Has arrived!!
UPS surprised me today and added more stress on my shoulders by bringing her in today. 8 days from my hunt and she arrives in all her glory! I seriously have NEVER been this excited over a gun. I compared it to dating a girl for a while and then.... Well I can't say the rest but this is one friggin amazing muzzleloader that has complete style to it and feels like a perfect fit. I test fitted a 4x scope on it just to see and that sucker with the medium mounts that came with it, was perfect view of my eye, i didnt have to move my head side to side to get things lined up, It was perfect.
The oil that was protecting the bore and other metal almost had that diesel fuel smell.... Odd, yes... But it cleaned out extremely easily with Gun Scrubber and then followed up by Bore Scrubber and a Bore Brush. I also cleaned the breech plug threads out and made sure to flood that area with the Gun Scrubber to make sure that any kind of machining flakes were left over in there, they got flushed out.
Once that was done I installed a new Western Powders Blackhorn209 breech plug, snugged it up TIGHT to mate the face of the plug to the chamber inside the barrel. Next i removed the firing pin bushing, cleaned it out, relubed and then added a .005" shim to the bushing to adjust the "head space" to keep a snug fit against the primer to prevent blow by. This MR had excellent head space to begin with so only a thin shim was needed to make it perfect.
Next I stripped the forearm, barrel, rear stock and again used Gun Scrubber and sprayed down the frame exterior and internals. A good thing to because most people think all you need to do is wipe down the gun, clean the bore and its good to go. No way! Some don't realize that some machine shavings may still be left behind after assembly. I found some shaving mainly in the rear stock mount hole on the frame. It still leaves into the trigger assembly which can really mess something up or worse, make it feel gritty. CLEAN IT! No matter what Brand of Muzzleloader it is.
I measured the trigger right out of the box and it broke clean and crisp at 27oz and then 25oz. After cleaning out the guts with the Gun Scrubber and re-oiling with Gun Oil " PTFE Lubricant" She broke 3 times in a row at 27oz. Another beautiful trigger!
The biggest thing is the color combo for some. Its a very very light Tan, depending on the lighting i guess. The Weather Guard they used is nothing like Ceracoat which is very rough and dirty feeling. This WG is very smooth and slick and doesn't give off a glare, even during my picture taking in which i used a flash.
But enough with the talk, I will be writing a review on this gun later on during hunting season while we hunt with it. Heres the pics guys.
Not a big fan of the ramrod palm saver BUT if you load sabots, its very handy. Its just not needed with my Thors so I will leave it off.
Unscrew it and have a cleaning jag as well as a built in bullet loader. It fits Thors and Powerbelts perfectly, I will have to try the sabots I have on hand and get a list going on what it will work with.
Recessed area is the bullet loader.
They also have improved the Ramrod Guide Thimbles that have plastic inserts to keep the rod quiet while stalking or while pulling/replacing it back under the barrel. They hold the ramrod A LOT tighter than the V2, Optima, Wolf, Apex. Hopefully they update the other guns with this as well
New Quake sling also has been updated with Steel parts rather than the plastic the originals came with. Love the slings but the old ones had cheap plastic parts that were hard to screw in and unscrew. This is a huge welcoming improvement IMO.
Nice contour of the upper frame
The recoil pad I am not sure about yet. IMO it seems a lot harder than the original crushzone recoil pad. Im not sure if that will be a good thing on a 6lb rifle but I wont judge it yet until I shoot it.
Beautiful camo pattern to! Its by far my most favorite.
Adjustable Trigger warning:
