Disgusted and Angry
 

I was all excited to give the Pro Hunter it's first cleaning. After finishing, I can honestly say the bore is the worst I've seen, including worse than a lot of well used bores. It has pitting the entire length of it. I'm very angry right now. I called Dick's where I got it. He says all firearms are new and non returnable, but he'll see what he can do. I'm waiting to hear back from him right now. I'll have to see if I can get pictures posted of it later. It's that bad. If this is a brand new TC, I'll figure out how to get my money back and stick with Knights...
Stay tuned for more...

A new rifle with a pitted bore? Someone shot that and then returned it I am guessing. Without a good cleaning and oil I will bet. I never heard of such a thing. I too would be upset. Good luck. And thanks for the heads up with Dick's Sporting Good. I have shopped there but never purchased a rifle.

I doesn't sound like a new gun to me. My guess is someone shot it and returned it as new without clealing the barrell.

Before you blame TC I'd get all the facts. I think Dick's is the guilty party. You should'nt need to go this route but TC will replace the barrel.

I have both a Knight and TC's, love them both, so I have no favorite here.

The only thing that gets me is when I called him up he said they have a strict no return policy. I, politely as I could, explained to him that there's no way I'm keeping a gun I paid that much for in that condition. The only other thing I can think of is that the first few patches I pushed had a bunch dust and gunk on them. Maybe it was a shelf model that sat on the shelf for a really long time. I don't know. We'll see what happens. He claimed he would call me back before I had to go to work at 2.

I agree, with the lube that T/C applies to there new barrels, i can't see it being rusty let alone pitted.sounds like you got shafted by the place you purchased it. call T/C and explain the situation and i am sure they will make it right. Ray

Kirby, there is really something wrong with this senario... and I would believe that Dick's might be the responsible party.

If that is a new TC and/or barrel and Dick's believe that to be so, they need to contact TC and discuss the issue. Do not talk to a sales person at Dick's - talk to the store manager and discuss the problems with him. If you bought it with a credit card you also have another recourse through the credit card company that you can use if Dick's balks.

I honestly believe you will come out of this OK but, you are going to lose some of your time in this effort.

I do not think you can even involve TC at this time until Dick's passes a final ruling.

Good luck... It will work out...

That is the standard policy - but most often restricted to centerfire rifles and munitions. In fact I believe that to be a Federal Regulation. But those do not apply to ML's

I would still encourage you to contact the Store Manager and arrange an appointment with him, do not deal with a counter sales person or counter person, or did you purchase on line... If you purchased on line with a credit card you really could be in good shape...

I spoke to the manager of the firearms department. He said he had to talk to the district loss prevention manager or something like that before he could say or do anything. He wasn't rude about it or anything, just not real helpful as of yet.
I guess that's about all I have to say for now until he calls me back. Anything else I can think of would probably be more spoken out of anger at the situation than anything they have or have not done to this point.

Didn't you apply JB to the bore, if so it should be spotless. i did my triumph with JB and Kroil oil and it was absolutely spotless when i was done.Ray

There is alot of packing grease in new TC barrels and it does take some work to get it out with a bunch of tight patchs. There should be no pitting though. Spin a 1/8th bit in the breech plug and see if carbon comes out. Definitely a sign its been shot if any does. If Dick's gives you no satisfaction I would contact TC. TC's Customer Service is top notch IMO.

The gun shop where I buy guns would take that gun back with no questions.

If I was you, i'd send the gun to TC and tell them the gun was sold to you as a new gun. I'm positive they will send you a new gun, and will be very interested in who's selling their guns in that condition.

I don't blame you for being mad, but don't blame TC. Let TC make it right for you, and straighten out that dealer.

I'll try a drill bit in the plug and see what happens. The breech plug had a very thick coating of a vaseline looking grease when I started. The bore had a thin layer of grease or oil in it but nothing major. I did run JB's in the bore. I started with a thick oiled patch and JB's for 75 strokes. Still not seeing much improvement I doubled the patch for as tight as I could muscle down the bore and that didn't help. I moved on to a JB/oil patch around a brass brush for another 25 strokes, then the same thing in more of a scrubbing motion and the bore is still uneven not that great. Certainly not something I'm willing to keep for what I paid for it. If it was a hundred dollar gun I would be more ok with it. It's certainly not a shiney smooth finish I would expect.

