[Mike Irwin]

I have a TC Renegade that I built years ago from a kit.

I've always enjoyed it, even though the stock didn't fit me very well.

But, it's tough to shoot since I live in urban area of DC metro.

One thing I found is that you should be willing to spend money on flints.

I've found the sawn flints to be crap, expensive and they simply dont' last very long. I was doing good to get 20 shots out of one.

My boss at the time, a flint hunter in Pennsylvania, convinced me to spend some money on some English Chert hand knapped flints. They were pricey, but I got a minimum of 40 to 50 shots out of each one, and one I got 100 or more shots from before I had to scrap it.

Another thing I learned from my old boss is that leather is nice for holding a flint in place, but if you want it to stay where you put it, you flatten a pure lead round ball and use that.

Finally for cleaning, I rigged up a piece of surgical tubing to the barrel of a Bic pen that I could thread into the touchhole (after removing the liner).

I rigged the other end onto a kitchen faucet nozzle (the kind used to hook up a dishwasher) and used that to clean the barrel. I'd turn on the water to its hottest and let it run for a few minutes. Then I'd run some soapy patches down the bore to remove any traces of oil that might hide corrosive fouling, and then I'd hook up to the facuet again until the outside of the barrel felt appreciably warm. That would help dry out any remaining moisture.

Then it was a couple of dry patches, a couple of patches with denatured alcohol to finish off any remaining moisture, and then Johnson's paste wax on the outside of the barrel and a bore preservative on the inside.