I've never owned a Traditions, however when I was first getting into muzzleloading I almost bought one. I looked at two different ones, and both the fit and finish on them was terrible. One of them had gaps in several places between the frame and stock, and then the forearm wiggled around on the barrel. I had the salesman try to tighten the forearm screws but they were already tight. The other one I looked at had a lot of slop in the barrel lock up. I didn't know much about guns and all that at the time, but even I was able to figure out guns should be made better than that.