And just for the record, I'm not trying to blame TC or even Dicks for that matter. It's very possible someone shot it and returned it claiming they hadn't fired it. I understand that Dicks isn't a gunsmith shop and they aren't going to look for anything more than if it looks clean or not. I don't care who takes responsibility for it or if anyone does for that matter. All I ask is that the problem gets taken care of. Whether they take the gun back or get in a new one and exchange them, it doesn't matter to me. If they exchange it, great. If they give me my money back, I don't know what I'll get. Maybe another Pro Hunter. Maybe a Knight. Maybe something else. I'll worry about that when the time comes if it does.

Run one oiled patch down the bore and pull it out. Take a clean patch and smear JB evenly over the patch and push it with a .50 cleaning brush on your rod (a .50 jag will be too loose). Be consistant by going all the way down and back up to the QLA then back down. Just run 10 strokes this way and then clean it up with oiled patches then dry patches until all the JB is out. Pull the plug and push a patch all the way through then. See if the bore is shining now?

I thnk you will find that TC uses a very heavy copper based grease shipped in new bores, well anyway my new Triumph did...

These were the first cleaning patches out of my Triumph bore...

Dick's knows if the gun was sold before. If they didn't inspect it it's their fault.

If it wasn't sold before (doubtful) it's TC's fault.

I'm not sure why you're trying to fix it? Put it back in the box, and send it to TC. It's your quickest and best solution.

You must want the gun, or you wouldn't have bought it.

That's very similar to what I did. For the most part the bore is shiney-ish. You can still see all the tooling marks on the rifling. It basically looks like there's several lines on the rifling that run the entire length of the barrel. Looking down from the muzzle end, about 2-3 inches down it looks like a dull ring that goes around the inside of the bore. There's another an inch or 2 back from that, and a third one that's not as bad back a little from there. Even after all the JB's there's also a few places here and there that look like a little dimple or dent in the barrel. That's the best I can explain it. My wife is gone with her camera for the day so I can't get any pictures of it, but I'll try to get some tomorrow.
To make things more frustrating I have to leave for work in about 15 minutes and I still haven't heard back from Dicks yet.
I'm trying to fix it because it's Sunday and I can't do anything else with it.
And I do want it. I'm just frustrated with it.

Well, if Dick's has a no return policy on guns then the scenario about it being sold before, fired and then returned won't hold water. Unless of course Dick's is simply lying about it. This is one of the reasons I will never buy anything from Dick's. They are a lousy place to do business. Most of the clerks no nothing about what they are selling. In any case I am sure TC will take care of the problem for you. Just the hassle of having to deal with it.

i've polished 6-8 new TC barrels. Some of those TC bores are very rough. Tool marks from the reamer are not unusual. Some have gouges in the rifling. It looks like TC does not do a good job of polishing the bores before rifling.

First i get a tight fitting patch and melt a red jeweler's rouge stick onto it. Before the rouge sets up the patch is rammed down the bore and worked back and forth. After about 50-75 strokes, the bore is cleaned well and examined again. If needed, a new roughed patch is made and the process repeated.

My own Encore had a very rough barrel that was nearly impossible to load. Gave it the treatment with jeweler's rouge. After about 700 rounds the bore looks much better.

IMO: TC could do better than this.

I don't know if gun (muzzleloader) manufacturers test fire their rifles or not. But when I cleaned the packing drease out of my new knight the barrel was fine. But the breech plug had a lot of black residue in it that took a while to get clean. It looked to me like a dirty breech plug would be after firing.

My Knight wolverine was a breeze to clean out of the box. the Triumph was a different story lol. T/C packs there new barrels with some type of heavy grease that's a @$&+ to remove.Ray

Try Dicks. But if they give you the go around. Just call TC and they will make it right. Tell them the whole story and I'm sure they will give you a new barrel.

I'd want a new gun. That's what he bought.

That seems to sum it up pretty well. I pulled it out again last night about midnight when I got home from work (I don't recommend doing this if you're married. It seems wives don't understand the need to do it.) The rifling is where primarily all the problems are at. Looking at it from both ends of the barrel it looks like the rifling is gouged and pitted the entire length.
When I was cleaning it it didn't feel like there were really any tight spots, but there was also a lot of patch fibers and junk that got hung up on the rifling.
This is my first TC. If this is how they're made am I just being too picky? Do I get over it and figure it will hopefully get better in time? I don't want to complain and be a pain for Dicks or TC if I'm not justified in doing so.

Return the Barrel to TC I have 4 T C barrels they were good after cleaning them up. T C will replace that Barrel no questions asked Call them and get a shipping label also why should You pay for that too.

falcon

Ive used your method and Mothers Metal Polish or White Diamond and got great results. They are just a tad more abrasive than JB depending on the grit. Mine is a dark purplish brown color and it really makes them shine. I only use it on really tight bores or ones that have some flaws.

None of my Knights needed it but i have used it on 1 T/C and some mi surplus stuff.

