Both sons, Ben and Sam, were on the application with me and we were drawn for the hunt. Sam flew out from his current residence in North Carolina and hunted with the Grey Hawk. I hunted with the New Englander, and Ben hunted with his 6” barreled Taurus Tracker in .357 mag. I would have liked Ben to have had the opportunity to hunt with a black powder rifle, but I only had two. Maybe you see where this is going … The conditions on our hunt were really dry, and we never saw any pigs. Maybe next year.

Around the time that I acquired these two classic T/C muzzleloaders, I decided to rummage through my stash of old gun catalogs. I was pretty sure that I had a couple of old T/C catalogs that featured these rifles, and I wanted to review what T/C had to say about them at the time. I found that I had the 1995 and 1996 catalogs, numbers 22 and 23. My records say that I acquired my original Grey Hawk sometime during the first quarter of 1995.

The 1995 catalog showed that T/C offered 15 or so different sidelock models and 5 inline ignition models. This is by my own imperfect count. I say that it is imperfect, because some models I separated by wood vs. plastic stocks, and some I didn’t. I didn’t capture all the sub-variants, like blued vs. stainless. The early to mid-90’s was the high-point for the sheer number of T/C muzzleloader models and sub-variations that were offered. If I would have broken down my tabulation with calibers offered across the models, my accounting would have grown even more complex.

To give you a taste of how many traditional sidelock muzzleloaders T/C offered just in 1995, here is the list:

• Hawken (caplock and flintlock)
• two Hawken special editions
  (it was the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the T/C Hawken)
• Renegade (caplock and flintlock)
• Renegade Hunter (caplock single trigger)
• Big Boar (.58 cal.)
• New Englander (26" barrel, walnut stock)
• New Englander Rynite (24" barrel, plastic stock)
• Pennsylvania Hunter (31" barrel, caplock and flintlock)
• Pennsylvania Hunter Carbine (21" barrel, caplock and flintlock)
• White Mountain Carbine
• and the Grey Hawk

Inline ignition models that were offered in 1995 include: the Scout Carbine (21"), the Scout Rifle (24"), Thunder Hawk Carbine (21"), Thunder Hawk Rifle (24"), and the Fire Hawk.

From T/C Catalog No. 13, 1986

After deep-diving and absorbing all the muzzleloader info in these two catalogs, I was thirsty for more. When were the various models introduced? When were they dropped from the catalog? What changes were made to existing models over the years?

I started haunting eBay looking for more catalogs. I started by expanding from the two catalogs that I already had, going forward and backward year-by-year. At this point I have gathered the T/C catalogs from 1982 (catalog #9) to 2001 (catalog #28). I can find listings for earlier ones (which I have not yet purchased), but it’s been harder to find catalogs from the early 2000’s, surprisingly.

With this collection of catalogs, I’ve been able to put together a spreadsheet that details when the various models were introduced, and when they were dropped from the catalogs, at least for the years that I have catalogs for. This begins to tell an interesting story, but it also reveals the depths of my TCCD illness.

You’ve probably guessed by now, that my TCCD has not been limited just to accumulating catalogs. Note below, the yellow highlighted Xs. Those are the possible years of manufacture of the T/C muzzleloaders that I now own. I am now up to eight T/C muzzleloaders (sheesh!). The Martinez boys won’t have any problem picking out just three from the collection to hunt javelina with in 2026.

But let’s get back to the spreadsheet. This section of my spreadsheet details only the traditional sidelocks. For now I've left off the inline models (a few of which I have picked up). Notice the horizontal lines and the little red triangles. The triangles are cell notes. The horizontal lines represent feature breakpoints which can help to pin-down a particular rifle’s year of manufacture.

First notice the line between 1985 and 1986. Before ’86, rifles were not marked on the barrel with the model name, such as Hawken, or Renegade. They also were not marked with the “Black Powder Only” warning. I have not verified this personally, not having observed that many early rifles. I’m relying on information gleaned from reading the posts of experts on the muzzleloading forums.

Presence and absence of the breech block screw hole: Grey Hawk, top; New Englander, bottom.

There is another horizontal line between 1990 and 1991. Starting in 1991, T/C started drilling and tapping a threaded hole on top of the breech block of the sidelock rifles. This allowed the installation of scope bases that spanned from the rear sight screw holes to the breech. I picked up an aftermarket scope base that verifies this for me. The instruction for the base explicitly states that rifles earlier than ’91 will need a gunsmith to add this #6-32 breech block screw hole.

Finally, in 1996, T/C added the QLA feature to all their muzzleloader barrels. QLA stands for “Quick Load Accurizor” (yes, that's how they spell it). The rifling of the last, approximately 1-inch at the end of the muzzle, has been removed. The bore at the end of the muzzle is basically groove diameter all the way around – no lands. This is to allow easier starting of a projectile down the muzzle. That’s great unless you are using full-bore diameter lead conicals. Many shooters have reported poor accuracy with lead conicals in a QLA barrel. They believe that gases can leak past the sides of such a bullet in the QLA section of the barrel, tipping the bullet as it exits the barrel. Bullets with expanding plastic skirts such as sabots or Powerbelts seem to do fine with QLA.

T/C Catalog No. 23, 1996, Page 15

Anyway, the presence or absence of these various features can help identify the approximate year of manufacture of your vintage T/C muzzleloader. On March 27th of 1997, T/C had a major factory fire. Most of their records were destroyed, so model/serial number lookup has not been possible since then.

Last year about this time, I wrote two newsletter stories that discussed the New Englander and the Grey Hawk. I don’t really mean to keep bringing them up, but I would like to point out that the New Englander does not have the breech block screw hole, but the Grey Hawk does.

That means that my New Englander was made between 1987 (the first year of production) and 1990. My Grey Hawk was made between 1993 (first year of production) and 1995. It can’t be newer than 1995 because it does not have a QLA barrel. See how this works?

Yup, vintage T/C muzzleloaders are My Current Thing. Sorry, but you can expect that my next several newsletter stories will be on this subject.