe,
I sure don't like hearing what you had to say there.
But I agree totally with you.
John (bigsmoke)
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I don't know about you guys but I was drawn into black powder because the state, Alabama, which had previously been buck only, started letting people kill either sex deer on the management areas with black powder rifles during special hunts, this was in the early 70s. We all flocked to the gun stores to buy us a TC for the most part. Being beginning hunters who seldom killed a buck we would now stand a good chance of putting meat in the freezer, and we did.
I actually went to one of those plastic stocked unmentionables for a number of years but went back to my roots about 20 years ago, even building most of my own guns in the last 10 years. I still have a couple of nice TCs, one kit gun I used my new found gun building skills to make something special out of a very old Hawken kit, I also have a TC Hawken with a brand new GM round ball barrel. Finding the barrel a year ago was like finding a unicorn, way to much money but I wanted one.
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Ditto, Eric - I was first drawn to muzzleloading in the early 70's so I could hunt whitetails in my state's new deer season.
When the deer hunting here was first opened, hunters were limited to a smoothbore - for which I bought a (new) T/C 56SB Renegade.
Even today, I still use my .45 T/C Seneca...………
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Ohio Joe, it's sad to say, but your last post summed it up perfectly. "We have met the enemy and he is us."
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Ohio Joe, it's sad to say, but your last post summed it up perfectly. "We have met the enemy and he is us."
Indeed! :bow
Russ...
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"I go Pogo...." :bigsmile:
~Kees~
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I have nightmares about plastic-stocked firearms. :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:
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I have nightmares about plastic-stocked firearms. :scared: :scared: :scared: :scared:
No more anchovy and pineapple pizzas for you at night. :bigsmile:
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Way I see it, we here at the TMA are the Traditional / Historical side of muzzle loading so I have nothing to add about those modern plastic things they call inline muzzle-loaders. Frankly I could care even less about those firearms as I'm a traditionalist, and have no interest in that modern camp at all.
I'm always sorry to see any manufacture of traditional muzzle loading offerings bite the dust - but this is not the first time / nor will it be the last.
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Unfortunately, it is all market driven and the market now seems to be for, what a friend termed, Mattel Toys.... Kermit came up with that when they took our M-14s away and gave us the plastical wonders.
~Kees~
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they took our M-14s away and gave us the plastical wonders.
Well, like they used to say about them things, "You can tell it's Mattel, they're swell!" Or not. As long as you don't let them get dirty. Then they were jam city. Heck, an M-1 or an M-14 you could drag through the mud all day and they would function just fine.
As they say, that's progress.