At the very least, they should replace the barrel with one from a new gun , then they could get a new one from TC, Keep the customer happy and they will return and buy more stuff.

Did'nt you inspect the Barrel befor you bought it? I know one would assume that since it's suppos-to-be new then one would'nt. But anytime I buy any Gun (unless bought from someone like Cabela's) where I cant see it first hand, I Always look down the Barrel to see what kind of shape it's in.
I agree with the point that the MLer was shot and returned, and if that was the case the Store Manager should have inspected it and cleaned it if necessary so it still looked new and if for no ther reason to see if it had been cleaned when returned.
(BP)

That's just why I do not buy guns from department stores.

I looked the gun over as best I could before buying it, but all the stores around here that sell guns won't remove the trigger lock so I couldn't check the bore real well. From the muzzle end it looked like I would expect it too. But like was said, it's a brand new gun. I would assume it to be in good condition, but we all know what happens when you assume.
I haven't called TC yet, I figure I'll deal with the store first. That said, in the managers defense, aside from not calling me and I keep having to call him, he's been very decent about the whole thing. So I guess we'll see what happens in the next few days.

In the store it is REALLY hard to judge barrel quality. Ive seen some that looked like hell but cleaned up without JB and looked great. When a gun is in a rack barrel UP, dust settles inside and sticks to the packing lube.

Not many retailers are going to let you clean it out before you buy it for a good inspection.

SuperKirby

IF T/C would refund just the cost of the barrel, you can get a better SMI barrel for slightly more or a Bergara for slightly less. I doubt they will but i would still take a good look at your aftermarket barrel options. The Encore is plenty strong for a SML barrel even if you dont want to shoot smokeless. Plus the barrel quality is MUCH MUCH higher without a QLA. They are also very BH209 friendly.

When I talked to the store manager last night, he said he wants to just have me bring it back and return it. They don't have anymore of them so exchanging it is out. He said he can't do that until he gets approval from their district manager because of the store policy. He seems to think that will happen it just might take a few days. He said if that doesn't work he's going to try to work something out with TC and either have them send him another gun or another barrel, but he's not sure how that's all going to work out and isn't going to mess with it much since he wants me to return the gun. So we'll see.

Well atleast the manager is trying to do something. Just don't give up on TC. I have dealt with thier Customer Service and have no regets. They always go above and beyond what you ask them.

Superkirby did you get a chance to take a picture of the bore? I'm curious to see what it looks like, even though it's kinda hard to see much in a picture.

I wonder how long that rifle had been sitting on the shelf. I bought a new-old-stock Knight KP1 not too long ago from Gander Mountain that had a dirty fouled bore and breech plug. And no this wasn't any kind of packing grease or oil I can assure you, this was powder fouling. I assumed this was from test-firing the barrel, although I was kinda surprised they didn't atleast half-ass clean the bore before packing it up. It was not rusted or pitted. But it had been shot.

Same thing happened on my replacement T/C Black Diamond barrel I got a few years ago. They shipped it out to me test-fired without cleaning afterwards. No rust or pits, just dirty powder fouling.

My Triumph was a different story. It did not have a dirty bore as far as powder fouling goes, but it did have a bunch of nasty grease in it.

Surely something similar has happened to somebody on here before. :confused2:

As far as your barrel goes, if it's in that bad of shape then yeah that's B.S. Don't worry though, if Dick's doesn't make it right T/C will. Good Luck.

The bores of my new Encore and new Black Diamond were clean but very rough. There were long gouges and circular rings on the lands. i scope and sight in a lot of rifles for other folks. Have seen this on 6-8 other TC rifles, mostly Encores.

My son is a machinist. He says the tool marks are the result of not properly polishing the bore.

My Encore had a whole host of other problems as well. After a lot of work and some expense the gun is very accurate. But theres a bad taste in my mouth every time i look at it.

I forgot all about taking the pictures of it yesterday. I'll try to get it done today. What falcon is talking about sounds almost exactly like what it is. I've been looking at it trying to decide if I should try to polish it out or not. I'm torn between working on it more and figuring it will be worth it in the long run and thinking it's a brand new gun I shouldn't have to put that much work into it.

I would have had the gun back to TC by now, and a new one would probably be coming back to me.

This whole deal is becoming ridiculous.

Every TC I have seen puts tons of creosote in there new. Are you sure, its not that? Many mistake it for rust.

It took me 75 patches with brake cleaner to get mine clean. It's oil for hell.

You know kroil used to be the bomb for old school penetrating oil/cleaners for centerfire.

I bet it would work here too. I quit using it when I quit moly bullets.