TC stock makeover

[Eric Krewson]

On a whim I bought a 15/16" GM .54 drop in barrel for a TC and planned to put it in my .50 TC. After getting the barrel (now as scarce as hens teeth) I decided to find a TC stock with all the hardware and make another complete gun.

I found a stock online, bought it and put together my extra gun. The stock wasn't in bad shape but a bit worn around the edges, I decided to refurbish the stock to new so it would match the new barrel I had on it. The standard TC stock design leaves a lot of room for improvement particularly with the cheek piece, wrist and height of the comb. The forearm is too square and bulky as well.

I will make the old stock look like my other TC after reworking the stock. I reshaped and re-inletted a lot on this stock.



I am starting with this;



Stripped off the hardware;



I wanted to run the tang bolt through the wrist and thread it into the trigger plate but found  when I disassembled the gun that this is a very old stock with a trigger model that doesn't have enough metal in front of the spring to thread for the tang bolt. A common fix for this is to install a threaded bushing in the wood just above the trigger inlet so you can do away with the tang wood screw and replace it with a much stronger bolt. They sell these at Lowe's in 11-32, I am going to install one for the front and back screw.





I use ZIP Strip to get the old finish off the stock so I am off to Lowe's to buy some.

[Eric Krewson]

I picked up the stock finish stripper and found Lowe's didn't have 10-32  screw in inserts, they only had only 10-24, Home Depot did have them in 10-32.

[PaulN/KS]

Looks like a fun and worthy project there Eric. 
I remember a fellow at the Muzzleloader Forum years back who liked to gather up TC parts and stocks and then put together some very nice guns. You remember him..?

[Eric Krewson]

I seem to remember that guy, me.

This was my last random parts project, NOS stripped down barrel in the white, a TC Renegade a stock that looked like someone had batted rocks with it, I steamed all the dents out, and an L&R RPL lock. I bought some parts off eBay like the under rib and thimbles.

It was a lot of work but came out nice.

[PaulN/KS]

Yeah I knowed it was you Eric... 
That Renegade makeover looks pretty sharp. I had one in 54 caliber years back that was my 1st muzzle loader.

[Eric Krewson]

It is only 45 degrees outside, I sprayed down the stock with paint stripper and gave it about an hour but found although the stripper had started to work it wasn't doing much. The instructions recommend using the product at a temperature above 65 degrees.



I decided a little solar power was in order, I didn't take a picture because my hands had paint stripper on them but the finish had bubbled up all over the stock like I though it should after 1 hour under the black plastic.



There were a few place that needed more work so back under the black plastic the stock went.

[gifford]

Nice job on the TC Renegade. That's my go-to BP Hunting Rifle. .54 cal.

I've truly enjoyed your build-alongs with your rifles and smoothbores.

Looking forward to this one and future ones.

[Eric Krewson]

The paint stripper did its job, turns out the stock has some curl in it, it took three coats of stripper to get most of the finish off, there is still some in the inlets that I will sand off.

[Eric Krewson]

Deer season is is still open here, that plus my knee rehab sessions at the Bone and Joint Clinic plus making myself get back into my 3 day a week gym routine and caused me to put this project on hold for a week or two.

[Eric Krewson]

Deer season is over, time to get back to work.

There were several cracks in the lock inlet of this stock, two were superficial in thin webs of wood that superglue easily fixed.

One looked superficial but I decided but I decided to see just how far down it went, it wasn't superficial and started at the rear of the lock bolt hole and traveled to the hole for the sear.

As I used a V gouge to dig the cracked wood out I could see the wood in the crack was oil soaked and no amount of superglue would close this crack, time to replace the wood. I dug down until the crack was barely visible and started to disappear then used a V shaped riffler file to try to even out the cutout end to end. Next it was shaping a piece of walnut to fit the cutout perfectly, not an easy task, after about ten tries I got the right angles for an tight fit.

Here is the patch in place and clamped with plenty of TB3, I will cut out the extra wood after the glue dries and level the patch to be even with the bottom of the lock inlet.

 

[Eric Krewson]

Because this crack started from the lockbolt hole I will probably drill out the existing hole, glue in a 3/8 hickory dowel and re-drill the lock bolt hole, this will provide some very strong wood surrounding the lock bolt hole that will never crack again.

[Eric Krewson]

I left the lock inlet patch oversized for clamping.



Dressed down the crack is gone and the patch is not obvious.

[Eric Krewson]

I am going with a hickory dowel in the lock bolt hole which presents a few problems, the most pressing one is how to drill the new hole perfectly aligned with the lock bolt hole in TC lockplate, there is no room for error.

Here is what I came up with; the lock bolt hole in the lock plate wasn't threaded all the way through, to mark the hole location on my glued in dowel I need  to put a marker screw through the plate so I threaded the lock plate all the way through, it has 8-32 threads.



I found an 8-32 screw in my junk box, I plan to sharpen the tip as a marker.

When I get the dowel glued in I will install the lock plate into the inlet and screw the screw in until it punches a hole in the end of the dowel.



I will place this marked hole on the lower end of my drilling spike and drill the new lock bolt hole, I should have perfect alignment.



 

[PaulN/KS]

Looking good there Eric. 
Another informative and educational build along.

[Eric Krewson]

I always show my progress warts and all, bottom line I put in the hickory dowel, drilled my new lock bolt hole and missed by about 1/16", I have to do it over.

Turns out there was a lot of broken wood at the breech which broke out when I drilled for my hickory dowel. Because this area is under the hooked breech and out of sight It will get a superglue and sawdust treatment which will turn this area to concrete.



My hole  marker seemed to work well.





I set up my drilling table carefully.





But still missed, I am pretty sure I drilled too large a hole in the lock inlet for my drilling spike which gave it a little slop to move around. I will correct this on my next attempt. I will drill a 5/16" hole in the middle of the the 3/8" dowel, glue in a new smaller dowel and start over.