The Traditions<img class="emojione" alt="®" title=":registered:" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/emojione/assets/png/00ae.png?v=2.2.7"/> Mountain Rifle is a high-quality modern muzzleloader with an old-school flare. The Mountain Rifle maintains the classic styling and handling of time-honored Sidelock rifles, while offering great performance and affordability.
Weight: 8lbs 3oz
Overall Length: 48 3/4"
Hooked Breech
Flintlock & Percussion
.50 Caliber with 1:48 twist
Traditional Sights
Lifetime Warranty
The double set triggers I judge to be set to around 3lbs with a little over travel in them. I have not taken the triggers out of the rifle yet to grease them properly and once I do that, I am sure any creep I feel now, will disappear.
The triggers also seem to be inletted properly, depth wise. On the original Mountain Rifle, the previous makers had some trouble inletting the triggers to deep and so you had problems when you went to full cock, the lock wouldn't always catch that mark because the trigger was rubbing up against the sear, preventing the sear to engage the tumbler. Shimming under the front of the trigger to lift it up out of the way a bit was needed to fix this issue. So far, I have NOT experience this episode on the Traditions Mountain Rifle.
The Mountain Rifle features a double set trigger in an oversized glove-fitting, trigger-guard.
The trigger guard leaves a good deal of room to shoot with a gloved hand! I personally wear glove mitts where I can pull back the fingers cover and expose my fingertips. I feel more in control of the trigger when I can FEEL it with my bare finger.
The Mountain Rifle sports a .50 caliber ,32" Barrel with a 1:48 Twist & Browned Cerakote Finish to ensure a rust free hunt.
Fully adjustable Traditional rear sight and German Silver Front sight makes for precision aiming.
A great looking addition is the Hexagon ramrod thimbles! These are a really great way to dress up a barrel and make its appearance stand out in a crowd! Rifle also features a wooden ramrod, not the plastic stuff other models come with.
Note: Ramrod is NOT made of Hickory and is flexy. Shooter should be careful while loading as a flexy ramrod can easily break.
All trim & the barrel on the rifle has been rust proofed by using Cerakote.
Cerakote is a ceramic based finish that can be applied to metals, plastics, polymers and wood. The unique formulation used for Cerakote ceramic coating enhances a number of physical performance properties including abrasion/wear resistance, corrosion resistance, chemical resistance, impact strength, and hardness.
I must admit that when I shot and cleaned these rifles for the first time, It was a very disturbing feeling to not oil the barrel afterwards! Now that is the EXTERNAL barrel! Be sure you oil the BORE after cleaning as it is not protected by Cerakote.
When I first cleaned the percussion model I used hot soapy water and my jaw hit the floor when I put the breech end of the barrel into the water and saw all the cap residue FALL RIGHT OFF without scrubbing it! I still used a plastic tooth brush however and scrubbed the mating area between the barrel and drum to ensure all fouling was removed.
Overall inletting on the Mountain Rifle is great! The buttplate and patch box look amazing, especially in the upper corners where most mistakes are often made.
The Toe Plate is also another great add on to keep the bottom of the stock safe from dirt/rocks/ hard hits while in the field.
The patch box is made of what appears German Silver. With a little custom ingraving, this patch box could have some real neat personalization added to it.
Overall Inletting on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give a solid 9 on this rifle. The inletting around the butt plate and toe plate are outstanding considering they are rounded corners. I attempted this on another Hawken of mine and my skills lacked greatly in this area. The only real flaw to hurt the inletting rank is the cheek piece.
At the beginning it got a little out of round and some edges we left. Also a little dipping in the wood where the butt plate wood is thinned down and then meets up with the cheek piece, they did not remove enough wood and can be felt ( a round bump) by the hand and the eye can pick up scratches that were not feathered out enough. This certainly does not hurt its ability to shoot or take down game, but I know how pesky some folks can be by wanting top notch finishes on lower priced rifles.
The Mountain Rifle has excellent balance and feel in your hands. The balance point is directly between both wedge keys. I am 6'2 170lbs and its not one of those rifles that tips up and down when you shoulder it. Some have asked if its a cheek slapper because the sights are so low.
No, it is not a cheek slapper and the sights are so low when you get the rifle, because they need adjusting at both the rear sight adjustment screw, as well as filing the front sight down. There is a ton of front sight to work with but always remove a little at a time, shoot, and remove a little more if needed.
You can always remove material, but putting it back is mighty impossible!
My rear sight adjustment is maxed out but I still am hitting low on the target at 100 yards. I just removed a nickels thickness worth of front sight with multiple files and now I should have a great deal of adjustment available with the rear sight adjustment screw.
The lock is heavy duty and does take some thumb muscle to pull it back. Even with a worn out nipple, I highly doubt the shooter would ever experience hammer blow back simply due to that heavy duty main spring. The lock is bridled to prevent warping if someone mistakenly over tightens the lock screws.
On this Percussion model, I did run into a small issue of the rear lock screw sticking out a little to far and rubbing up against the hammer. When this happened, the lock plate moved outward a bit and after checking for inletting rub marks, it was a head slapping moment when I noticed the lock screw pushing up into the hammer. After a couple trimmings on the jewlers grinders, the screw was sized down properly and could be tightened out without running into the hammer. This is a very common occurrence you can run into from time to time.
On the Range I used what I call my standard Percussion Load in everything from a .50 on up to a .58 caliber shooting patched round ball.
This standard load consists of 80 grains Jim Shockeys Gold ( Triple 7 - Pyrodex RS - Select or Goex ) a home cast .490" round ball and .015" patches lubed lightly with Frontier's Anti-Rust & Patch lube. I firmly seat the ball on top of the powder until I feel the powder compress.
Knowing that I would hit low, I went and took a few shots to get the feel of the rifle and see how smooth and consistent the barrel was.
At 50 yards using the load provided above, I took a couple shots, adjusted the sights up a bit, took a couple more and finally ended up maxing out my rear sight adjustment. The front sight will need to be filed down about a nickel thickness worth so I can use that rear sight correctly.
The rifle grouped TIGHT at 50 yards and reloaded easily considering I was not cleaning between shots.
Now that I knew where I was with my sights, I took my time and settled in to take 3 more accuracy shots. Those Three shots just put a smile on my face that a Mack truck couldn't wipe off!
Using 6 O'clock hold on the bull eye, I was dead on, but I still needed to get a little higher. Grabbing a micro screwdriver I was able to get a couple more turns out of that rear sight adjustment screw and got it perfectly 3" high at 50 yards.
Next I loaded up and moved out to 75 yards, my max range for bear hunting this year. Using the ATV seat as a rest ( Kind of mimmicks a log ) I took my first shot, Smiled from ear to ear, took another, kept calm, reloaded another round and took my final shot at 75 yards. For size comparison, that orange bulls eye is 3" diameter.
The rifle was then ready to go hunting with!
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