A couple months ago I bought a new in box Traditions Flintlock Mountain rifle. Many people on other black powder forums had said donÂ’t wast money on traditions rifles, but I had always had great success with them in the past, so I gave it a go. Now I think I just wasted a bunch of money. I opened the box when it arrived and it was beautiful, the browned barrel and hardware looked nice, with excellent wood to metal fit, and a really nice set of sights, that I could actually see. Much like those on my Pedersoli. That is about as far as it went.
When I looked down the bore it looked dirty. I ran a patch through it and it was filled with powder residue and rust, because it never got cleaned after proofing. I pulled it apart and with lots of elbow got it clean. Next was to try the lock. I tried a new English flint, and click, it didnÂ’t open the frizzen. I tried it several more times and nothing. The mainspring was soft and mushy, like an old Smith and Wesson model 10 revolver. The frizzen spring was so stiff it was hard to force open, yes you read that right force open. I tried calling Traditions, useless because they are only open a few days of the work week. I sent an email with details and photos explaining how disappointed I was in their quality, and a week later got a reply with a number, day, and time to call.
I called when I was supposed to and got an RMA after explaining again what the problems were, and the gun was absolutely garbage and should have never left the factory in that condition. TheyÂ’ve had it a month now, and I called and talked to a different individual. I was told that after being there a month my gun still has not been looked at and that with the back log of guns it would be at least 4 to 6 weeks before they would even be able to look at it. I feel like I am going to be out a lot of money by the time this is over, and have to buy a new lock out of pocket, and buy a new barrel also. If they are putting junk parts on guns to ship, why would I expect the replacement ones will be better. I think I bought an $700 plus stock I could have bought off EBay for $50.