Blackpowdersmoke

Falcon,

You got a great rifle at a great deal. Sometime back around 2000-2001, Cabela's had a closeout on their stock of Firehawks but all they had left were .58 and .32 calibers. The price was $129.95 NIB so I said "What the heck" and bought one of each. The big 58 likes FF black powder only but the .32 shoots great with Pyro P and very good with FFF black. Your .54 has the 1:38 twist and will probably perform best with a solid conical or sabot/bullet combo while both my .32 and .58 are 1:48 twist and shoot roundballs very well. I have scopes on each and the little .32 shoots as well as any of my scoped .22's out to about 35-40 yds. with 20 gr. of Pyro P, a .310 ball and .015 patch. The big .58 shoots roundballs OK and I have taken a few deer with it, but I never spent much time developing a load for it. It shoots 2-1/2 to 3" groups at 75 yds. with 80 gr. of FF black, a .570 ball and .015 patch. I tried some .58 Maxi-balls in it once and believe me, once was enough! It was not pleasant to shoot with 90 gr. FF black pushing that big hunk of lead. Both have the standard #11 nipples and I have never experienced any ignition problems with either. As 10 ga. suggests, you should use a breech cover or "bra" as he called it to protect the underside of the scope from scorch marks as the cap will burn them if you don't. I just put a layer or two of duct tape on the underside of the scope above the breech area prior to shooting and that works fine.
So get out there and enjoy your new rifle, I'm sure you'll find out it's a good shooter!

BPS

falcon

Thanks, everyone.

Cleaned the gun up. The bore had a lot of grease and the nipple was full of grease. The bore is perfect. The gun looks like its never been fired. The blue is really nice; much better than current TC guns.

Am waiting for the round balls and sabots along with the scope mounts i ordered. Hope to take it to the range next week.

Gm54-120

The old FireHawks are now a meat and potatoes gun but back in the day, they were top notch. They still are top notch imo and very close to a MK85 in build quality. Its a great gun to carry all day and just plain feels good too.

My old Firehawk SS 54cal (sold to a friend) is still going strong and IIRC it was bought soon after the SS was available. I can not begin to tell you how many rounds have been though it and it still shoots like a champ.

Back then i did not know any better and used bore butter on patches and dried out conicals. I think i kept it stored with regular gun oil or Ballistol but i cant remember.

The odd part is....now it shoots T7 for a friend with very low crud ring build up. It can be loaded 5 times easily. The crud ring is also much easier to remove?

Landngroove

I bought my .54 Firehawk back in the mid 90's when they were top of the line. These are good shooting guns. I have shot many different projectiles, round balls, conicals, powerbelts, and sabots. I have the best accuracy with MMP white sabots, with Hornady FTX, 225 grain, .430 bullets. 90 to 100 grains FFG Goex, or Pyrodex P. 90 grains of 777, works well to. If you do get an owners manual, it shows how to take the gun down, including trigger removal, so you can put the barrel into a bucket of warm soapy water, and clean it completely that way. I have been doing this since day one, and my barrel and bore are completely corrosion free. If you are going to scope yours, consider quick release rings, so you can remove the scope when cleaning. You can get a manual download from the T/C website. Notice the scope protector in the picture.