.50 caliber Thompson Center New Englander

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cayuga

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This is a picture of a .50 caliber Thompson Center New Englander I just picked up from forum member Corey. I tried to clean the barrel, but Corey had that thing spotless. Nice job there Corey.

I then put in a T/C Hot shot stainless steel nipple. I cleaned the bolster with pipe cleaners and Montana X-treme cowboy solvent. Since its snowing I could not go outside to shoot it (windy too). So I wanted to see how much fire it would throw with the new nipple in and all cleaned out bolster. Very impressive. I pushed a couple patches down to the breech and it blackened every one of them just fine.

I then took the lock apart, cleaned that and put it back together and got a little bit of false drag out of the fly, and it works perfect. So I found a wedge pin for it (actually a friend made me a number of these out of stainless steel in his shop) and put the rifle together. After I waxed the stock and shined and oiled the barrel I think it looks pretty good.

I am not sure about that front sight on that thing. I looks like it should shoot real low, but the first range session will tell me that. Now if it would just stop being nasty out and let a person shoot...

Thanks again Corey.
 
cayuga

Another good looking ML Dave... It really must be hard to decide... which one today' I envy you...

mike
 
I have a shotgun barrel I want to put on this one. It's my upland bird gun. Its a 12 gauge very very much single shot.. :D
 
new englander

I just got one and am deciding whether to keep it or not. What ae you going to shoot load wise and bullets. I will be iterested in your reports.
 
Hey papines, my .50 New Englander shoots Hornady Great Plains bullets real well over 70 to 80 grains of either Pyrodex or GOEX. The 385 grain hollow points work fine, but the (now discontinued) 410 grain flat points really shined. They are still available from some sources.
 
I will have to think about what I want to shoot. I thought I would start with some roundball. My friend who owes the same rifle shoots 70 grains of Pyrodex RS and a maxiball. He's accuracy is exceptional and he's never shot a deer yet that was not pounded by that load. He's also shot black bear with that load and said he never felt under powered.


On a side not. Corey sent me a Dixie Gun Works newspaper/advertisment as packing or perhaps to torture me. And it had some excellent sales. I am glad they are over. Some of them rifles would have been very tempting. The interesting part is when they describe the rifle, barrel, etc.. they also list a "working load" and most of them are 50, 60, or 70 grains of powder and a projectile. There are none of these monster 110 or 150 grain loads for these traditional rifles.

So this made me think (I know, dangerous thing to do). Have we moved our rifles to a point of foolishness in loads? Now granted these small loads are not for sabots. But if these rifles were designed to hunt and target shoot with 60 grains of powder, why are we always trying to see how much powder we can get down the barrel? Just an interesting thought.
 
So this made me think (I know, dangerous thing to do). Have we moved our rifles to a point of foolishness in loads? Now granted these small loads are not for sabots. But if these rifles were designed to hunt and target shoot with 60 grains of powder, why are we always trying to see how much powder we can get down the barrel? Just an interesting thought.

I think to a large part you are completely correct! I can tell you for years and years I never shot more than 80-100gr of Pyrodex RS. Marksmanship is the most important element of ANY hunt and this is just proof. Now that I've gotten into sidelocks/flintlocks I use anywhere from 30gr fffg to usually stopping at 85-90gr ffg. And yeah it IS Swiss! :lol:
 
As Chuck can tell you.. anyone who never had a chance to shoot Swiss black powder will swear, its not like the other black powders. As black powders go, it shoots cleaner, with more power, and just behaves really nice in guns. Is the extra cost worth it? Thats a good question. I shoot a lot of Graf's and Sons but when I get an order, I alway have them throw in a couple pounds of Swiss and enjoy that powder. Its like a good imported coffee... its still coffee but it just is so much better..
 
BTW Dave...nice looking rifle there! I wish T/C still made New Englanders....I would really like to have one in 12ga.
 
I have one in .54 and one in 12 gauge as well. It is a great bird gun. A lot of fun to shoot.
 
I will have to think about what I want to shoot. I thought I would start with some roundball. My friend who owes the same rifle shoots 70 grains of Pyrodex RS and a maxiball. He's accuracy is exceptional and he's never shot a deer yet that was not pounded by that load. He's also shot black bear with that load and said he never felt under powered.


On a side not. Corey sent me a Dixie Gun Works newspaper/advertisment as packing or perhaps to torture me. And it had some excellent sales. I am glad they are over. Some of them rifles would have been very tempting. The interesting part is when they describe the rifle, barrel, etc.. they also list a "working load" and most of them are 50, 60, or 70 grains of powder and a projectile. There are none of these monster 110 or 150 grain loads for these traditional rifles.

So this made me think (I know, dangerous thing to do). Have we moved our rifles to a point of foolishness in loads? Now granted these small loads are not for sabots. But if these rifles were designed to hunt and target shoot with 60 grains of powder, why are we always trying to see how much powder we can get down the barrel? Just an interesting thought.
I agree My.50 NewEnglander will shoot a cloverleaf at 50 yards with .490 rb and 50 grains of pyrodex RS
 
I miss Dave. When I found this site, I went looking for his old posts. Wasn't afraid to experiment or try new stuff. First ran into him over at the MLF. His open mindedness wasn't appreciated by some, so he left and found a home here.
 
It was reading an old post of his recently on scoping a TC black mountain magnum that I was able to find the proper bases for my TC WMC and Black Mountain Magnum. I am a current member of the other forumn as well but a friend recommended this site to me as he knew my intent to scope one or more of my rifles
 
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