Made my TC Patriot a smoothbore

[Nobade]

I picked up an older Patriot from a pawn shop a few years ago, and upon inspection it had two problems that have been bugging me. One is the bore was badly pitted and the other was there was a gap of about .045" between the end of the breech plug and the rear of the bore. TC evidently doesn't worry about this, but I do since water and fouling get into the threads and cause havoc and the cleaning patches would stick in this gap and pull off the rod. So last week I fixed both issues. I reamed it to .513" and honed it smooth, and set the breech plug in a turn so both surfaces contact at the same time and seal properly.

I shot it yesterday with .490" patched balls and was fairly pleased with the results. Bench rested at 25 yards I could keep about a 2 inch group - not anywhere as accurate as a good rifled barrel but plenty good for normal pistol use. I did have to load it really hot to get it to shoot well - ended up using 65gr. of homemade FFF powder so it is quite powerful now. Next week I am going to make a .515" wad cutter to make my cardboard wads and see how it patterns with shot. I also need to figure out what size buckshot will stack in the bore properly and see how it works with that.

At any rate it looks like this pistol will be interesting to play with and at some point I will build a nice smaller bore rifled barrel for it for the best accuracy.

-Nobade

[dondiego]

Nobade - Could you elaborate on your reaming technique?

[Nobade]

OK, not very high tech - strip the barrel down, hold it in the 4 jaw chuck in the lathe. Indicate in the muzzle, and look through it to see if the breech end is running true. It was, so I started with a .475" chucking reamer, with an extension on it. Stepped up to a .500" one, then a .510" one. After the reaming I used a split stick with sandpaper to hone it out and get rid of the tool marks. Pushing a slug through it shows me it is not perfectly uniform but very close, plenty good enough for what it is. Now I wouldn't try this with a rifle barrel, it needs to have a proper long bar reamer pulled through it and not pushed. But this barrel only has about 9 inches of actual bore so it wasn't too bad to push the tool through. I sure wish I had a proper honing machine or a set of those precision toolroom hones to do this. Then it wouldn't be hard to get it just perfect. But you make do with what you have, eh?

-Nobade

[Marvin S]

As you may know be careful with the stocks/pistol grip area as they tend to snap on these. I blamed this more on folks loading them in a improper pistol stand more then anything else but a deck screw hidden under the grip cap aint a bad idea.

[Nobade]

I hear ya! It certainly has significant recoil now compared to when it was a 45 shooting 30 grains. At least it loads easy so I don't have to lean on it too hard. But I have been wondering if the stock is going to have problems.

-Nobade

[Marvin S]

Take the grip cap off and drill up through the the grip and install a long deck screw or metal rod no one but you will know its there.

[hornady308]

Your Patriot would be a good boarding pistol when loaded with buckshot. Do you own a boat?

[Nobade]

Haha - no boat, but it would be nice in a pommel holster on my motorcycle. Reminds me of the scene from "Raising Arizona" where the guy rides down the road shooting at and throwing grenades at rabbits and lizards and such.

-Nobade

[Nobade]

I got to shoot this pistol today with shot. After some experimentation I ended up using 35 gr. FFFg and 3.7 - 4.0 cc of shot. I load it just like my regular shotguns - 2 cardboard wads over the powder and one over the shot. It actually patterned better than I expected - at 12 yards it would produce a dead rabbit every time. At 15 yards it opens up a little but is still very effective. At 20 yards it is starting to really open up and at 25 yards it wouldn't be very dangerous to something the size of a rabbit.

Shooting a pistol with shot is kind of entertaining, since I had never tried it before. If I ever get to go hunting again I think I'll take this pistol and see what I can do with it. Maybe it and a ROA and I'd be pretty dangerous from close to pretty far.

-Nobade